+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 26, December 27, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 26 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: COLOR. 04: DRUPAL. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: HTML5. 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: MISCELLANEOUS. 10: NAVIGATION. 11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 12: TOOLS. 13: TYPOGRAPHY. 14: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 15: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Using aria-describedby to Provide Helpful Form Hints By Leonie Watson. "When a form field has a label, screen readers will announce it automatically when focus moves to the field. If additional information is available to help people complete the task, it's also a good idea to associate it with the field in question." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/12/using-aria-describedby-to-provide-helpful-form-hints/ Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List By W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. "Web accessibility evaluation tools are software programs or online services that help you determine if web content meets accessibility guidelines. This page provides a list of evaluation tools that you can filter to find ones that match your particular needs..." http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ Digital Accessibility Legal Update (December 2014) By Law Office of Lainey Feingold. "This post is part of an occasional series about recent legal developments impacting technology and information access for people with disabilities. The series is illustrated by a toolbox - because law has proven an effective tool in improving the accessibility and usability of digital content, print information and technology for everyone. There are many ways to use the law, reflected by the many tools in the toolbox..." http://lflegal.com/2014/12/legal-update-1214/ The Next Frontier in ADA Litigation - Website and App Access for the Disabled By Joe Liburt, Tim Long, Jill Rosenberg. "What many retailers might not be aware of is the growing risk of litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and derivative state laws arising from websites or mobile apps that allegedly discriminate against disabled individuals..." http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com/the-next-frontier-in-ada-litigation-website-and-app-access-for-the-disabled/ Don't Tweet Pictures of Text By Adrian Roselli. "...Christian covered a few reasons why you shouldn't rely on images...Let me add some more..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/12/dont-tweet-pictures-of-text.html Describe Me By Museum Victoria. "Describe Me asks you to write alternative text (alt-text) for images to make our Collections Online more useful for people who are blind or have low vision. Alt-text is text associated with an image that conveys the same essential information as the image. It is important for people who use screen readers or view websites in text-only format. By writing a short description of what you see, you'll help to make Collections Online more useable and accessible.." http://describeme.museumvictoria.com.au/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Naming Things By Paul Lloyd. "There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things..." http://24ways.org/2014/naming-things/ +03: COLOR. Integrating Contrast Checks in Your Web Workflow By Geri Coady. "A common misconception about accessibility is that meeting compliance requirements hinders creativity and beautiful design-but we beg to differ. Unfortunately, like many company websites and internal projects, Simply Accessible has spent so much time helping others that they had not spent enough time helping themselves to show the world who they really are. This was the perfect opportunity for them to practise what they preached..." http://24ways.org/2014/integrating-contrast-checks-in-your-web-workflow/ Learn More About Color By Working In Grayscale By Steven Bradley. "Do you find color difficult to work with? Do you have trouble combining colors in a color scheme? Would you believe me if I told you one way to learn to work with color is to remove the color information?..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/luminance-working-in-grayscale/ +04: DRUPAL. Drupal Security Best Practices - A Guide for Governments and Nonprofits By Mike Gifford. "The need for government security has never been higher, but unfortunately decades of bad assumptions have lead to many government websites being very vulnerable to attack." http://openconcept.ca/drupal-security-best-practices-guide-governments-and-nonprofits +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. The Guide to Usability Testing (ebook) By Chris Bank and Jerry Cao. "Tips and analysis for over 30 different usability testing methods.." http://linkis.com/www.uxpin.com/rH3bE +06: EVENTS. DevNexus 2015 March 10-12, 2015. Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. http://www.devnexus.com/s/index Midwest PHP 2015 Conference March 14-15, 2015. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://2015.midwestphp.org/ SmashingConf Oxford March 17-18, 2015. Oxford, England http://www.smashingconf.com/ Mobilism 2015 March 27, 2015 Amsterdam, The Netherlands. http://mobilism.nl/2015 An Event Apart Seattle March 30-April 1, 2015. Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. http://aneventapart.com/event/seattle-2015 WebVisions NYC April 2-3, 2015. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://www.webvisionsevent.com/new-york/ UX Immersion Mobile 2015 April 13-15, 2015. Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A. http://uxim15.uie.com/ +07: HTML5. Thoughts About HTML5 Structural Elements By Steven Bradley. "Do you use the new HTML5 structural elements like header, aside, article, and footer? If so, do you do use them because of the added semantics they carry?..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/html5-structural-elements/ Analyst Watch - 2015 Will be a Pivotal Year for HTML5 By Al Hilwa. "...The HTML5 standard is as much a political triumph as it is a technical triumph. HTML5 holds the promise of a unified set of technologies that can provide skills, code and effort sharing across multiple devices and operating systems from all walks of tech-land. Even if the promise of writing once and running everywhere cannot be realized fully (and it is clear that it cannot), HTML5 can provide time and cost savings by sharing aspects of the code or development effort." http://sdtimes.com/analyst-watch-2015-will-pivotal-year-html5 +08: JAVASCRIPT. ARIA-hidden (State) By Rakesh Paladugula. "ARIA-hidden state is used to hide certain portion of content for assistive technology users. Use of CSS properties such as display: none or visibility: hidden hide the content from the browser, in most of the cases even assistive technologies also do not render the content to the user when these CSS properties are used..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/12/aria-hidden-state/ One JavaScript - Avoiding Versioning in ECMAScript 6 By Axel Rauschmayer. "What is the best way to add new features to a language? This blog post describes the approach taken by ECMAScript 6, the next version of JavaScript. It is called One JavaScript, because it avoids versioning." http://www.2ality.com/2014/12/one-javascript.html ECMAScript 6 - New OOP Features Besides Classes By Axel Rauschmayer. "Classes are the major new OOP feature in ECMAScript 6 [1]. However, it also includes new features for object literals and new utility methods in Object. This blog post describes them..." http://www.2ality.com/2014/12/es6-oop.html Understanding DOM and Its Importance for Accessibility (Video) By Karl Groves. "As web developers we like to think that our hard work creating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is what makes our sites so great, but the reality is that all our hard work is really just a request that says "'Please, Mr. Browser, can you make this website do all the cool stuff I've designed here?' At the time the user's browser actually receives your web page and all of its assets, your control of the situation entirely ceases and control for how your site really looks and operates is entirely in the hands of the browser." http://vimeo.com/84970341 +09: MISCELLANEOUS. Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty By Eric A Meyer. "...If I could fix one thing about our industry, just one thing, it would be that: to increase awareness of and consideration for the failure modes, the edge cases, the worst-case scenarios. And so I will try." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/12/24/inadvertent-algorithmic-cruelty/ 6 Common Challenges in Managing UX Projects and How to Overcome Them By Loop 11. "...It's impossible not to notice certain patterns on how user experience projects wind up, regardless of the scope, the team size or even the deadline and the budget. These patterns, and the continuous iteration on how to better deal with them, have led us to identify some principles that pave the way to a better experience design. We'll talk about them in a future post. But first, let's talk a bit about the most common problems we have faced when doing UX..." http://www.loop11.com/the-6-most-common-problems-in-ux-projects/ Meet for Learning By Leslie Jensen-Inman. "'I've never worked in a place like this,' said one of my direct reports during our daily stand-up meeting..." http://24ways.org/2014/meet-for-learning/ +10: NAVIGATION. Link Breakage - Address that Moving to HTTPS URLs Breaks Links Wholesale By Tim Berners-Lee. "The disappearance of web material and the rotting of links is itself a major problem. This finding currently encouraging the wholesale breaking of links by moving from http: to https: , perhaps doing more damage to the web than any other change in its history..." https://github.com/w3ctag/web-https/issues/11 +11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Why I Care About MathML By Peter Krautzberger. "I think MathML is so far the best solution to present mathematical content on the web...But mathml sucks...What I also learned early on (in crass contrast to my 2009 self above) was that MathML has turned out to be critical for having truly accessible mathematics...." http://boolesrings.org/krautzberger/2014/12/26/why-i-care-about-mathml/ Poor Man's Styleguide By Bryan Braun. By poormansstyleguide. "A quick-and-dirty frontend styleguide, designed to be copied and pasted into your CMS..." http://www.poormansstyleguide.com/ +12: TOOLS. Tenon Check Chrome Extension By Karl Groves. "This extension adds a button to your browser. Click it, and the page you're currently viewing will be tested for Accessibility against WCAG 2.0 using Tenon.io." https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tenon-check/bmibjbhkgepmnehjfhjaalkikngikhgj +13: TYPOGRAPHY. The Good, The Bad And The Great Examples Of Web Typography By Jeremiah Shoaf. "Choosing typefaces is an integral part of every web design project. With thousands of typefaces available from hosting services such as Typekit, as well an ever-improving collection of free fonts available, there has never been a better time to be a typography-obsessed web designer." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/12/22/the-good-the-bad-and-the-great-examples-of-web-typography/ Typecast Web Typography Application By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "If you missed the announcement last week (like I did), web designers who love typography received an early holiday present..." http://www.lireo.com/typecast-free-web-typography-application/ +14: USABILITY. Designing For the Slow Web By Ben Rowe. "...Ultimately, designing for the slow web is about showing respect for our users. Your users are probably very busy people, with constant distractions in their lives. So make sure you're always respecting their time. Never be a distraction to your user's already-busy day. Never be pushy. A slower web should reduce the noise and informational clutter, not add to it. So next time you're adding a feature, or sending out a notification, ask yourself, 'Is this interaction or this touch-point truly going to make my user's day better?'" http://uxmas.com/2014/were-living-in-the-fast-web FAQs Still Deliver Great Value By Susan Farrell. "A usable website FAQ can improve products, services, information, and user experience as part of your knowledge management process." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/faqs-deliver-value/ Cohesive UX By Cameron Moll. "With Yosemite, Apple users can answer iPhone calls on their MacBooks. This is weird. And yet it's representative of a greater trend toward cohesion..." http://24ways.org/2014/cohesive-ux/ Twas the Night Before...Flat Design By Steven Bradley. "...Depth will return, I promise you that, some buttons already are not quite so flat. It's just a trend I say as I turn out the light, A new trend for all, and to all a good night." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/twas-the-night-before-flat-design/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +15: 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.]