+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 05, July 30, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 05 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: JAVASCRIPT. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 08: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Why is so Much of the Internet Still Inaccessible to Disabled People? By S.E. Smith. "Twenty-five years ago, George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. It was a landmark piece of civil rights legislation for the disabled community, mandating equal treatment and providing for a wide range of protections. But it contained one big loophole: the internet..." http://www.theweek.com/articles/567908/why-much-internet-still-inaccessible-disabled-people 3.3.3 Error Suggestion By Rakesh Paladugula. "If an input error is automatically detected and suggestions for correction are known, then the suggestions are provided to the user, unless it would jeopardize the security or purpose of the content..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/07/3-3-3-error-suggestion/ Best Practices for Accessible Diagram Design (Draft) By Detlev Fischer. "Below you find the draft of an unpublished chapter of a forthcoming book (Diagrammatics, ed. by Clive Richards). More precisely, you find the draft of the meat of the chapter: A set of requirements followed by design checklists for three user groups: Low-vision users, blind users and users with cognitive and learning disabilities..." http://www.incobs.de/articles/items/diagram-a11y.html Media Player Accessibility Comparison Chart By Ohio State University Web Accessibility Center. "This matrix is developed and maintained by the Commitee on Institutional Cooperation Information Technology Accessibility Group (CIC ITAG) Media Player Accessibility sub-group. Much of its accessibilty criteria is borrowed from W3C Media Accessibility User Requirements. Links to projects, references, and comments are in "notes" associated with matrix cells." https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QJVcXx5hTWYBcJbHJD3DrL3hSFVbfy1VQFyADMtrDFY/edit#gid=0 Teaching Accessibility By teachingaccessibility.com. "All technology companies that have worked on accessibility have faced a similar challenge of preparing designers, engineers and researchers to think and build inclusively. Similarly, academic programs in design, engineering and HCI are seeking ways to better prepare students to address the needs of diverse populations. Given this shared challenge, industry, academia and advocacy have now come together to create models for teaching and training students of technology to create accessible experiences. If you're interested in working with us, please contact teachingaccessibility@gmail.com and @teachaccess." http://teachingaccessibility.com/ This Small Change Could Make a Big Difference for Accessible Technology By Hayley Tsukayama. "Tech firms such as Yahoo, Facebook, Dropbox and LinkedIn announced Thursday that they will develop standard language that lets applicants know that having accessibility knowledge is 'preferred' to land a job. The move is part of a larger program called 'Teaching Accessibility': a joint effort between disability advocates, schools and the tech industry to make all technology accessible from the start." https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/07/23/this-small-change-could-make-a-big-difference-for-accessible-technology/ Silicon Valley Vows To Improve Tech For People With Disabilities By Lorenzo Ligato. "At 19 percent of the U.S. population, people with disabilities represent the largest minority group in the country, but basic technologies are often inaccessible to them. Despite an increasing number of tools, a lack of industry-wide expertise in accessibility development still stands as a barrier to creating technology everyone can truly use..." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/silicon-valley-accessibility-people-with-disabilities_55b23b15e4b0224d8831d789 Accessibility for WordPress (Video) By Joe Dolson. "If you build a website with WordPress, build it with accessibility in mind. Making your content, themes, navigation, and other site features accessible helps everyone-including visitors who want to find your site through search engine results... http://www.lynda.com/sdk/course-tutorials/Accessibility-WordPress/374185-2.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS is Alive and Well By Louis Lazaris. "Due to the ever-growing popularity of React, Facebook's user interface library, there has been some discussion on the topic of CSS and whether or not it has a future in its current form - that is, in the form of declarations in a separate stylesheet that provide presentation information for a given page or section of markup..." http://www.sitepoint.com/css-is-alive-and-well/ Modern CSS Layout, Power and Responsibility By Rachel Andrew. "With this power comes great responsibility. For just as it will be possible for a developer to start out with a beautifully semantic, well structured document and use Grid and Flexbox to meet the design requirements, it will be possible for them to stop caring about the document structure at all. Worse, I believe there will be a strong temptation, especially with Grid, to flatten out document structure in order that all elements become a child of the element with the Grid declared. Making layout simple, but at what cost?.." https://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2015/07/28/modern-css-layout-power-and-responsibility/ Vendor Prefixes And Market Reality By Karl Dubost. "...The mess we are all involved is due to WebKit prefixes and the leader position they have on the mobile market can really help. This mess killed Opera Presto on mobile, which had to switch to Blink. Let's all create a better story for the Web and understand fully the consequences of our decisions. It's not only about technology, but also economic dynamics and market realities..." http://www.otsukare.info/2015/07/29/vendor-prefixes-market A Look at Length Units in CSS By Gajendar Singh. "...Measuring things is as important an aspect of web design, as any other. The fact that we have at least 10 different measurement units in CSS speaks for itself..." http://www.sitepoint.com/look-at-length-units-in-css/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. A/B Testing Mobile Apps - Q&A with Apptimize By Nancy Hua. "Today's post is a Q&A session with Nancy Hua, CEO of Apptimize..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/07/22/ab-testing-mobile-apps/ 5 Essential Statistical Tests and Calculators By Jeff Sauro. "...With the five tests I cover here, you can test most of your hypotheses in the customer experience..." https://measuringu.com/blog/five-essential-tests.php +04: EVENTS. Mobility and Modern Web Conference September 16-18 2015. Los Angeles, California U.S.A. http://mmwcon.org/ Thunder Plains Developer Conference November 3, 2015. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.A. http://thunderplainsconf.com/ Frontiers of Interaction 2015: FrontiersX November 12-13, 2015. Milan, Italy http://2015.frontiersofinteraction.com/ NationJS November 12-13, 2015. Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.A. http://nationjs.com/ Full Stack Toronto Conference November 14-15, 2015. Toronto, Canada http://fsto.co/ +05: JAVASCRIPT. 5 Rules For Using ARIA Roles, States, And Properties By Steven Bradley. "How do you know when to use ARIA and when it isn't necessary..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/five-rules-aria-html/ ARIA-Orientation (Property) By Rakesh Paladugula. "Aria-orientation property is used to indicate if an element is oriented horizontally or vertically on a web page. aria-orientation is used on components such as separators, scrollbars and spin buttons..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/07/aria-orientation-property/ New Regular Expression Features in ECMAScript 6 By Axel Rauschmayer. "This blog post explains new regular expression features in ECMAScript 6..." http://www.2ality.com/2015/07/regexp-es6.html +06: MISCELLANEOUS. The Future of Accessible Software - Sharron Rush Interview By Divya Mulanjur. "Partners on Employment and Accessible Technology (PEAT) recently interviewed Knowbility's Executive Director, Sharron Rush, on her thoughts regarding the future of accessible technology..." http://blog.knowbility.org/content/the-future-of-accessible-software-sharron-rush-interview/ Moving the Web Platform Forward By Philippe le Hegaret. "The Web Platform keeps moving forward every day.." http://www.w3.org/blog/2015/07/moving-the-web-platform-forward/ Stop Pushing the Web Forward By Peter-Paul Koch. "Fair warning. You're going to hate this one. I want to stop pushing the web forward for a while. I want a moratorium on new browser features for about a year or so." http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/07/stop_pushing_th.html Publishing Versus Performance: Our Struggle for the Soul of the Web By Jeffery Zeldman. "My soul is in twain. Two principles on which clued-in web folk heartily agree are coming more and more often into conflict..." http://www.zeldman.com/2015/07/29/publishing-versus-performance-our-struggle-for-the-soul-of-the-web/ +07: USABILITY. My Definitive Guide to Why CAPTCHA Sucks By Paul Boag. "CAPTCHA is one of the most damaging and unnecessary user interface elements. Those that use CAPTCHA cannot claim to be user centric in their approach..." https://boagworld.com/usability/my-definitive-guide-to-why-captcha-sucks/ Mobile Faceted Search with a Tray: New and Improved Design Pattern By Kathryn Whitenton. "Displaying faceted-search controls on mobile devices in a 'tray' overlay is a new effective solution to the challenge of showing both results and filters on small screens." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-faceted-search/ Indicators, Validations, and Notifications: Pick the Correct Communication Option By Kim Flaherty. "Status feedback is crucial to the success of any system. Knowing when to use 3 common communication methods is key to supporting users." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/indicators-validations-notifications/ 6 Tips Every UX Researcher Should Memorize By Hannah Alvarez. "When you're conducting UX research, your goal is to get consistent and reliable feedback on how users naturally interact with a product. You're looking to find pain points in the user experience, identifying any areas where users become confused. But if your test plan is faulty, then you won't be able to tell what was actually confusing the participants: the product or the test itself..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/07/23/6-ux-research-tips/ How to Use the Psychology of Choice to Increase Online Sales By Spencer Lanoue. "...if you give people too many options they're far less likely to click, subscribe, or buy your product..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/07/28/how-to-use-the-psychology-of-choice-to-increase-online-sales/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +08: 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.]