+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 15, Issue 19, November 3, 2016. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 19 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: DRUPAL. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: PHP. 08: TOOLS. 09: TYPOGRAPHY. 10: USABILITY. 11: XML. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Complete Beginner's Guide to Universal Design By UX Booth. "When we design an application, we want it to be so intuitive that anyone could use it. But who do we mean when we say 'anyone?' While a good design is usable by people of all ages and technical adeptness, a truly universal design works for users with varying physical abilities. To achieve this, designers and developers must take into consideration conditions like macular degeneration (ocular disorders), Parkinson's disease (movement disorders), and epilepsy (neurological disorders)..." http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/complete-beginners-guide-to-universal-design/ Website Accessibility: What is it and Why Should I Care? By Matthias Niska and Michele Landis. "If you knew you could reduce your risk of exposure to litigation while at the same time opening up your business' website to a whole new audience, would you be interested? .." http://corporatecomplianceinsights.com/website-accessibility-care/ Accessible Videos: Quick Six Point Checklist By Sophie Shearer. "Check out our simple guide for advice on making sure your videos can be enjoyed by a bigger audience. Ideally, also test your film with people who have a range of abilities..." https://www.abilitynet.org.uk/news-blogs/accessible-videos-quick-six-point-checklist 17 Website Adjustments You Can Make Today for Better Accessibility By Mary Gillen. "...Here are 17 adjustments you can make to your website now to make it more accessible..." http://accessiblewebsiteservices.com/17-website-adjustments-for-accessibility/ Accessibility Problems on Social Media By Rakesh Paladugula. "...Let us understand some difficulties each one of us create while generating and sharing content on social media..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2016/11/accessibility-problems-on-social-media/ Results of the 2016 GOV.UK Assistive Technology Survey By Chris Moore. "...some users said they found the black text on a white background difficult to read...Several users reported that the search results page is too complicated...many assistive technology users found PDFs hard to use and asked for content to be in HTML instead..." https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/01/results-of-the-2016-gov-uk-assistive-technology-survey/ Companies Face Lawsuits Over Website Accessibility For Blind Users By Sara Randazzo. "More than 240 businesses nationwide have been sued in federal court since the start of 2015." http://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-face-lawsuits-over-website-accessibility-for-blind-users-1478005201 Federal Website Lawsuits Spike; Community Banks Get Demand Letters By Minh Vu. "The number of federal lawsuits alleging inaccessible websites continues to increase, along with the number of law firms filing them..." http://www.adatitleiii.com/2016/10/federal-website-lawsuits-spike-community-banks-get-demand-letters/ Deaf Citizen Sues Oklahoma Legislature By National Association of the Deaf. "Johnny Reininger, Jr., a deaf Oklahoman filed suit today against the State of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Senate and House of Representatives for the failure of the Oklahoma legislature to caption hearings and other proceedings streamed online..." https://nad.org/news/2016/10/deaf-citizen-sues-oklahoma-legislature +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Grid Layout By Rachel Andrew. "A collection of usage examples for the CSS Grid Layout specification." http://gridbyexample.com/ 8 Simple Rules for a Robust, Scalable CSS Architecture By Jarno Rantanen. This is the manifest of things I've learned about managing CSS in large, complex web projects during my many years of professional web development. I've been asked about these things enough times that having a document to point to sounded like a good idea. https://github.com/jareware/css-architecture/blob/master/README.md +03: COLOR. New Release of Color Blindness Simulator By Daniel Flück. "The online Color Blindness Simulator is a quite popular tool as many people are looking for a way to simulate some form of color vision deficiency. Usually if you hear about this handicap it's very strange to think about, what the other person which suffers from color blindness really sees..." http://www.color-blindness.com/2016/10/27/new-release-of-color-blindness-simulator/ Tools for Testing Color & Contrast for ADA/WCAG Compliance (Video) By Adage Technologies. "Front-End Developer Andrew highlights two tools that can be used to see if you website is accessible for users with visual impairments, based on the World Wide Web Consortium's WCAG 2.0 standards." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCJ_LgpWgGw +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Observer Guidelines for Usability Research By Susan Farrell. "Let stakeholders help gather data during user research sessions. Customize this handout for observers to fit your situation." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/observer-guidelines/ Why People Participate in UX Research (and Why the Reasons Matter) By Amanda Stockwell. "Finding and scheduling suitable research participants is one of the biggest logistical challenges of UX research..." http://uxmastery.com/why-people-participate-in-ux-research/ Benchmark Your UX at All Costs By Ben Rogers. "In the user experience (UX) industry, benchmarking is a practice that measures the usability of a website..." http://boxesandarrows.com/benchmark-your-ux-at-all-costs/ +05: EVENTS. Best Practices for More Accessible Social Media November 9, 2016. Webinar http://aem.cast.org/about/events/2016/11/best-practices-accessible-social-media.html A Fireside Chat With Jeffrey Zeldman November 9, 2016. Webinar https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/free-webinar-a-fireside-chat-with-jeffrey-zeldman Accessibility Training January 10-11, 2017. Logan, Utah, U.S.A. http://webaim.org/services/training/ South by Southwest Interactive March 10-19, 2017. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. http://www.sxsw.com/interactive/ Miami UX Conference March 13-17, 2017. Miami, Florida, U.S.A. https://www.nngroup.com/training/san-diego/ Access Israel 5th International Convention March 19-21, 2017. Tel Aviv, Israel http://www.aisrael.org/?CategoryID=3154 +06: JAVASCRIPT. Time to Start Exploiting ARIA 1.1 By Matt King. Matt King's Bay Area Accessibility Camp presentation slides. https://mcking65.github.io/using-aria1.1-oct2016/ +07: PHP. A Crash Course of Changes to Exception Handling in PHP 7 By Ahmed Khan. "...PHP 7 has introduced two new classes that assist a developer in handling errors with ease, and that's what we'll look at in this pos.." https://www.sitepoint.com/a-crash-course-of-changes-to-exception-handling-in-php-7/ +08: TOOLS. a11yTools Extension for Safari macOS By Paul J. Adam. "The extension must be installed from Safari on macOS. It creates an a11yTools Toolbar Item that displays a menu of accessibility testing tools..." http://pauljadam.com/extension.html CSS Grid Inspector (Firefox Add-on) By Matt Claypotch, Jen Simmons. "CSS Grid is awesome. It's more awesome if you can see the lines while you are defining the grid. So we here at the Mozilla Developer Relations Team created this basic Grid Inspector tool. Use it to see your grids..." https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/css-grid-inspector/ What Does My Site Cost? By Tim Kadlec. "Find out how much it costs for someone to use your site on mobile networks around the world..." https://whatdoesmysitecost.com +09: TYPOGRAPHY. Choosing the Right Display Typeface: 5 Tips for Success By Carrie Cousins. "... Here are five tips to get started with a few beautiful examples of display typography..." https://designshack.net/articles/graphics/choosing-the-right-display-typeface-5-tips-for-success/ +10: USABILITY. Top 10 Enduring Web-Design Mistakes By Amy Schade, Yunnuo Cheng, and Samyukta Sherugar. "A large-scale usability study revealed the most common and damaging web-design mistakes of today. They aren't surprising or new - they're enduring issues that continue to hurt website usability. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-enduring/ The Power Law of Learning: Consistency vs. Innovation in User Interfaces By Raluca Budiu. "Across many tasks, learning curves show an initial learning period, followed by a plateau of optimal efficiency. New interfaces compete with much practiced, old ones that have already reached this plateau." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/power-law-learning/ What one UX Skill or Ability is the Most Important to Master? By Philip Hodgson. "User Experience is a multi-disciplinary specialty and that means UX practitioners must master several methods, techniques and skills. Recently — partly as a thought exercise, and partly in an attempt to tap into what might be the essence of user research and design — I wondered if just one skill or ability deserved to stand out from the rest. Here’s how five UX specialists answered that question." http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/one_UX_skill_to_master.html +11: XML. Combine The Results of SVG Filter Primitives with feMerge By Steven Bradley. "Interesting SVG filter effects are produced when you combine multiple filter primitives inside a single filter..." http://vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-filter-primitives-femerge/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +12: 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.]