+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 36, February 26, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 36 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: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 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. The Unbearable Inaccessibility of Slideshows By Gian Wild. "Slideshow. Slider. Carousel. Whatever you call them, they're ubiquitous on organizational home pages across the web. And almost all of them are inaccessible..." http://www.sitepoint.com/unbearable-accessible-slideshow/ Accessible Charts and Information Graphics By Tim Lohman. "Fred Esch, Accessibility Lead, Watson Innovations IBM, on the access challenges associated with charts and other information graphics, and approaches to addressing them..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/02/accessible-charts-and-information-graphics Capturing and Captioning a Screen Reader Demo By Becky Gibson. "Here are the steps I used to create and caption my demo. It is much easier said than done but the process is getting easier..." http://www.weba11y.com/blog/2015/02/24/capturing-and-captioning-a-screen-reader-demo/ aria-label (Property) By Rakesh Paladugula. "Aria-label (property) aria-label is used for the objects where users need to know the action associated with them..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/02/aria-label-property/ Accessibility Originates With UX - A BBC iPlayer Case Study By Henny Swan. "Not long after I started working at the BBC, I fielded a complaint from a screen reader user who was having trouble finding a favorite show via the BBC iPlayer's home page. The website had recently undergone an independent accessibility audit which indicated that, other than the odd minor issue here and there, it was reasonably accessible..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/02/23/bbc-iplayer-accessibility-case-study/ Regulations on the Universal Design of ICT By uu.difi.no. "This website provides information about ยง 14 in the Anti-Discrimination and Accessibility Act and the regulations that legislate the universal design of information and communication technology (ICT) in Norway..." http://uu.difi.no/english Proposed Accessibility Standards for Federal Government Websites Highlights Double Standard Justice Department Seeks to Impose on Public Accommodations By Minh Vu and Kristina Launey. "On February 18, 2015, the U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board ('Access Board') issued a proposed rule ('NPRM') which would, among other things, adopt the WCAG 2.0 Level AA Guidelines ('WCAG 2.0 Level AA') as the standard for federal government websites. " http://www.adatitleiii.com/2015/02/proposed-accessibility-standards-for-federal-government-websites-highlights-double-standard-justice-department-seeks-to-impose-on-public-accommodations/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Selector Specificity with CSS Preprocessors By Alexander Futekov. "Selector specificity is a real problem for most medium and large-sized projects, and as any other frequently recurring coding problem it needs to be addressed carefully..." http://www.sitepoint.com/selector-specificity-css-preprocessors/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Practical Tips for Web and Mobile Usability Tests By Jerry Cao. "...While most usability testing methods described in The Guide to Usability Testing apply to Web and mobile, we want to describe some of the nuances specific to each medium. Actually, most usability testing methods can be run any product from cloud payment systems to next-generation gaming consoles. In this piece, we want to narrow our focus a little so you can best understand how the fundamental differences between how Web and mobile are used require different tactics..." http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/01/04/practical-tips-web-mobile-usability-tests/ How to Test The Prototype of Usability as a Professional By Webzin. "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.webzin.in/test-usability-prototypes-like-pro.html +04: EVENTS. Remotely Possible Webinar Series February 25, March 18, April 1, April 22, April 29, and May 13, 2015. Online http://www.usertesting.com/resources/remotely-possible +05: HTML5. Aural UI of the Elements of HTML By Steve Faulkner and Leonie Watson. "...Typical support patterns of HTML elements by screen readers..." http://thepaciellogroup.github.io/AT-browser-tests/ HTML5 Structural Elements-Sectioning Elements By Steven Bradley. "Are you using any of the new HTML5 structural elements in your work? Have you replaced div class='nav' with the nav element? Do you know when to use elements like article, section, and aside?" http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/html5-sectioning-elements/ +06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Pointer Events Advance to W3C Recommendation By Patrick H. Lauke. "As a member of the Pointer Events Working Group, I am delighted to see that today Pointer Events advanced to an official W3C Recommendation..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/02/pointer-events-advance-to-w3c-recommendation/ Pointer Events W3C Recommendation, Interoperable Touch, and Removing the Dreaded 300ms Tap Delay By Jacob Rossi. "Today, the W3C published Pointer Events as a final Recommendation standard. This journey began a little over 2 years ago when we first submitted our proposal to the W3C for a common event model across pointing input devices..." http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2015/02/24/pointer-events-w3c-recommendation-interoperable-touch-and-removing-the-dreaded-300ms-tap-delay.aspx Apple's Web? By Tim Kadlec. "While Microsoft has a full implementation in IE11 and Mozilla is working on it, Apple has shown no interest and Google seems ready to follow their lead...." http://timkadlec.com/2015/02/apples-web/ Tired of Safari By Peter-Paul Koch. "Apple's paranoid approach to developer relations, and, I assume, relations with other browser vendors (and, in fact, relations to anything outside itself) is becoming a serious liability to the open Web. That is the issue we must confront..." http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/02/tired_of_safari.html +07: TOOLS. Colorable By Brent Jackson. "Takes a set color palette and shows contrast values for every possible combination. This is useful for finding safe color combinations with predefined colors and includes pass/fail scores for the WCAG accessibility guidelines..." http://jxnblk.com/colorable/demos/text/ http://jxnblk.com/colorable/ HTML5 Video Caption Maker By Microsoft. "Caption Maker lets you view a video and define captions for scenes between in and out points. Once you've created a caption list, you can save it to a WebVTT or TTML format file which can be used in Internet Explorer 10. You can preview the caption file with the video from within Caption Maker, or create yourself an HTML5 webpage that uses the track tag..." http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/CaptionMaker/ +08: USABILITY. Writing for the Web By usability.gov. "When writing for the web, using plain language allows users to find what they need, understand what they have found, and then use it to meet their needs. It should also be actionable, findable, and shareable..." http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/writing-for-the-web.html [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.]