+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 10, Issue 38, March 14, 2013. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 38 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: EVENTS. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 07: TOOLS. 08: TYPOGRAPHY. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Call for Review - HTML Image Description Extension (longdesc) By Shawn Henry. "The W3C HTML Working Group today published the First Public Working Draft of: HTML Image Description Extension http://www.w3.org/TR/html-longdesc This specification ("HTML-longdesc") enables web authors to provide longer text descriptions for complex images. It defines the "longdesc" attribute to link descriptions with images in HTML5 content. HTML-longdesc is an extension specification that is part of the HTML5 family of specifications, which enables it to evolve independently and be finalized more rapidly. HTML-longdesc is part of W3C's work to ensure that the Open Web Platform is accessible to people with disabilities..." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2013JanMar/0148.html NFB Proposes Bill on Accessibility Standards for Digital Instructional Materials By Jarret Cummings. "The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has released a fact sheet for proposed national legislation to enact a key recommendation of the Postsecondary Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) Commission report released over a year ago. (For more on the AIM Commission, please see the end of this post.) NFB's legislative proposal would have Congress direct the U.S. Access Board, which develops accessibility guidelines under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to establish such guidelines for digital instructional materials at the postsecondary level, including related delivery technologies. The proposal would further direct the U.S. Department of Justice to adopt those guidelines as enforceable standards under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. This would make colleges and universities subject to legal and regulatory sanction if the digital instructional materials and delivery technologies they deploy do not meet the standards..." http://www.educause.edu/blogs/jcummings/nfb-proposes-bill-accessibility-standards-digital-instructional-materials Overwhelmed? Stick To Basics By Dennis E. Lembree. "A few people at the CSUN conference last week commented on the overbearing WCAG 2.0 specs. Many folks agree that WCAG is extremely large and difficult to read (not unlike the HTML5 spec). And especially for accessibility newbies, WCAG can be a difficult place to start..." http://www.webaxe.org/overwhelmed-stick-to-basics/ Web Accessibility Lessons from Indiana Jones By Derek Featherstone. "Learn an important accessibility lesson from Indiana Jones: when you take something in an interface away, you need to replace it with something that serves the same purpose just as well, or even better...." http://simplyaccessible.com/article/indiana-jones/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Adapting to the Ink - Tips And Tricks For Print Style Sheets By Dudley Storey. "Print continues to be treated somewhat cursorily by most Web designers, who tend to be obsessed with pixels rather than printers. In the real world, a significant portion of people rely on pages printed from websites for reference: there's still something about having a physical sheet of paper in one's hands, even in this age of digital saturation." http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2013/03/08/tips-tricks-print-style-sheets/ Calling QR in Print CSS Only When Needed By Adrian A. Roselli. "For those of us who put together print styles for our sites, we've probably tossed around the idea of embedding QR codes so that users can quickly get back to a page they have printed. In the hardcopy version of my article for .net Magazine, "Make your website printable with CSS," I show how you can embed QR codes in your page (it's not included in the online version)..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/03/calling-qr-in-print-css-only-when-needed.html Learn CSS Layout By learnlayout. "This site teaches the CSS fundamentals that are used in any website's layout." http://learnlayout.com/ +03: DRUPAL. Getting Started with Drupal 7 Tutorials By Level Ten. "Welcome to the Getting Started with Drupal 7 video tutorial course. Drupal is an incredibly powerful construction kit for building dynamic websites. It is also free and open source. Thus it is highly accessible for use on any website." http://www.leveltendesign.com/tutorial/course/getting-started-drupal-7 Drupal Accessibility User Testing Compilation (YouTube Video) By kat3drx. "Presented as part of the session "Accessibility in Drupal 6 and Drupal 7" at DrupalCon San Francisco..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMlzQRdA9tE Drupal Accessibility (YouTube Video) By Mike Gifford. "A quick usability test for a friend with mobility challenges." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyIHtNHYroM Future of Accessibility Checking Discussion - QUAIL, Node Accessibility, Accessible Content, etc. By Kevin Miller. "There has been a very good discussion going on in the issue queue of Accessible Content about the future of that module, as well as how it will relate to other initiatives to provide accessibility testing in Drupal. With the QUAIL project now at a stable state, I have been working on a complete rewrite of the Accessible Content module, but I would like to ensure we don't have duplicitous work going, and that any direction we go in is vetted by this community." http://groups.drupal.org/node/287773 Providing Responsive Images with Drupal By Michael Herchel. "Serving images to mobile devices can prove a major annoyance for developers. Michael Herchel highlights a number of methods to make life more flexible." http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/providing-responsive-images-drupal Create a Responsive Drupal Theme By Tim Millwood. "Drupal themes enable you to change the look and feel of your site. Tim Millwood explains how to create a theme that makes it appear differently on different screen sizes " http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/create-responsive-drupal-theme Tips to Create Drupal Themes with Dreamweaver By WebDea. "Drupal themes consist of PHP and web standards (CSS and HTML). You can use PHP with Drupal API and make Drupal theme without templates. Those who prefer markup can take advantage of templates within a theme folder when no custom code necessary. Such templates are known as TPL files because of their .tpl or .tpl.php file extensions." http://www.webdea.com/drupal-themes-with-dreamweaver.html +04: EVENTS. DrupalCon May 20-24, 2013. Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. http://portland2013.drupal.org/conference +05: JAVASCRIPT. A Note About Using WAI-ARIA By Sailesh Panchang. "'Using WAI-ARIA wherever and whenever we can' goes against the basic tenets of ARIA outlined in the Introduction to ARIA. ARIA needs to be used only when needed and I have been highlighting this in my email responses on various public lists for 4+ years because many need to be reminded of this." http://www.deque.com/wai-aria-opinion Sometimes You Have to Use Illegal WAI-ARIA to Make Stuff Work By Marco Zehe. "In this blog post, I'd like to recap an experience I just had while trying to apply some accessibility enhancements to the NoodleApp app.net client..." http://www.marcozehe.de/2013/03/08/sometimes-you-have-to-use-illegal-wai-aria-to-make-stuff-work/ +06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Wendy Seltzer - DRM and the Open Web By Wendy Seltzer. "There's been lots of buzz about the proposed addition of "Encrypted Media Extensions" to HTML5, and the related extension of the HTML5 Working Group charter to include support for "protected content." In the wake of the announcement that these are "in-scope" for HTML, we wanted to explain what this means -- and doesn't mean -- for W3C and the Open Web..." http://www.w3.org/QA/2013/03/drm_and_the_open_web.html +07: TOOLS. Drupal API for Dreamweaver By xtnd.us. "Reduce tons of typing and get rid of the plain text look when editing Drupal files in Dreamweaver. If you are into Drupal and use, or want to use, Dreamweaver then you really need this extension." http://xtnd.us/dreamweaver/drupalapi aViewer 2013 By Steve Faulkner. "Here at the paciello group we are very excited by the improvements being made to our aViewer accessibility API information inspection tool. We want to share the updated aViewer with you and in the process elicit your feedback on the new features and any bugs you may find..." http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2013/03/aviewer-2013/ +08: TYPOGRAPHY. Designing for the Reading Experience By Marko Dugonjic. "With the rise of Web fonts as well as affordable hosted Web font services and ready-made kits, typography is reclaiming its title as design queen, ruler of all graphic and Web design." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/02/18/designing-reading-experience/ The Era of Symbol Fonts By Brian Suda. "Welcome to the third epoch in web performance optimization: symbol fonts. Everything from bullets and arrows to feed and social media icons can now be bundled into a single, tiny font file that can be cached and rendered at various sizes without needing multiple images or colors. This has the same caching and file size benefits as a CSS sprite, plus additional benefits we're only now realizing with high-resolution displays. Discover the advantages and explore the challenges you'll encounter when using a symbol font." http://alistapart.com/article/the-era-of-symbol-fonts 40 Best Typeface Combinations in Web Design By Ali Qayyum. "When it comes to prints or Web Design, typography is one of the most important part. So selectng the right type of typography for your web design is one of the most crucial part. Keeping the small textured detail in mind while designing a website can sometimes be enough to get amazing results. A good combination of typeface can enhance the look of your website a lot! In websites, you can use typography in many forms: big bold headers, simple and clean menus and explanatory text etc..." http://smashinghub.com/40-best-typeface-combinations-in-web-design.htm +09: USABILITY. Breaking Free of the Print Design Mentality By Paul Boag. In a world where even your watch can access the web, it amazes me how many are still fighting for pixel control over their websites. It's time to put them straight. http://boagworld.com/design/breaking-free-of-the-print-design-mentality/ Leaning into Longform By Nicole Jones. "Today's web designers and writers have to accommodate a variety of devices and text formats. So what can we do to embrace this shifting landscape of content and devices? The answer is deceptively simple: make readers comfortable, no matter what they're reading or what device they use..." http://webstandardssherpa.com/reviews/leaning-into-longform/ Giving Context to Your Content By Sandi Wassmer. "In the first of a four-part series, Sandi Wassmer establishes a framework for content strategy..." http://www.netmagazine.com/features/giving-context-your-content Improving UX Through Front-End Performance By Lara Swanson. "Adding half a second to a search results page can decrease traffic and ad revenues by 20 percent, says a Google study. For every additional 100 milliseconds of load time, sales decrease by 1 percent, Amazon finds. Users expect pages to load in two seconds-and after three seconds, up to 40 percent will simply leave. The message is clear: we must make performance optimization a fundamental part of how we design, build, and test every site we create-for every device. Design for performance; measure the results." http://alistapart.com/article/improving-ux-through-front-end-performance Save Bandwidth with WebP - Soon with Fallback By Bruce Lawson. "A long time ago, 'responsive' didn't mean 'resize your browser window repeatedly to make a website reformat while your fellow designers orgasm themselves into a moleskine atop a puddle'. It simply meant 'Reacting quickly and positively', meaning that the page loaded fast and you could interact with it immediately." http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2013/save-bandwidth-webp-with-fallback/ Windows 8 - Design Over Usability By Simson Garfinkel. "Windows 8 gets a lot right, but Microsoft's determination to offer computer and mobile users the same interface makes the operating system somewhat weird." http://www.technologyreview.com/review/511116/windows-8-design-over-usability/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +10: 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 Dreamweaver Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.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 Flash Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.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.]