+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 44, April 24, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 44 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 03: HTML5. 04: JAVASCRIPT. 05: MISCELLANEOUS. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 07: 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. Forms and Error Handling for Accessibility By Rakesh Paladugula. "...In this article I will provide the major points to consider while handling the error validations..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/04/forms-and-error-handling-for-accessibility/ Stop Making Excuses and Start Captioning Your Videos By Lydia L. Callis. "In the year 2015, audism still dictates who is granted access to information and culture. Audism is the belief that those who have the sense of hearing are superior to those who do not, and it can cause oppression in even the most subtle ways..." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lydia-l-callis/stop-making-excuses-and-start-captioning-your-videos_b_7108396.html Website Accessibility - The Untapped Global Income Stream By Ben Newton. "...I know of a relatively untapped market that, in the USA alone, accounts for over 12% of the entire population…. This market is, of course, people with disabilities (PWD), which has an estimated world-wide population of 1.3 billion people..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/04/website-accessibility-the-untapped-global-income-stream.php Do Accessibility Checkers have a Place in QA? By Wilco Fiers. "...Accessibility checker tools are great! They provide a quick and relatively inexpensive way to find accessibility barriers on your website. They are useful during the development to encourage a style of coding that avoids accessibility barriers. They also provide a good starting point for anyone who wants to build accessibility into their quality assurance process, though they don't give you the whole picture. Accessibility checkers have limitations. Being aware of those means you can make better decisions about the tools you can use. The field of web accessibility has long been focused on manual audits, but there is a clear precedence for the use of tools. As long as we understand their limitations, we can manage them and get better and more efficient because of them." https://www.w3.org/community/auto-wcag/2015/04/23/accessibility-checkers-in-qa/ Alt Text Bot Image Descriptions FTW By Adrian Roselli. "This weekend I saw a tweet in Marcy Sutton's timeline that appeared to be an image description generated by a piece of software..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/04/alt-text-bot-image-descriptions-ftw.html +02: EVALUATION & TESTING. Do Users Notice Your Design Elements? 3 Ways to Find Out By Jeff Sauro. "...Understanding whether participants notice things, then, requires multiple approaches. Here are three approaches we use; each has its strengths and weaknesses..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/notice-designs-three.php Improve Your Emails for Better Usability Test Responses By Daniel G. "Here are a few tips for improving your usability test request emails, getting you a better response rate and more accurate, actionable results..." http://www.loop11.com/improve-your-emails-for-better-usability-test-responses/ Get the Usability Test Results You Need By Daniel G. "...In order to get the information you're after, you need to determine: 1.) What you want to know. 2.) What questions to ask to get the right answers..." http://www.loop11.com/get-the-usability-test-results-you-need/ +03: HTML5. What the Canvas Element Means for Accessibility By Mark Sadecki. "Mark Sadecki discusses two features of HTML5's canvas element that help make it accessible to users with disabilities. " http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/canvas-element-accessibility-41514740 Web Components, Accessibility and the Priority of Constituencies By Bruce Lawson. "...Today, Apple sent their consolidated feedback on Web Components to the webapps Working Group..." http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2015/web-components-accessibility-and-the-priority-of-constituencies/ Accessible Custom Interfaces with HTML5, ARIA & JavaScript By Leonie Watson. Leonie's presentation slides from Fluent conference. http://tink.uk/fluent-conf-accessible-custom-interfaces-with-html5-aria-javascript/ +04: JAVASCRIPT. jQuery Considered Harmful By Lea Verou. "Before I start, let me say that I think jQuery has helped tremendously to move the Web forward..." http://lea.verou.me/2015/04/jquery-considered-harmful/ +05: MISCELLANEOUS. On the Mis-Named Mobilegeddon By Adrian Roselli. If you are a web pro then it is likely that you heard that Google's search results were going to change based on how mobile-friendly a site is (you probably heard a couple months ago even). This change took effect yesterday. http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/04/on-mis-named-mobilegeddon.html Tips for Surviving Google's 'Mobilegeddon' By Aaron Gustafson. "Today is the day Google updates it algorithm to take into account mobile-friendliness. Here are a few tips that will help you embrace mobile without tearing your hair out..." http://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/tips-for-surviving-googles-mobilegeddon/ What Does the Future Hold for the Web? By creativebloq. "As John Allsopp's 'A Dao of Web Design' celebrates its fifteenth anniversary, we meet the man behind the ground breaking essay..." http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/what-does-future-hold-web-41514665 Accessible Apple - An Interview with Laura Legendary About the Intersection of Fashion and Accessibility By Alex Jurgensen. "Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to speak with Laura Legendary, cofounder of Fashionability and owner of Elegant Insights Braille Creations, about her opinion of the Apple Watch and its implications in the fashion industry. She is a speaker, author, and educator specializing in disability awareness, advocacy, accessibility, and assistive technology..." http://www.appleworld.today/blog/2015/4/19/accessible-apple-an-interview-with-laura-legendary-about-the-intersection-of-fashion-and-accessibility +06: NAVIGATION. Ultimate Guide to Link Types for Hyperlinks By Jacob Gube. "Link types help describe the relationship between two or more web pages. They can also express the reason why particular hyperlinks are present in the web page." http://sixrevisions.com/html/link-types-hyperlinks/ +07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Standardization and the Open Web By Jory Burson. "How do web standards become, well, standard? Although they're often formalized through official standards-making organizations, they can also emerge through popular practice among the developer community. If both sides don't work together, we risk delaying implementation, stifling creativity, and losing ground to politics and paralysis. Jory Burson sheds light on the historical underpinnings of web standardization processes-and what that means for the future of the open web." http://alistapart.com/article/standardization-and-the-open-web +08: TOOLS. aViewer - Accessibility Inspection Tool on Github By Steve Faulkner. "The Paciello Group are pleased to announce that, with the support of Google, the aViewer accessibility object inspection tool source code is now available on Github under an open source licence..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/04/aviewer-accessibility-inspection-tool-on-github/ +09: USABILITY. Mobile User Experience - Limitations and Strengths By Raluca Budiu. "Mobile smartphones come with inherent constraints: small screen, short sessions, single window visible at one time, and variable connectivity. But some of their features also present unique opportunities. Mobile-design principles reflect these limitations and strengths." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-ux/ What Really Matters: Focusing on Top Tasks By Gerry McGovern. "Every piece of web content is important-or so every stakeholder insists. But what happens when dozens, even hundreds, of different tasks battle for space on your homepage and in your navigation? It's time to make some hard choices about what does and doesn't belong. Gerry McGovern demonstrates how to zero in on the tasks that matter most to your users." http://alistapart.com/article/what-really-matters-focusing-on-top-tasks +10: XML. How To Structure Your SVG Code - The , , and <desc> Elements By Steven Bradley. "What's the best way to organize your SVG code? If all you want to draw is a line or simple shape there's not much to organize, but what about SVGs with multiple shapes and lines that combine to form a more complex whole?..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-structure/ [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.]