+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 11, September 11, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 11 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: JAVASCRIPT. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Web Accessibility - Issues and Techniques By Philip Kragnes. "...The following training modules illustrate some common accessibility issues and techniques for resolving them..." http://z.umn.edu/webaccessibility Using the tabindex Attribute By Leonie Watson. "The HTML tabindex attribute is used to manage keyboard focus. Used wisely, it can effectively handle focus within web widgets. Used unwisely however, the tabindex attribute can destroy the usability of web content for keyboard users." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/08/using-the-tabindex-attribute/ Proper Use of Buttons and Links By Dennis Lembree. "The main point is, please do the basics. When designing a website, ensure controls with button-type behavior (interaction, affects the current page) are designed as buttons and regular text links (go to an external page, anchor on page, or external document) are designed like text links (such as blue underlined text)..." http://www.webaxe.org/proper-use-buttons-links/ Facebook Rolls Out Video Captioning By Adrian Redden. "Facebook is now rolling out a feature that will allow users to supply captions with their videos." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2014/09/facebook-rolls-out-video-captioning One. Simple. Question. (and a follow-up) By Karl Groves. "...Stop selling. Start leading." http://www.karlgroves.com/2014/09/08/one-simple-question-and-a-follow-up/ When the Refresh Comes By Steve Faulkner. "The Section 508 Refresh contains a provision that places responsibility on assistive technology vendors to make use of accessibility information made available via platform accessibility APIs. I suggest this is a very good thing..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/09/when-the-refresh-comes/ A Lesson on the TEACH Act (Video) By National Federation of the Blind. "Blind college students talk about the little-known, but devastating problem of inaccessible educational technology. The NFB explains why the TEACH Act, a bill that creates accessibility guidelines to stimulate the market, guide schools, and ensure equal access for students with disabilities, is the best solution for everyone." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU4MBIluhD0 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. How To Create Flat Style Breadcrumb Links with CSS By Chris Spooner. "With all the progressions of CSS and CSS3 over recent years we’ve reached a point where many of the old coding techniques that involved background images can now be created entirely with CSS. In this tutorial we’ll look at creating a series of breadcrumb navigation links in a flat design style without the need for the previously popular “sliding doors background image†method." http://line25.com/tutorials/how-to-create-flat-style-breadcrumb-links-with-css A Peek Inside the CSS Text Decoration Specification By Vipul Patel. "Text decoration is defined as decorating the glyphs of the text once typeset according to font and typographic rules. CSS3 provides support for text decoration. This support comes in the form of underlines, text shadows and emphasis marks." http://www.htmlgoodies.com/html5/css/a-peek-inside-the-css-text-decoration-specification.html +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. How to Compute a Confidence Interval in 5 Easy Steps By Jeff Sauro. "Confidence intervals are your frenemies. They are one of the most useful statistical techniques you can apply to customer data. At the same time they can be perplexing and cumbersome..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/ci-five-steps.php +04: EVENTS. php[world] November 10-14, 2014. Washington, D.C., U.S.A. http://world.phparch.com/ An Event Apart San Francisco November 17-19, 2014. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://aneventapart.com/event/san-francisco-2014 +05: JAVASCRIPT. ARIA-Flowto (property) By Rakesh Paladugula. "Aria-flowto property should be used when the reading order of the content on the page is not sequential or meaningful. " http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/09/aria-flowto-property/ 124 JSJ The Origin of Javascript with Brendan Eich By woody2shoes. "An epic interview/group discussion featuring Brendan Eich where he walks through JavaScript's history, warts and all. A lot of back-story and interesting tangents here. It's almost two hours long but worth the listen to get more insights into JavaScript and its development." http://javascriptjabber.com/124-jsj-the-origin-of-javascript-with-brendan-eich/ Advanced Objects in JavaScript By Bjorn Tipling. "A look at some of the more sophisticated or interesting ways to create and work with objects, including ES6's proxies and symbols. If you want to do some diving into JavaScript's more technical parts, you should enjoy this." http://bjorn.tipling.com/advanced-objects-in-javascript ECMAScript 6 Modules - The Final Syntax By Axel Rauschmayer. "At the end of July 2014, TC39 [1] had another meeting, during which the last details of the ECMAScript 6 (ES6) module syntax were finalized. This blog post gives an overview of the complete ES6 module system." http://www.2ality.com/2014/09/es6-modules-final.html What the Death of YUI Can Teach Developers By Craig Buckler. "It doesn't matter which third-party library or framework you use: it will be discontinued at some point. Yes, even jQuery and Angular. That's not necessarily an argument for developing your own system Ñ even your own code will eventually be superseded..." http://www.sitepoint.com/death-yui-can-teach-developers/ +06: NAVIGATION. Search Is Not Enough - Synergy Between Navigation and Search By Raluca Budiu. "When websites prioritize search over navigation, users must invest cognitive effort to create queries and to deal with the weak implementations of site search..." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/search-not-enough/ Using the Core Model and Top Tasks to Design Better Web Navigation By Gerry McGovern. "The essence of the Core Model design process is that you focus primarily on the top tasks of your customers. You make sure they can solve their problem, complete their task. You design inside-out, from the task outwards..." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/using-core-model-and-top-tasks-design-better-web-navigation +07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. The URL Mess By Larry Masinter. "One of the main inventions of the Web was the URL. And I've gotten stuck trying to help fix up the standards so that they actually work..." http://masinter.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-url-mess.html +08: USABILITY. 7 Techniques for Prioritizing Customer Requirements By Jeff Sauro. "...Prioritizing this list is essential to the success of your product and potentially business. But what's the best way to approach this?..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/prioritize-requirements.php How to Create Great UX Documents By Neil Turner. "...what makes a great UX document and how do you ensure that your documents achieve what you need them to?..." http://www.uxforthemasses.com/create-great-ux-documents/ A to Z of Example UX Docs and Deliverables By Neil Turner. "Following on from my article about how to create great UX documents, I thought that it would be useful to collate some example UX documents and deliverables together. This should hopefully provide a bit of inspiration and assist when it comes to choosing the type of document(s) to produce. For each document / deliverable I've included examples, together with a quick outline and links to more information. The following UX documents and deliverables are covered..." http://www.uxforthemasses.com/example-ux-docs/ Why Re-Designs Fail By Susan Weinschenk. "...Here are the top 5 reasons I've seen that cause product re-designs to fail..." http://www.blog.theteamw.com/2014/09/10/why-re-designs-fail/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +09: 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.]