+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 35, February 23, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 35 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: TOOLS. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Board Proposes Updated ICT Accessibility Requirements By Access Board. "The Board has released for public comment a proposed rule updating accessibility requirements for information and communication technology (ICT) in the federal sector covered by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. The rule also would jointly update guidelines for telecommunications equipment subject to Section 255 of the Communications Act..." http://www.access-board.gov/news/1717-board-proposes-updated-ict-accessibility-requirements Access to Visual Flexibilty Including Word Wrapping By Wayne Dick. "...So far the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of 2008 (WCAG 2.0) have been the biggest setback for people with low vision in this new century. If replicated by the US Access Board this mistake will leave people with low vision in the United States worse off then they were with the current 508. Today, 508 (1194.22(d)) protects the right to restyle content visually. This capability is explicitly missing from WCAG 2.0..." http://nosetothepage.org/Articles/A2.html The 508 Refresh Low Vision TimeBomb By Denis Boudreau. "...If there are any doubts that the Refresh has really dropped the ball on a user group as clearly and widely represented as the low vision users group - and I believe it has, then it is our responsibility, as that inclusive, caring accessibility community, to do everything we can to either slow the process down, so we do come up with proposals/techniques/ideas to fill the gaps or minimally, make sure the shortcomings for the low vision community are somehow addressed. It's not a question of talking out of both sides of our mouths, it's simply a matter of being coherent and doing all we can to cater to the needs of as many people as we can, because we happen to claim that we care about everyone..." http://www.denisboudreau.org/blog/2015/02/the-508-refresh-low-vision-time-bomb/ How Do I Know if My Web Project is Accessible? By Michael Beil. "Here's a list of the 16 questions that were proposed to help you determine whether your web project is accessible..." http://michaelbeil.com/a11y-web-project Testing aria-describedby and aria-labelledby in Browsers and Screen Readers By David MacDonald. "Below are testing results of aria-labelledby and aria-describedby with one AND two label references in popular browser and screen reader combinations." http://davidmacd.com/blog/is-tabindex-required-on-describedby.html What is Accessibility? By Dylan Barrell. "Lately there seem to have been a lot of different posts exclaiming 'Accessibility is not X' or 'Accessibility is not Y' but not too many helping to define what accessibility is. So what is accessibility? At Deque we talk about 'Digital Equality' and obviously that is the goal of accessibility, but how do we get there and what actions should we take and which ones should we avoid?..." http://unobfuscated.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-is-accessibility.html An Uncomfortable Missing Part of the Accessibility Discussion By Josh Korr. "...Here is the obvious, but usually glossed over, truth about web accessibility: Accessibility has a cost..." http://viget.com/advance/an-uncomfortable-missing-part-of-the-accessibility-discussion Access Optional By Tim Kadlec. "...The problem is not that there is a cost involved in building something that works well in different contexts than our own. The problem is that we're treating that as an option instead of a given part of what it means to build for the web..." http://timkadlec.com/2015/02/access-optional/ Examples of WCAG Level AAA Websites By Luke McGrath. "...I'd like to use this blog post to highlight some great examples of Level AAA websites out in the wild, used by real visitors every single day. If you know of a Level AAA website, leave a comment and I'll add it to the list..." https://www.wuhcag.com/wcag-level-aaa-websites/ Coles Web Accessibility Case Settled By Tim Lohman. "The case against grocery retailer Coles, for the alleged inaccessibility of its online shopping service, has been settled..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/02/coles-web-accessibility-case-settled Social Networks and Accessibility - A Not So Sad Picture By Marco Zehe. "This post originally was written in December 2011 and had a slightly different title. Fortunately, the landscape has changed dramatically since then, so it is finally time to update it with more up to date information..." https://www.marcozehe.de/2015/02/21/social-networks-and-accessibility-a-rather-sad-picture/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Accidental CSS Resets By Chris Coyier. "Any time you use a shorthand property in CSS, you set all the values for all the properties it deals with. It's not a bug, it's just how CSS works. I've seen it confuse people plenty of times. Let's shine a light on the issue to hopefully make it more understood..." http://css-tricks.com/accidental-css-resets Why You Should Be Excited About CSS Shapes By Chen Hui Jing. "...The W3C spec is not that easy to understand, so here's my attempt at explaining it in plain English...this is a feature that we should all keep an eye on, and get ourselves ready for, because this could potentially change the way we design websites altogether." http://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/why-you-should-be-excited-about-css-shapes/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. How to Test the Usability of Prototypes Like a Pro By Jerry Cao. "Usability isn't something you just can cook up in any one phase of design, but must be developed and refined throughout the entire process. If you want the best end product, you have to anticipate real user scenarios from the prototyping phase. Usability testing should be the last place to start thinking about usability..." http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/02/how-to-test-the-usability-of-prototypes-like-a-pro/ How to Weight Data to Make More Balanced Decisions By Jeff Sauro. "...A few things to remember about weighted data. While many variables could affect our measures, participants' prior experience with a product is one of the most salient. The weighted t-test is the statistical test to re-balance your sample. The weighted t-test adjusts means and standard deviations to generate p-values based on the correct representation. Using the weighted statistical test versus an unweighted statistical test doesn't necessarily yield different conclusions. Have a good reason and actual data to support weighting your sample." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/weighted-experience.php +04: EVENTS. Global Accessibility Awareness Day May 21, 2015. Everywhere. http://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/gaad.html +05: HTML5. Better SVG Fallback and Art Direction With The Element By Sara Soueidan. "Besides using an SVG as a background image in CSS, you can serve SVG foreground images in HTML using one of several embedding techniques, each of which has its advantages and use cases. Unless you're in need of interactivity or external styling, is the standard way for loading an SVG image, but it has one disadvantage: you currently need JavaScript to provide fallback and/or change the image source for art direction. In this post, I'll talk about a better way to do that, using the element..." http://sarasoueidan.com/blog/svg-picture/ +06: JAVASCRIPT. Progressive Enhancement is Not About JavaScript Availability By Christian Heilmann. "I have been telling people for years that in order to create great web experiences and keep your sanity as a developer you should embrace Progressive Enhancement..." http://christianheilmann.com/2015/02/18/progressive-enhancement-is-not-about-javascript-availability/ A 90 Minute Overview of ECMAScript 6 (Video) By Axel Rauschmayer. "On February 1, 2015, I held the 90 minute talk 'Using ECMAScript 6 today' at the Rolling Scopes Conference in Minsk. A video recording of that talk is online..." http://www.2ality.com/2015/02/using-es6-today-minsk.html Terrible JavaScript Mistakes to Avoid with a Static Code Analyzer By Zack Grossbart. "Hardly any line of my code comes out perfect the first time I write it. Well, most of the time… Some of the time… Um, hardly ever. The truth is that I spend more time chasing down my own stupid programming errors than I'd like to admit. That's why I use static analyzers in every JavaScript file I write..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/02/18/avoid-javascript-mistakes-with-static-code-analyzer/ +07: TOOLS. Accessibility Inspection Features for Chrome Devtools By Alice Boxhall . "Developers working on web applications have an excellent and comprehensive set of tools in Chrome DevTools for a wide range of tasks including inspecting the DOM, visualising and live-editing CSS, examining performance issues with the page, debugging and editing their JavaScript, exploring and interacting with local storage, and more. However, the devtools suite offers almost no assistance with accessibility-related issues. We have an opportunity to allow developers to explore, find and fix potential accessibility issues with their page just as they do with performance problems, JavaScript bugs or CSS quirks..." https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bj9Dc3_DnezF-IeNg51LEG2zfGtxD3YKP5t7SBB_-Dk/ +08: USABILITY. White Space By Isabella Morris. "...As a commonly-overlooked and underutilized element, white space is indeed one of the most valuable assets of a web design..." http://usabilitygeek.com/white-spaces-improving-usability-web-designs/ The Best Interface Is No Interface - An Interview with Golden Krishna By Golden Krishna. "User Experience Designer Golden Krishna talks to Peachpit about his new book, The Best Interface Is No Interface: The simple path to brilliant technology, why the screen isn't always the best answer, imagining more elegant answers beyond the screen, and the best and worst examples of user interfaces." http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2314085&WT [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.]