+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 12, September 17, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 12 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: NAVIGATION. 07: PHP. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Short Note on Coding alt Text By Steve Faulkner. "...line breaks in alt attribute text, has a few suboptimal effects, dependent on browser and screen reader used..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/09/short-note-on-coding-alt-text/ How Do I Construct Accessible Documents? By State of California. "...We have put together some documents that provide more information about how to create accessible documents, and provide easy to follow instruction..." http://dor.ca.gov/DisabilityAccessInfo/How-do-I-Construct-Accessible-Documents.html How Do I Create Accessible Forms? By State of California. "Whether you are creating a form in HTML, PDF, Word or Excel, you need to ensure that they are accessible..." http://dor.ca.gov/DisabilityAccessInfo/How-do-I-Create-Accessible-Forms.html Demo of ChromeVox Screen Reader (Video) By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "Want to learn about the free ChromeVox screen reader from Google and find out what to expect in the next version?..." http://www.lireo.com/demo-of-chromevox-screen-reader-video/ Web Content Accessibility Guideline 1.1 By Andrea Skeries. "This month I'm tackling alternative text, which is a great place to start to help ensure your site meets accessibility guidelines and provides a great user experience for all site visitors..." http://geovoices.geonetric.com/2015/06/accessibility-tips/ Web Content Accessibility Guideline 1.2 By Andrea Skeries. "Time-based media is prerecorded or live audio-only, video-only or both together as synchronized media. Providing alternatives for these media types will enable millions of people who are deaf or hard of hearing to benefit from the content within your media..." http://geovoices.geonetric.com/2015/07/accessibility-tip/ Web Content Accessibility Guideline 1.4 By Andrea Skeries. "So far in my efforts to take the mystery out of web accessibility, I've tackled text alternatives and alternatives for time based media. This time I'm discussing the WCAG 2.0 1.4 guideline of making content distinguishable..." http://geovoices.geonetric.com/2015/09/accessibility-tips-1-4/ Screen Reader Market Figures - My Analysis Of WebAIM Survey #6 By Chris Hofstader. "...While this article illustrates some of the flaws in the WebAIM data, I'd like to repeat my appreciation to WebAIM for doing this work. I'd like to see a couple of things added (the age demographic) for instance, I'd like to see mobile technologies better separated from general purpose computing and I'd like to see the survey performed in more languages..." http://chrishofstader.com/screen-reader-market-figures-my-analysis-of-webaim-survey-6/ Code in Action - Closing the Black Box of WCAG 2.0, A Latourian Reading of Web Accessibility By David Kreps and Mhorag Goff. "The focus of much academic work on Web accessibility has been concerned with the lack of implementation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines..." http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6166/4900 The Challenges of Web Accessibility - The Technical and Social Aspects of a Truly Universal Web By Justin Brown and Scott Hollier. "This paper explores the concept of Web accessibility and how technologies, guidelines and policies have evolved since the turn of the twenty-first century in order to address the ideals of equitable access to online content for all people..." http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6165 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Source Order Matters By Adrian Roselli. "... Code your pages so the HTML source linearizes well and the content makes sense without styles. When you do add visual styles, try to get them to conform to the source order as much as possible. CSS grid and flexbox can make it tempting to render something completely differently than some bad structure you might inherit, but take a moment to think through its impact first. ..." http://adrianroselli.com/2015/09/source-order-matters.html +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. 10 Accessibility Checks in 10 Minutes By Rakesh Paladugula. "Quite often I receive requests to check the accessibility of a web page and say if it is accessible or not. In most of the cases the request is to identify high level accessibility issues to include in a business presentation..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/09/10-accessibility-checks-in-10-minutes/ Getting Big Ideas Out of Small Numbers By Greg Schuler. "When the topic of user research comes up with a new client, they're often surprised by the small number of users we want to speak to. It's important that designers and others involved in the design process understand research methodologies and can articulate the value we get from speaking to a small number of users..." http://www.cooper.com/journal/2013/5/getting-big-ideas-out-of-small-research +04: EVENTS. CSUN Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference March 21-26, 2016. San Diego, California, U.S.A. http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/index.htm WWW2016 April 11-15, 2016. Montreal, Canada. http://www2016.wwwconference.org/ +05: JAVASCRIPT. Code Library of Examples (Beta) By Deque. "This code library is a work in progress. It draws on the principles taught in the course ARIA and JavaScript Accessibility, which is available for individual or enterprise subscriptions..." https://dequeuniversity.com/library/ The Names of Functions in ES6 By Axel Rauschmayer. "The name property of a function contains its name..." http://www.2ality.com/2015/09/function-names-es6.html ECMAScript 6 - Holes in Arrays By Axel Rauschmayer. "This blog post describes how ECMAScript 6 handles holes in Arrays..." http://www.2ality.com/2015/09/holes-arrays-es6.html +06: 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. If the design calls for text links to not have underlines, but change the color of links, you are now confronted with a three sided design constraint. Simply having a different color is not sufficient, because this difference may not be perceivable to users with colorblindness or other visual impairments." http://chipcullen.com/accessible-links-without-underlines/ +07: PHP. An Introduction into Event Loops in PHP By Christopher Pitt. "PHP developers are always waiting for something. Sometimes we're waiting for requests to remote services. Sometimes we're waiting for databases to return rows from a complex query. Wouldn't it be great if we could do other things during all that waiting..." http://www.sitepoint.com/an-introduction-into-event-loops-in-php/ +08: USABILITY. Why Visitors only Read 20% of Your Web Page By Jack Simpson. "...Sadly it's true though. On average a user will only read 20% of the content on your page. There is one very simple reason for this slightly depressing fact...scanning..." https://econsultancy.com/blog/66920-why-visitors-only-read-20-of-your-web-page/ Digital Design Gives Control to the Customer By Gerry McGovern. "Historically, designers have been used to controlling the design because the design was physical and fixed. Web design is fluid, flexible and interactive. Web design is about putting the customer in control. It is about creating a design that is controllable by the customer." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/digital-design-gives-control-customer Slider Design - Rules of Thumb By Aurora Bedford. "Selecting a precise value using a slider is a difficult task requiring good motor skills, even if the slider is well designed. If picking an exact value is important to the goal of the interface, choose an alternate UI element." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/gui-slider-controls/ Should You Use a Custom Scroll Indicator? A Study with Eye-Tracking By Curt Arledge. "Our evidence suggests that custom scroll indicators may not be worth the development effort and page weight, for a few reasons..." https://viget.com/inspire/should-you-use-a-custom-scroll-indicator-a-study-with-eye-tracking [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.]