+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 29, January 16, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 29 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: HTML5. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: TOOLS. 09: USABILITY. 10: XML. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Call for Review - WCAG 2.0 Techniques Draft Updates By Shawn Henry. "Updates of two supporting documents for Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) 2.0 are available for review. *This is not an update to WCAG 2.0, which is a stable document*. The supporting documents (W3C Working Group Notes) are updated periodically to reflect current practices and technologies. The existing Techniques and Understanding documents remain in place as W3C Notes while the separate draft updates are under review and the WCAG Working Group addresses comments..." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2015JanMar/0003.html Understanding the Structure of WCAG 2.0 By Ken Nakata. "...While WCAG 2.0 can appear daunting at first, it can be best explained as a hierarchy comprising of four levels of information..." http://blog.hisoftware.com/2015/accessibility/understanding-the-structure-of-wcag-2-0 Quickly Check Your Website for Common Accessibility Problems with tenon.io By Marco Zehe. "Tenon.io is a new tool to test web sites against some of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines criteria. While this does not guarantee the usability of a web site, it gives you an idea of where you may have some problems. Due to its API, it can be integrated into workflows for test automation and other building steps for web projects..." http://www.marcozehe.de/2015/01/14/quickly-check-your-website-for-common-accessibility-problems-with-tenon-io/ Indicating Link Purpose with ARIA By Heidi Jungel. "Authors must avoid using the same text for links that retrieve different resources. Users without disabilities may be able to identify the links differently based on other page content; however, users with cognitive disabilities and users who are blind or visually impaired may have difficulty making the distinction when link text does not adequately describe each link's purpose..." https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2015/01/09/indicating-link-purpose-with-aria/ The iframe Delemma By David MacDonald. "...I propose the following: A missing title on an iframe is a failure of WCAG 4.1.2 unless it is presenting content that is not distinct from its surrounding context in which case the iframe should be given tabinex="-1" so it doesn't receive tab focus OR unless it is hidden from all users and AT..." http://davidmacd.com/blog/is-title-attribute-on-iframe-required-by-wcag.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS4 May Include Some Useful Pseudo Classes By Virginia DeBolt. "The editor's draft (emphasis on draft) for Level 4 Selectors from the W3C mentions some potential new pseudo selectors that the W3C describes as functional." http://www.webteacher.ws/2015/01/12/css4-may-include-useful-functional-pseudo-classes/ Strategies for Keeping CSS Specificity Low By Chris Coyier. "Keeping CSS specificity low across all the selectors in your project is a worthy goal. It's generally a sign that things are in relative harmony. You aren't fighting against yourself and you have plenty of room to override styles when you need to. Specificity on selectors tends to creep up over time, and there is a hard ceiling to that. I'm sure we've all felt the pain of !important tags and inline styles..." http://css-tricks.com/strategies-keeping-css-specificity-low/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. 6 Opposing UX Concepts that are Really Complementary By Jeff Sauro. "...The following pairs of essential concepts are often portrayed as mutually exclusive while, in fact, the elements of each pair complement each other..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/opposite-ux.php +04: EVENTS. Web Design Day 2015 June 12, 2015. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. http://www.webdesignday.com/ SmashingConf New York 2015 June 15-18, 2015. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://www.smashingconf.com/ Breaking Development (BDConf) June 19-20, 2015. Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A. https://bdconf.com/ Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit 2015 June 20-24, 2015. Columbus, Ohio U.S.A. http://summit.stc.org/ Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) International 2015 August 2-7, 2015. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. http://2015.hci.international/index.php +05: HTML5. On Use of the Lang Attribute By Adrian Roselli. "Way back in October I noticed this WHATWG HTML bug (26942) where someone asked "why do these examples of lack the lang attribute?" I thought the answer from Hixie was a bit dismissive and not based on any data or real-world benefits of use, particularly in the context of screen readers..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/01/on-use-of-lang-attribute.html +06: JAVASCRIPT. JavaScript Cookbook 2nd Edition Examples By Shelley Powers. Shelley loaded her JavaScript Cookbook 2nd edition examples into Github. https://github.com/shelleyp/javascriptcookbook Interactive JavaScript Tutorials By Jacob Gube. "Learning the fundamentals of JavaScript can be easier and more fun through interactive tutorials. Interactive tutorials are immersive, letting you write and experience code immediately..." http://sixrevisions.com/javascript/interactive-javascript-tutorials/ ECMAScript 6 Sets - union, intersection, difference By Axel Rauschmayer. "A recent question by Dmitry Moskowski reminded me: ECMAScript 6 sets have no methods for computing the union (e.g. addAll), intersection (e.g. retainAll) or difference (e.g. removeAll). This blog post explains how to work around that limitation..." http://www.2ality.com/2015/01/es6-set-operations.html +07: MISCELLANEOUS. W3C Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) 2.0 Compliance at Illinois (video) Jon Gunderson's presentation at the University of Illinois Webmaster Workshop. https://illinois.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/W3C+Web+Content+Accessibility+Guideline+%28WCAG%29+2.0+Compliance+at+Illinois/1_iwps5qea/25369341 +08: TOOLS. Tenon Check (Mozilla Add On) By Marco Zehe. "Tenon.io is a new platform to test your website against the most common accessibility and usability errors. This add-on allows you to quickly check the page that is loaded in your current tab against the Tenon test suite and get immediate results without having to write JS and validate the returned JSON code yourself. The results will be displayed in a new tab. To invoke the test, you can either use the toolbar button, or right-click your web page and choose the "Check page with Tenon" context menu item. This latter also works with the keyboard, so you don't even need to use a mouse to test your web page for accessibility. The web page must be on a publicly reachable URL." https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tenon-check/ +09: USABILITY. Timing Guidelines for Exposing Hidden Content By Aurora Bedford. "Events triggered via hover or click require distinct timing to avoid accidental activations and ensure that the user feels in control of the interface." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/timing-exposing-content/ UX is Key to Branding. Here's Why. By Tom Kenny. "Branding can inform UX and UX can Define Branding" http://inspectelement.com/articles/ux-branding/ +10: XML. SVG Basics-How To Create Simple Shapes And Lines By Steven Bradley. "... I kind of covered some simple SVG shapes before, but I thought I'd run through them again as my previous coverage was limited and the run through will help me understand things better..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-shapes-lines/ [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 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.]