+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 11, September 10, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 11 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: COLOR. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML5. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: SITES & BLOGS. 11: TOOLS. 12: TYPOGRAPHY. 13: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 14: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Use On-Page Image Descriptions By Adrian Roselli. "...Use an in-page anchor for long-form descriptions for images. Both longdesc and aria-describedat require a valid non-empty URL potentially surrounded by spaces. That includes in-page anchors..." http://adrianroselli.com/2015/09/use-on-page-image-descriptions.html Accessible Tabbed Navigation in Android By Chris McMeeking and Melinda Kothbauer. "TabWidgets are a tool that can add great functionality to your mobile Android apps; however, they are inaccessible by default. WCAG 4.1.2 describes the need for all user interface components to have a name, role, and value to ensure that assistive technology users have the necessary information to navigate screens effectively. This is especially true for TabWidgets in Android..." http://www.deque.com/blog/tabbed-navigation/ Designing Safer Web Animation For Motion Sensitivity By Val Head. "For millions of people with vertigo and inner ear problems, large-scale web animations can trigger nausea, migraines, and dizziness. To make websites accessible for everyone, we don't need to eliminate animation; we need to apply it more thoughtfully. Val Head walks us through some of the challenges posed by vestibular disorders and provides guidelines for designing with motion sensitivity in mind." http://alistapart.com/article/designing-safer-web-animation-for-motion-sensitivity Amara Makes Video More Accessible By Virginia DeBolt. "I just discovered a subtitling tool called Amara that is a global captioning and translation project for video..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2015/09/07/amara-makes-video-accessible/ How to Convert Word Documents to HTML By DeborahEdwards-Onoro. "...When you convert Word documents to HTML, you make your content available to everyone in a format that any device can read since HTML is the standard language used to create web pages..." http://www.lireo.com/how-to-convert-word-documents-to-html/ Tips for Creating Accessible eLearning Resources By Adrienne Gross. "...While this article will be useful for developers, I particularly want to talk to the 'project stakeholders' - the people who drive these projects - about what to think about when contracting someone to design and build your eLearning course..." http://www.sitepoint.com/tips-making-accessible-elearning/ An Accessibility Strategy to Reimagine Business as Usual By Wendy Moltrup. "...The ultimate goal is for accessibility to become part of business as usual by involving everyone, including designers, writers, quality assurance, business partners, and leadership..." https://www.wuhcag.com/business-as-usual/ Why Accessibility is A CIO's New Responsibility By Jim Anderson. "...we are starting to discover that CIOs have yet another new job - implementing accessibility..." http://theaccidentalsuccessfulcio.com/technology-2/why-accessibility-is-a-cios-new-responsibility On Certification By Karl Groves. "...Instead of 'weeding out' those who lack the advanced knowledge necessary in today's tech industry, I vote that we seek to mentor and educate others. I think pushing a certification is a backwards approach at solving a much bigger problem than so-called 'imposters'..." http://www.karlgroves.com/2015/08/03/on-certification/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Grid and The Box Alignment Module By Rachel Andrew. "Having good control over alignment and justification is one of the major benefits of modern layout methods such as Flexbox and CSS Grid Layout..." https://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2015/09/02/css-grid-and-the-box-alignment-module/ +03: COLOR. Making Selected Button States Clear for Color Blind Users By UX Movement. "Color communicates a lot on user interfaces. But not as much for color blind users. They often have trouble distinguishing between different colored objects..." http://uxmovement.com/buttons/making-selected-button-states-clear-for-color-blind-users/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. On Surveys By Erika Hall. "Surveys are the most dangerous research tool - misunderstood and misused. They frequently straddle the qualitative and quantitative, and at their worst represent the worst of both..." https://www.uie.com/articles/on_surveys/ When a Survey is the Better Research Method By Jeff Sauro. "...Surveys are an essential research tool just like qualitative observational research is. Knowing how to use the methods correctly and in the right combination takes practice..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/better-survey.php What User Researchers can Bring to the Design Studio Methodology By David Travis. "The Design Studio is a wonderful methodology to encourage multidisciplinary design, but in practice teams often create design concepts that aren't grounded in user research. We can bake user research findings into every design concept that emerges by using the context of use (users, goals and environments) as a constraint. As an added bonus, this approach helps teams create many more solutions to a design problem." http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/user-research-design-studio.html +05: EVENTS. How do I Know if my PDF is Accessible? September 17, 2015. Online Webinar. http://www.ada-audio.org/Webinar/AccessibleTechnology/Schedule/#fy2015Session6 11 ½ Free Tools for Testing Website Accessibility October 1, 2015. Online Webinar. http://info.3playmedia.com/webinar-registration-10-01-2015.html Social Media, Accessibility and Disability Inclusion November 19, 2015. Online Webinar. http://www.ada-audio.org/Webinar/AccessibleTechnology/Schedule/#fy2015Session7 +06: HTML5. Key Takeaways from HTML5 Video Accessibility By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "Last week I attended the HTML5 Video Accessibility: Updates, Features & Guidelines webinar from 3Play Media. Guest speaker John Foliot, W3C contributor and accessibility expert at Deque Systems, discussed guidelines for making videos accessible and shared his tips and insights on HTML5 video..." http://www.lireo.com/key-takeaways-from-html5-video-accessibility/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. aria-owns (property) By Rakesh Paladugula. "Aria-owns identifies an element (or elements) in order to define a visual, functional, or contextual parent/child relationship between DOM elements where the DOM hierarchy cannot be used to represent the relationship..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/09/aria-owns-property/ ARIA Countdown Timer By Paul J Adam. "Example should speak each minute change with aria live regions..." http://pauljadam.com/demos/ariacountdown.html Typed Arrays in ECMAScript 6 By Axel Rauschmayer. "Typed Arrays are an ECMAScript 6 API for handling binary data. This blog post explains how they work..." http://www.2ality.com/2015/09/typed-arrays.html +08: MISCELLANEOUS. 50 Years Ago Today the Word 'Hypertext' was Introduced By Byron Reese. "On August 24, 1965 Ted Nelson used the word 'hypertext' (which he coined) in a paper he presented at the Association for Computing Machinery. I was able to interview him earlier this month about the event and his early thoughts on the future of computing..." https://gigaom.com/2015/08/24/hypertext-50/ Put the 'Designers Should Code' Debate to Rest By Stephen Hay. "...It's not about the code. It's not even about the tools. Prototyping is about asking reality for feedback." http://www.the-haystack.com/2015/09/02/put-the-designers-should-code-debate-to-rest/ +09: NAVIGATION. Accessible Links Without Underlines By Chip Cullen. "When styling hyperlinks within blocks of text, sticking to the convention of underlines is always preferable. It's clear, easily understood, and accessible..." http://chipcullen.com/accessible-links-without-underlines/ Audience-Based Navigation - 5 Reasons to Avoid It By Katie Sherwin. "Role-based IAs increase cognitive effort and user anxiety. Clear language and mutually exclusive categories reduce the chance of harming the user experience." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/audience-based-navigation/ +10: SITES & BLOGS. Modern Accessibility Forum By Paul J. Adam. "Registration is super simple! I'm tweaking the forum to make it accessible and screen reader friendly. Please join and start some Accessibility discussions! :) I'm happy to answer your a11y related questions..." http://modernaccessibility.com/ +11: TOOLS. HTML Color Codes By Alex Dixon. "Get HTML color codes, Hex color codes, RGB and HSL values with our color picker, color chart and HTML color names..." http://htmlcolorcodes.com/ +12: TYPOGRAPHY. A Beautifully Illustrated Glossary Of Typographic Terms You Should Know By Janie Kliever. "The world of typography often seems like it has its very own language, full of serifs, strokes, and swashes..." https://designschool.canva.com/blog/typography-terms/ +13: USABILITY. Preventing User Errors - Avoiding Conscious Mistakes By Page Laubheimer. "Thoughtful design is transparent and easy to understand, provides a preview, and helps users to easily correct their errors." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/user-mistakes/ Hello, My Name is Error By Aimee Gonzalez-Cameron. "Registering for school, paying bills, updating government documents-we conduct a significant part of our daily lives through web forms. So when simply typing in your name breaks a form, well, user experience, we have a problem. As our population continues to diversify, we need designs that accommodate a broader range of naming conventions. Aimee Gonzalez shows how cultural assumptions affect what we build on the web-and how fostering awareness and refining our processes can start to change that." http://alistapart.com/article/hello-my-name-is-error Never Use The Confirm Dialog By Daniel Delaney. "It's a standard function of all browsers, it's everywhere, and it's time to retire it..." http://danieldelaney.github.io/confirm/ Dictatorship of the Customer and the Paradox of Complexity By Gerry McGovern. "Do happy staff make for happy customers or do increasingly demanding customers result in a stressful work environment?" http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/dictatorship-customer-and-paradox-complexity How to Win Friends and Influence People with User-Centered Copywriting By Hannah Alvarez. "Whether you're writing marketing copy or UX copy, your goal is to get the user to take action. But in order to get users to act, you need to overcome the biggest challenge in copywriting..." https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/09/03/user-centered-copywriting/ What is Meant by User Experience? Analyzing Usability/User Experience Professionals' Dynamic Representations of Self By Rebecca Zantjer, Laura Gonzales. "This research investigates the ways usability/user experience professionals describe themselves for different audiences and across multiple digital platforms, including LinkedIn, Twitter, portfolio websites, and business websites..." http://uxpajournal.org/analyzing-ux-professionals-dynamic-representations-of-self/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +14: 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.]