+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 10, Issue 41, April 4, 2013. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 41 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: HTML5. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Identifying Web Accessibility Issues By The National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE). "While it takes a fairly technical background to detect all accessibility issues and features, there are many accessibility problems that can be quickly and easily identified without the need for a highly technical background. This handout will suggest a few free accessibility tools and offer 4 simple techniques to help you identify some common web accessibility problems..." http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/accessibility.php Web Accessibility Still an Anomaly By Ken Nakata. "Imagine driving into a shopping mall with no handicap parking spaces, no ramps to get on the side walk and no automatic doors to even get in. It wouldn't happen in the US today because the ADA requires equal access to 'public accommodations,' such as restaurants, retail stores, movie theaters, recreational facilities and other physical spaces. So why in today's age of online shopping and access to information is it that Web inaccessibility is still the norm?..." http://blog.hisoftware.com/2013/compliance/web-accessibility-still-an-anomaly Civil Rights Agreement Reached with South Carolina Technical College System on Accessibility of Websites to People with Disabilities By Ed.gov. "The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the South Carolina Technical College System (SCTCS), the state's largest higher education system, that will ensure that the websites of SCTCS and its 16-member colleges are accessible to persons with disabilities..." http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/civil-rights-agreement-reached-south-carolina-technical-college-system-accessibi Universal Accessibility: A New Conversation About Web Accessibility By Dominic Tarn. "Time we fixed the web for everyone with dyslexia." http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dominic-tarn/universal-accessibility-a_b_2667341.html PDF Accessibility: Adding Alt Text to Images By Virginia DeBolt. "These examples use Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 for Mac. Other versions of Acrobat Pro may not function exactly the same, although it will be similar..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2013/04/01/pdf-accessibility-adding-alt-text-to-images/ Requirements for an Accessible PDF: Part 2 - Common Accessibility Barriers By Denis Boudreau. "...Some of the most common, and perhaps easier to understand accessibility problems untagged PDF documents impose on users are related to missing or poor: 1. Document titles, 2. Alternate text for images, 3. Content structure, 4. Language indicators, 5. Navigation patterns.." http://www.deque.com/requirements-accessible-pdf-part-2-common-accessibility-barriers Using NVDA to Evaluate Web Accessibility By WebAIM. "This article is designed to help users who are new to NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) - external link learn the basic controls for testing web content, and to serve as a reference for the occasional NVDA user. NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It supports over 20 languages and can run on any computer entirely from a USB drive with no installation..." http://webaim.org/articles/nvda/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. A Response to 'Responsive Web Design is Not the Future' By Brad Frost. "I fundamentally disagree with this entire article. Let's address each point..." http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/a-response-to-responsive-web-design-is-not-the-future/ SOLID Object Oriented Principles And CSS: Part 1 By Steven Bradley. "One principle of object oriented design that I've been wanting to talk about is the single responsibility principle. It's not an isolated principle, but rather one of five principles grouped under the acronym SOLID. Together these principles aim to help developers create systems that are maintainable and extendable..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/solid-oo-principles-1/ Using Decimal Percentage Values in Responsive Design By Divya Manian. "At work I get many samples of code to be reviewed, most of them with a warning 'only works in Chrome'. Nevertheless, I open these pages in Safari & mostly they work. Yesterday I came across something that didn't. This post is a result of that investigation..." http://nimbupani.com/using-decimal-percentage-values-in-responsive-design.html CSS Architectures - New Best Practices By Denise Jacobs. "As you are well aware, the world of front-end development has evolved a lot over the past several years, as fresh minds have devised new approaches to solving age-old problems. Here are some of the latest best practices for front-end coding that will help your stylesheets and HTML considerably..." http://www.sitepoint.com/css-architectures-new-best-practices/ CSS Architectures - Principles of Code Cleanup By Denise Jacobs. "All too often, the CSS for major (and minor) websites is a textbook case of code bloat and redundancy, with lines of code that boast unnecessary use of qualifier elements, overly specific selectors from unnecessarily long selector chains, overdependence on descendent selectors when other selectors would be more appropriate, and the inappropriate or unnecessary use of !important. We can all institute several basic, solid CSS writing practices to vastly improve the maintainability of any organization's stylesheets. Ultimately, however, what we should really shoot for is structuring a given site's stylesheets to dramatically increase scalability..." http://www.sitepoint.com/css-architectures-principles-of-code-cleanup-2/ How to Use CSS3 Columns By Sara Vieira. "With increasing diversity in monitor sizes, it's not practical to design single blocks of text that take up the entire width of the screen. The traditional solution is to split text into columns manually, which is very time intensive; or to split text dynamically with JavaScript, which doesn't function universally. Besides, this is a presentation issue, we should be able to style it with CSS without the use of grid systems or floats shouldn't we? CSS3 actually does provide a way for you to style your text into various columns.." http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/03/how-to-use-css3-columns/ +03: DRUPAL. Accessibility (a11y) Checklist By Drupal.org. "Similar to the SEO Checklist and QA Checklist modules, this module provides a checklist of accessibilty-related modules and tasks to perform on a Drupal site." http://drupal.org/project/a11y_checklist Creating Custom Menus in Drupal By Abbas Suterwala. "Drupal has a very customizable architecture so that you can extend Drupal to suit your needs..." http://www.sitepoint.com/creating-custom-menus-in-drupal/ Advanced Custom Menus in Drupal By Abbas Suterwala. "In the last article 'Creating Custom Menus in Drupal' we saw how to respond to URLs, how to create menus and sub-menus in Drupal and how to pass parameters that can be used to alter the output of the menu callback functions..." http://www.sitepoint.com/advanced-custom-menus-in-drupal/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. These are a | few of my | fav- or- ite | things... By Steve Krug. "If you've ever done usability tests using mobile devices you know that it can get very complicated very quickly: sleds, goosenecks, document cameras, converters, physical restraints (well, maybe not physical restraints, but 'Don't move the device beyond this point' markers), and a lot more..." http://someslightlyirregular.com/2013/03/these-are-a-few-of-my-fav-or-ite-things/ +05: EVENTS. Do-It-Yourself Usability Testing - The Workshop April 18, 2013. Boston Massachusetts, U.S.A. http://sensible.com/workshops.html Webinar on Accessibility with WordPress May 23, 2013. Online. http://accessweb.uic.edu/wordpress/2013/02/webinar-accessibility-with-wordpress/ +06: HTML5. hgroup Removed from the HTML5 Specification By Ian Devlin. "The hgroup element has been on the at risk list for a while and the decision to remove it from the HTML5 specification has finally been made..." http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2013/04/html5/hgroup-removed-from-the-html5-specification/ An Event Apart: HTML5 APIs By Luke Wroblewski. "At An Event Apart in Seattle WA CA 2012, Jen Simmons walked through new capabilities coming to the Web and their impact in her presentation HTML5 APIs Will Change the Web: And Your Designs. Here's my notes from her talk..." http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1700 +07: MISCELLANEOUS. How Design Principles Help you Make Design Decisions By Steven Bradley. "While some principles are more important than others and are likely to be thought about first, I don't think you apply design principles in sequence. The principles of design are about how to communicate ideas and concepts graphically. Understanding them leads to better design decisions. While this post will focus on design, please note much of what's here could be applied to many other aspects of life. As a general rule I think understanding more about any subject is valuable in helping you make better decisions." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/principles-decisions/ Flat or Skeuomorphic is the Wrong Question. It's About Satisfaction. By Adam Faja. "A great deal of digital ink has been spilled of late regarding the relative merits of Flat Design versus Skeuomorphism. On one side of the spectrum, both Microsoft and Yahoo! are embracing elements of Flat Design while Apple famously incorporates facets of so-called skeuomorphic design across its application portfolio..." http://speckyboy.com/2013/03/27/flat-or-skeuomorphic-is-the-wrong-question-its-about-satisfaction/ +08: NAVIGATION. Information Wayfinding: A Not-So-New Metaphor (part 1) By Tyler Tate. "Browsing the Web. Surfing the Net. Navigating a Web site. Traversing a hierarchy. Going back. Scrolling up and down. Returning home. We've seen such metaphors throughout our history of using computers to interact with information. Haphazard though they may seem be, these metaphors highlight a universal reality of human psychology: we perceive the world - both physical and digital-in spatial terms." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/04/information-wayfinding-part-1-a-not-so-new-metaphor.php +09: TOOLS. Validating the Longdesc Attribute By Site Validator. "We've upgraded our HTML validation server so that it now validates the recently introduced longdesc attribute for images, as defined in HTML5..." https://sitevalidator.com/blog/2013/4/validating-the-longdesc-attribute +10: USABILITY. Are Homepage Carousels Effective? (AKA the Brad Frost Carousel Challenge) By Paul Kelly, University of York Web Team. "After reading Brad Frost's blog post about the effectiveness of carousels a couple of months ago, I decided to take up his challenge and see just how well the carousel on the University homepage was performing..." http://yorkwebteam.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/are-homepage-carousels-effective-aka.html Looking Into the Screens of the Future By Ken Yarmosh. "...The design challenge of adapting interfaces to different screen sizes will seem trivial compared to developing experiences that work across mediums and contexts. That's why it's an exciting time be creating digital experiences. I believe we're up to the task even if we'll no longer be able to find those brilliant ideas in our touch-enabled, voice-activated, Internet-connected showers." http://uxmag.com/articles/looking-into-the-screens-of-the-future What UI Really Is and How UX Confuses Matters By Ryan Singer. "People mix the terms UI and UX together. UX is tricky because it doesn't refer to any one thing. Interface design, visual styling, code performance, uptime, and feature set all contribute to the user's 'experience'. Books on UX further complicate matters by including research methods and development methodologies. All of this makes the field confusing for people who want to understand the fundamentals." http://feltpresence.com/articles/19-what-ui-really-is-and-how-ux-confuses-matters [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 Dreamweaver Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.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 Flash Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.html HTML5 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.]