+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 37, March 10, 2016. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 37 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/ New links in these categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: EVALUATION & TESTING. 04: EVENTS. 05: HTML5. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. aria-selected (state) By Rakesh Paladugula. "Aria-selected state is used to notify when one or more items in a widget have selectable functionality. Eg: various tabs in a tab panel have selectable mechanism. In general the selected state is notified to the user with a change in color. The change in color notification will not be recognized by screen reading technologies..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2016/03/aria-selected-state/ ARIA - Roles, States and Properties (Video) By Joe Dolson. "ARIA is way to communicate the semantics of rich internet applications to users of assistive technology..." http://wordpress.tv/2016/01/22/joe-dolson-aria-roles-states-and-properties/ Surfing the Web Should be Easier for the Blind By The Philadelphia Inquirer. "It's too easy to ignore the needs of the disabled. Just ask blind Web surfers who for years have been waiting patiently for new federal rules that would make it easier for them to navigate the Internet..." http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160307_Inquirer_Editorial__Surfing_the_web_should_be_easier_for_the_blind.html Is Microsoft Changing the Game for Accessible Browsers? By Robin Christopherson. "A raft of new internet accessibility work by Microsoft will make the web user-experience for people with disabilities far smoother and more sophisticated..." https://www.abilitynet.org.uk/blog/microsoft-changing-game-accessible-browsers +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. User Generated Content in a Classy World By Jonathan Snook. "...The way I visualize content is like it is part of a module..." http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/ugc-in-a-classy-world Quick Tip: Fixing the font-weight Problem on Hover States By George Martsoukos. "Have you ever tried to change the value of the font-weight property on link states? If yes, you may have noticed that the text shifts. In this quick tip, we'll first learn what causes this undesired behavior and then we'll examine two possible solutions." http://www.sitepoint.com/quick-tip-fixing-font-weight-problem-hover-states/ REM vs EM - The Great Debate By Zell Liew. "...In this article, you're going to find my take on rem vs em. You're also going to learn exactly what rem and em are, and how to use them to build modular components...." http://zellwk.com/blog/rem-vs-em/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Getting Users to a Specific Feature in a Usability Test By Jakob Nielsen. "User testing works best if you don't direct participants too much, but sometimes you need users to go straight to a target page. How to get them there?" https://www.nngroup.com/articles/feature-user-test/ The Interview Survey - Getting the Accuracy of Interviewing Thousands of Users By Dimitri Khanine. "...By conducting a (Biggest Issue Bucket) BIB Survey, you can get as close to a good interview as possible, while reaching thousands of users..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2016/03/the-interview-survey-getting-the-accuracy-of-interviewing-thousands-of-users.php 10 Essentials of Measuring Usability By Jeff Sauro. "Observing just a few users interact with a product or website can tell you a wealth of information about what's working and not working..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/measuring-essentials.php Excuses, Excuses! Why Companies Don't Conduct User Research By Jim Ross. "...While the term user experience has received a lot of attention over the last few years, many people still don't know user research is the key activity that informs UX design..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2016/03/excuses-excuses-why-companies-dont-conduct-user-research.php Keeping Yourself out of the Story - Controlling Experimenter Effects By Philip Hodgson. "We take a look at some subtle yet pervasive experimenter effects, at ways they can bias the outcome of a design experiment, and at what we can do to control their influence." http://userfocus.co.uk/articles/fixing-experimenter-bias.html The Secret Cost of Research By Erika Hall. "...Allowing a designer to do research means opening assumptions up to scrutiny. It means admitting you don't have all the answers. To someone in charge, the true cost of research is the risk of losing control...Research is necessary for a successful design project because it gives you a shared basis for decision-making, grounded in evidence rather than in sheer authority or tenacity. And this saves time and money..." https://deardesignstudent.com/the-secret-cost-of-research-fbe95739afdd The Case for Direct Questions in your UX Research By Bradley Miller. "...The most crucial aspect of obtaining valid user research is not to lead the user..." https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2016/03/03/direct-questions/ +04: EVENTS. Accessibility Basics Webinar Series Every other Thursday beginning March 17, 2016. http://info.ssbbartgroup.com/Accessibility-Basics-Series.html Responsive Web Design Summit March 29-31, 2016. Online. http://environmentsforhumans.com/2016/responsive-web-design-summit/ Twin Cities Drupal Camp June 23-26, 2016. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://2016.tcdrupal.org/ Generate San Francisco 2016 July 15, 2016. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://www.generateconf.com/san-francisco-2016/ UX Australia August 23-26, 2016. Melbourne, Australia http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conferences/uxaustralia-2016/ The Mobility and Modern Web Conference September 14-16, 2016. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. http://mmwcon.org/ +05: HTML5. HTML: What's Next? By Charles McCathie Nevile. "Since the end of last year the Web Platform Working Group has responsibility for W3C's HTML spec, as well as many other core specifications. What have we been doing with HTML, and what is the plan?..." https://www.w3.org/blog/2016/03/html-whats-next/ Major Browsers Summary - Chrome and Firefox Rock! By Steve Faulkner. HTML5 Accessibility Support Scores have been updated to include Edge 13. http://html5accessibility.com/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Quality Wireframes Inspiration By Muzli. "A well produced, quality wireframe is a critical phase in the creative process and could make all the difference while working with different stakeholders..." https://medium.com/muzli-design-inspiration/quality-wireframes-inspiration-a91f5d78be37 +07: JAVASCRIPT. A Year Without jQuery By Patrick Kunka. "Dropping the trusted workhorse from our front-end back in 2014 has led to a faster, leaner platform..." http://blog.wearecolony.com/a-year-without-jquery/ Maybe We Could Tone Down the JavaScript By Lexy Munroe. "...Accept that sometimes, or for some people, your JavaScript will not work. Put some thought into what that means. Err on the side of basing your work on existing HTML mechanisms whenever you can. Maybe one day a year, get your whole dev team to disable JavaScript and try using your site. Commence weeping..." https://eev.ee/blog/2016/03/06/maybe-we-could-tone-down-the-javascript/ +08: TOOLS. A11y Color Palette By Matt Long. "This tool should help you visualize an entire palette of colors with accessibility in mind. An indicator will be placed next to each foreground color to show if its contrast with the background color is WCAG 2.0 AA and/or AAA compliant for normal and large text. No indicator next to a foreground color means its contrast ratio with the background color is not at all compliant..." http://a11yrocks.com/colorPalette/ +09: USABILITY. Golden Rules of User Interface Design By Nick Babich. "Based upon Ben Shneiderman's 'Designing the User Interface' and Jakob Nielsen's 'Ten Usability Heuristics', 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called 'heuristics' because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines..." https://medium.com/ux-planet/golden-rules-of-user-interface-design-19282aeb06b [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html Association Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html Book Listings. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html Cascading Style Sheets Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html Color Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html Drupal Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/drupal.html Evaluation & Testing Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html Event Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html HTML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/html.html Information Architecture Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html JavaScript Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html Miscellaneous Web Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html Navigation Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html PHP Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html Sites & Blogs Listing. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html Tool Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html Typography Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html Usability Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html XML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html [Section two ends.] ++END NOTES. + SUBSCRIPTION INFO. WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates. + TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN). As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN guideline information please visit: http://www.headstar.com/ten + SIGN OFF. Until next time, Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]