+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 20, November 12, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 20 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: DRUPAL. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML5. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Be Wary of Add-on Accessibility By Adrian Roselli. "When I say 'add-on accessibility', I am referring to web sites that use custom tools to try to address accessibility gaps. Typically this is done in place of a team writing code that is accessible on its own. This is usually because the team doesn't have the accessibility skill, a company is concerned about lawsuits, or a well-meaning stakeholder is trying to do the right thing..." http://adrianroselli.com/2015/11/be-wary-of-add-on-accessibility.html Legal Action Against the NBA Over Website Accessibility By Chris Pycroft. "...The discrimination suit, which was filed on 6 November, is seeking a court order that would require the NBA to redesign its website to become more compatible for screen reader users..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/11/legal-action-against-the-nba-over-website-accessibility WAVE Updates and Future Plans By Jared Smith. "This week WebAIM released a notable update to the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. Both the online version and the Chrome extension have been updated." http://webaim.org/blog/wave-updates/ Why Learning Accessibility is Worthwhile By Matthew Putland. "Media Access Australia's Matthew Putland reflects on learning about accessible code, and the positive benefits it can have on web design." http://www.accessiq.org/news/commentary/2015/11/why-learning-accessibility-is-worthwhile Key Takeaways - UX Fails Accessibility By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "While website usability has improved over the past 15 years, the same change hasn't happened with accessibility, said Alistair Campbell in his Where UX Fails Accessibility talk at Interact London 2015 last month..." http://www.lireo.com/key-takeaways-ux-fails-accessibility/ 10 Tips for Applying WCAG 2.0 to Mobile Sites (PDF) By Janet Sylvia. "1. Text Alternatives - Provide text alternatives for all non text elements..." http://wikiwiki.uga.edu/wag/images/3/31/JSylviaHandout10TipsMobileAccessibilityRE2015.pdf +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. How Our CSS Framework Helps Enforce Accessibility By Ian McBurnie. "A user interface control not only needs to look like a certain control, it must be described as that control too..." http://www.ebaytechblog.com/2015/11/04/how-our-css-framework-helps-enforce-accessibility/ Do We Actually Need Specificity In CSS? By Philip Walton. "...What I want to do is pose an actual, honest question to the web development community and hopefully get people thinking..." http://philipwalton.com/articles/do-we-actually-need-specificity-in-css/ +03: DRUPAL. When Do You Make the Move to Drupal 8? By Aaron Manire. "...figure that Drupal 7 will have three months of of support after the release of Drupal 9. So, extrapolating from the past, Drupal 7 should be supported by the security team until 2018. That's not imminent by any means, but it will be here sooner than you think..." https://www.isovera.com/blog/when-do-you-make-move-drupal-8 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Using Surveys to Measure the User Experience By Jeff Sauro. "The best way to measure the user experience is by observing real users attempting realistic tasks. This is best done through a usability test or direct observation of users..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/survey-ux.php 10 Best Practices for Usability Testing within Agile Teams By Adriana De La Cuadra. "Test little, but test often..." http://blog.bitovi.com/10-best-practices-usability-testing-within-agile-teams/ Why A/B Testing Needs Usability Testing, aka Why Opposites Attract By W Craig Tomlin. "...By combining A/B testing with usability testing, you'll find your testing and optimization efforts produce far better results, which is a win for you, your firm and your app or website users." http://www.usefulusability.com/why-ab-testing-needs-usability-testing/ 4 Surprising Benefits of UX Benchmarking By Jennifer Winter. "In the universe of user experience, benchmarking measures and tracks your project over time. .." https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/11/11/4-surprising-benefits-of-ux-benchmarking/ +05: EVENTS. OZeWAI 2015 November 25-27, 2015. Canberra, Australia. http://www.ozewai.org/index.php/en/ +06: HTML5. What is Scholarly HTML? By Robin Berjon and Sebastien Ballesteros. "Scholarly HTML is a domain-specific data format built entirely on open standards that enables the interoperable exchange of scholarly articles in a manner that is compatible with off-the-shelf browsers. This document describes how Scholarly HTML works and how it is encoded as a document. It is, itself, written in Scholarly HTML..." http://scholarly.vernacular.io/ Panels and Panel Sets By Leonie Watson. "Common patterns emerge from a variety of components." http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/11/panels-and-panel-sets.html +07: JAVASCRIPT. Creating an Accessible ARIA Tree Control By Timothy Stephen Springer. "A few weeks back I set myself the goal of digging back into the current ARIA implementations and specifications to keep some of my coding and development skills sharp..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/creating-an-accessible-aria-tree-control/ Javascript Quiz - ES6 Edition By Kangax. "...The 'ECMAScript Two Thousand Fifteen. installment of good old Javascript Quiz is finally here..." http://perfectionkills.com/javascript-quiz-es6/ +08: NAVIGATION. Our New Bookmarklet Helps Visualize Design of ARIA Landmarks By Landi Lark. "In our previous accessibility post, Choosing ARIA Landmarks: Get Your Semantics Right, we discussed how blueprints can help our developers implement the proper ARIA structure for their sites and applications..." http://www.pixotech.com/our-new-bookmarklet-helps-visualize-design-of-aria-landmarks/ +09: USABILITY. Misused Mobile UX Patterns By Zoltan Kollin. "...If your navigation is complex, hiding it does not make it mobile friendly. Prioritization does..." https://medium.com/@kollinz/misused-mobile-ux-patterns-84d2b6930570 Creating Good User Experiences by Focusing on Content By Robert Mills. "...Users don't come to your Web site to appreciate its design or fancy interactions..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/11/creating-good-user-experiences-by-focusing-on-content.php Less Content Marketing, More Quality Content By Gerry McGovern. "It is incredibly hard for a professional to think outside their profession; but in an increasingly interconnected collaborative world, it has never been more necessary." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/less-content-marketing-more-quality-content How We Hold Our Gadgets By Josh Clark. "Touch adds a new dimension to our designs, and asks us to think not only about the canvas of the screen, but also about how users interact physically with the screen itself. We need to consider the ergonomic needs of holding a smartphone, tablet, or hybrid device-switching hands, swapping grips, and pointing, clicking, and typing. In this excerpt from Chapter 1 of Designing for Touch, Josh Clark examines the role of thumbs in driving our device interactions, no matter the size of the screen." http://alistapart.com/article/how-we-hold-our-gadgets Is Google Usable? (Video) By Clubinternet. "What happens when Google search is exposed to someone who's never used the internet before?..." https://vimeo.com/116787124 Security and Usability go Hand in Hand By Robert Lemos. "The conflict between usability and security can often be seen throughout the workplace: normally locked doors cracked open, passwords written down, and files shared through unsanctioned online services..." http://techbeacon.com/security-usablity-go-hand-hand-5-tips-get-development-mix-right Long-Term Exposure to Flat Design: How the Trend Slowly Decreases User Efficiency By Kate Meyer. "Clickable UI elements with absent or weak visual signifiers condition users over time to click and hover uncertainly across pages-reducing efficiency and increasing reliance on contextual cues and immediate click feedback. Young adult users may be better at perceiving subtle clickability clues, but they don't enjoy click uncertainty any more than other age groups." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design-long-exposure/ What Spoilers Teach Us About Designing for Different User Tasks By Katie Sherwin. "Designers must aim to understand and accommodate different user goals. When accommodations aren't feasible, choose designs that support the most common user scenarios. For example, subscribers to online TV streaming services have different viewing preferences, and designs need to take those into consideration." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/spoilers/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +10: 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.]