+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 15, Issue 08, August 19, 2016. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 08 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: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: TOOLS. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Better Keyboard Navigation with Progressive Enhancement By Christian Heilmann. "When building interfaces, it is important to also consider those who can only use a keyboard to use your products..." https://www.christianheilmann.com/2016/08/15/better-keyboard-navigation-with-progressive-enhancement/ Revolution in Accessibility, the Automatic Alternate Text By Rakesh Paladugula. "Automatic alternate text, something I want to research since Facebook has announced that their IOS app has the capability to provide automatic alternate text for the photos uploaded on the website..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2016/08/revolution-in-accessibility-the-automatic-alternate-text/ Section 508 Refresh - Changes in Electronic Documents By Jonathan Avila. "Electronic documents will be explicitly addressed in the Section 508 Refresh..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/section-508-refresh-changes-electronic-documents/ Section 508 Refresh - WCAG 2.0, Functional Performance and Tech Requirements By Jonathan Avila. "The Section 508 Refresh recognizes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 as the success criteria applicable to websites, electronic documents, and software..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/section-508-refresh-wcag-2-0-functional-performance-tech-requirements/ PDF vs HTML: A Fork in the Road By David MacDonald. Deciding whether to remediate PDFs or to migrate them to HTML is one such fork in the road. That's why in this article I'll examine five key considerations that will help you determine the best path to WCAG 2.0 AA conformance and, ultimately, web accessibility for all. http://www.onixnet.com/insights/pdf-vs-html-which-is-the-best-route-to-reach-wcag-2.0 Themes are Not Web Sites By Joseph Dolson. "Periodically, somebody asks me whether the themes reviewed for accessibility at WordPress.org are compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The simple answer is no; but the real answer is a little more complicated..." https://www.joedolson.com/2016/08/themes-not-web-sites/ Don't Leave Me Out! By Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning. "This is a film about the vital need for captioning in everyday life. Real people made this video with true-life messages..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-epg4K7e50Q +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Using Feature Queries in CSS By Jen Simmons. "There's a tool in CSS that you might not have heard of yet. It's powerful. It's been there for a while. And it'll likely become one of your favorite new things about CSS..." https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/08/using-feature-queries-in-css/ Element Queries: the Future of Responsive Web Design By Louie R. "Media queries are a vital part of modern web design, but they're not always perfect. In this article we'll take a look at the idea of 'element queries'; what many argue is the future of responsive web design..." http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/tutorials/element-queries-the-future-of-responsive-web-design--cms-26945 Using Ch, An Underappreciated CSS Length By Justin McDowell. "I've been experimenting with new units of measurement when I design web pages and components..." http://revoltpuppy.com/articles/89/using-ch-an-underappreciated-css-length WTF, Forms? By Mark Otto. "Friendlier HTML form controls with a little CSS magic..." http://wtfforms.com/ How to Create a Simple Layout with CSS Grid Layouts By Abbey Fitzgerald. "If you've ever dabbled in print design, you know where the idea of grid layouts originated from..." https://getflywheel.com/layout/css-grid-layouts-how-to/ Writing Less Damn Code By Heydon Pickering. "I'm not the most talented coder in the world. No, it's true. So I try to write as little code as possible. The less I write, the less there is to break, justify, or maintain..." http://www.heydonworks.com/article/on-writing-less-damn-code Bootstrap Considered Harmful By Hidde de Vries. "...if your team has a front-end developer on board, I would argue you may be better off without Bootstrap. In some instances, it can do more harm than good..." https://hiddedevries.nl/en/blog/2016-08-09-bootstrap-considered-harmful Manipulate And Retrieve Data With Sass List Functions By Steven Bradley. "...Today I want to continue with the built-in list functions Sass provides..." http://vanseodesign.com/css/sass-list-functions/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. How to Run Accessibility Testing Demos By Arthur Gouveia. "This is the sixth post in a series on accessibility from Shopify's UX team, published biweekly..." https://medium.com/shopify-ux/how-to-run-accessibility-testing-demos-602005e176d0 Extreme Accessibility, Revisited By Karl Groves. "...One of the things about bugs is that once you've verified the bug, you actually have two important pieces of information: the details on why it is a problem and what should happen instead. With this information at hand, you can write a test..." http://www.karlgroves.com/2016/08/15/extreme-accessibility-revisited/ Should You Use More Than One Accessibility Testing Tool? By Karl Groves. "If you're already aware of Betteridge's Law, then you know the answer already..." http://www.karlgroves.com/2016/08/13/should-you-use-more-than-one-accessibility-testing-tool/ How to Create an Effective Customer Experience Survey By Alina Prelicz-Zawadzka. "We frequently focus our user research around ways to measure improvements. But first, we need to identify a baseline..." http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/how-to-create-a-customer-experience-survey/ The Essentials of Contextual Inquiry By Jeff Sauro. "...The next time you see users encountering problems solving tasks, look at it as an opportunity. A contextual inquiry might be the first step into developing an innovative product that makes all our lives easier-like a cooler with a blender and sound system all in one." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/contextual-inquiry.php Hold the Phone: A Primer on Remote Mobile Usability Testing By Dana Douglas and Tristan Wilson. "...We took a closer look at several of the tools and methods currently available for remote mobile testing and put them to the test in a real world usability study. This article discusses our findings and recommendations for practitioners conducting similar tests..." http://uxpamagazine.org/hold-the-phone/ +04: EVENTS. An Evening with Derek Featherstone August 30, 2016. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. http://www.meetup.com/a11ychi/events/233107415/ SmashingConf September 12-13, 2016. Freiburg, Germany http://smashingconf.com/ Accessibility Scotland September 16, 2016. Edinburgh, Scotland http://accessibility.scot/ Confab Intensive September 19-21, 2016. Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. http://confabevents.com/events/intensive/2016 Accessibility Camp - NYC September 26, 2015. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://a11ynyc.com/camp/ 10K Apart Contest "Do you have what it takes to build a fully-functional, progressively enhanced, accessible, and performant site in under 10k?..." Deadline: September 30, 2016. https://a-k-apart.com/ Madison PHP Conference September 30-October 1, 2016. Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. http://2016.madisonphpconference.com/ +05: HTML5. The Element (Video) By Simon Pieters. "The