+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 20, November 13, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 20 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: COLOR. 03: EVALUATION & TESTING. 04: HTML5. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: TYPOGRAPHY. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Design Like We Give a Damn! Accessibility @W3C By Steve Faulkner. "A highlight of TPAC, for me, was to be in the audience for the lightning talks and hear my dear friend and colleague Leonie Watson, in just 4 minutes, say so much about what we as participants in the development of web standards at the W3C could do, to re-invigorate and broaden our approach, to fulfill the promise of an accessible web..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/11/design-like-we-give-a-damn-accessibility-w3c/ 60 Seconds to Learn How to Make Your Website More Accessible? By David Kennedy. "You want to make your website more accessible, but you don't know where to start. If you have 60 seconds, I can help." http://davidakennedy.com/2014/10/31/web-accessibility-in-60-seconds/ Accessibility and Lawsuits By Steve Grobschmidt. "...Depending on the complexity of a web site, it certainly can be expensive to retroactively make a site accessible. But it's also not an excuse to cry foul about accessibility enforcement and blame on 'lawyers being lawyers'..." http://www.theaccessibility.com/2014/11/accessibility-and-lawsuits/ Legal Action Against Coles Over Website Accessibility By Chris Pycroft. "Legal proceedings have begun against supermarket chain Coles over the accessibility of its online shopping service, with users reporting that they cannot buy groceries online..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2014/11/legal-action-against-coles-over-website-accessibility Accessibility - Should We Complain About It, or Fix It? By Olivier Nourry. "...It's a continuing debate, one that turns around the notion of users' responsibility in the current state of software accessibility. I, for one, wouldn't mind feeling a little more pressure from users, now and then. It would certainly ease my own evangelizing efforts..." http://accessiblog.fr/2014/11/accessibility-complain-or-fix Accessibility Tunnel Vision By David A. Kennedy. "Accessibility is a design constraint. Treat it like one. I don't mean that in a negative way, but in the sense that a constraint forces us to push boundaries and think ahead..." http://davidakennedy.com/2014/11/06/accessibility-tunnel-vision/ Labeling Forms, Images and Links - Screen Reader Compatibility By powermapper. "Screen reader compatibility for a variety of form, image and link labeling techniques, showing which techniques work in specific screen reader / browser combinations." http://www.powermapper.com/tests/screen-readers/labelling/ Accessibility Tests By Russ Weakley. "JAWS and NVDA tests..." http://maxdesign.com.au/jobs/sample-accessibility/index.html +02: COLOR. The Myth of Accessible Colors By Rakesh Paladugula. "Colors play a vital role on providing a good visual appearance on web pages. Good combination of colors provides enhanced user experience. While designing accessible web pages designers assume that use of certain colors harm people with disabilities. Is it true? Let us understand..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/11/myth-accessible-colors/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. User Acceptance Testing Versus Usability Testing - What's the Dif? By Joel Virothaisakun. "If you develop software, you've probably heard of User Acceptance Testing. You may also have heard the term Usability Testing. Same thing, right? Nope. And confusion here can cause big problems..." http://www.digitalgov.gov/2014/10/06/user-acceptance-testing-versus-usability-testing-whats-the-dif/ +04: HTML5. Responsive Images Revisited - The srcset Attribute By Steven Bradley. "One of the main challenges with responsive design is how to handle images. It's not that we don't know what we want to do. It's that the ability to do it has been lacking. Fortunately the situation is starting to change for the better..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/responsive-images-srcset-attribute/ +05: JAVASCRIPT. The Death of the JavaScript onMouseover By Stefan Mischook. "...The onMouseover event listener 'listens' for someone to hover their mouse over the element (HTML tag) that it is bound to - like what we did with the paragraph tag above and the onclick event. It's a sweet effect and works on all the browsers, except it doesn't work on mobile devices - that sucks! You have to remember that within a few years, more than 50% of the Web's traffic will be mobile traffic - people using smartphones and tablets. Basically, that means you should probably not use onMouseover event listeners." http://www.killersites.com/blog/2014/the-death-of-the-javascript-onmouseover/ +06: NAVIGATION. Simple Dropdowns By Heydon Pickering. Simple solutions are good solutions. For this basic implementation of navigational 'dropdown' submenus, the aria-haspopup alerts you to the presence of a submenu. The addition of an aria-label with a value of 'submenu' just confirms it is a submenu you are entering as you focus the first item. At all times the master about link remains functional and will take you to the top of the about page. The submenu is an enhancement, so aria-haspopup is only added when javascript runs. http://heydonworks.com/practical_aria_examples/#submenus +07: TYPOGRAPHY. 10 Considerations When Working With Web Typography By Paul Boag. "This week on the Boagworld Show we look at how web typography can transform a site and what you need to do to get the most from it..." http://boagworld.com/season/10/episode/1016/ +08: USABILITY. Bad Design is Everywhere - Take Inspiration From It and Improve By Tom Kenny. "...As a web designer I scrutinize almost every site I visit, which can be frustrating at times but I take inspiration from the bad and make sure I'm not making the same mistakes. By taking inspiration from poor design decisions, you'll be doing your part to make the web a better experience." http://inspectelement.com/articles/bad-design-is-everywhere-take-inspiration-from-it-and-improve/ Time With Users - Set Personal and Company Goals By Jakob Nielsen. "To develop user-experience insights and skills, define how many hours you should spend observing actual user behavior each year. Junior staff need more hours; senior people can get by with fewer annual user-exposure hours." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/user-exposure-goals/ Your Content is a Promise to Your Customers By Gerry McGovern. "The content an organization publishes online is increasingly contributing to how customers regard that organization's brand..." http://gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/your-content-promise-your-customers Start With a Question, Not a Message By Paul Boag. "When it comes to writing the copy for your website, start with a users question rather than the message you wish to communicate..." http://boagworld.com/content-strategy/start-with-a-question-not-a-message/ [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.]