+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 24, December 09, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 24 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: HTML5. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: PHP. 08: TYPOGRAPHY. 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. Accessibility Guidelines Handbook By Portland Community College. "Download a copy and feel free to share! Editable with Adobe Illustrator. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Attribution in the form of a link back to pcc.edu/access would be greatly appreciated." http://www.pcc.edu/resources/instructional-support/access/handbook.html Security Parallels By Alastair Campbell. "Security and accessibility have a lot in common. Not that tackling one necessarily helps the other, but the way you tackle them needs to be similar as they both affect the design and development from the start..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2015/security-parallels Effectively Including Accessibility into Web Developer Training By Karl Groves. "...I'd like to follow 'Your computer school sucks' with some actual guidance for web developer training schools and bootcamps..." http://www.karlgroves.com/2015/12/03/effectively-including-accessibility-into-web-developer-training/ Media Accessibility User Requirements By W3C. "This document presents the accessibility requirements users with disabilities have with respect to audio and video on the web..." http://www.w3.org/TR/media-accessibility-reqs/ Accessibility Three Ways - iOS Implementation Case Studies By Sommer Panage. "Sommer examines accessibilty and how to implement it from three angles..." https://realm.io/news/sommer-panage-accessibility-implementation-ios/ Class Action Lawsuit Against Reebok over Web Accessibility By Chris Pycroft. "Legal action has been taken against Reebok due to their website not being accessible for people with disabilities..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/12/class-action-lawsuit-against-reebok-over-web-accessibility Reebok Class Action Complaint (PDF) By Jose Del Orden et al. "Reebok.com contains access barriers that prevent free and full use by blind persons using keyboards and screen reading software. These barriers are pervasive and include, but are not limited to: the lack of alt text on graphics, inaccessible forms, the lack of adequate prompting and labeling; the denial of keyboard access; and the requirement that transactions be performed solely with a mouse..." http://www.classactionsreporter.com/sites/default/files/reebok_ada_complaint.pdf +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Indexes By W3C CSS Working Group. "A listing of every term defined by CSS specs." https://drafts.csswg.org/indexes/ An Introduction To PostCSS By Drew Minns. "One of the relatively recent tools introduced for styling is PostCSS. PostCSS aims to reinvent CSS with an ecosystem of custom plugins and tools. Working with the same principles of preprocessors such as Sass and LESS, it transforms extended syntaxes and features into modern, browser-friendly CSS. How you ask? JavaScript." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/12/introduction-to-postcss/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Uncovering User Goals With the Episodic Interview By David Travis. "Contextual research is the gold standard in user research. But sometimes the user researcher is called upon to run an interview out of context. How can you structure a face-to-face interview to best help users tell their stories?" http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/uncovering-user-goals-with-the-episodic-interview.html Measuring the Use of Your Content By Gerry McGovern. "Hello everyone. My name is Gerry McGovern and I'm going to talk to you about measuring use..." https://gathercontent.com/blog/measuring-the-use-of-content How to Do a UX Review By Joe Leech. "A UX review is where an expert goes through a website looking for usability and experience problems and makes recommendations on how to fix them." https://24ways.org/2015/how-to-do-a-ux-review/ Research Opportunities Throughout Your Product's Development By Spencer Lanoue. "...there's always a good time to conduct research..." https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/12/03/research-opportunities-throughout-your-products-development/ +04: EVENTS. Accessibility: Designing and Teaching Courses for All Learners (MOOC) February 22-April 5, 2016. https://www.canvas.net/browse/empirestate/empirestate-buffalostate/courses/accessibility-designing-teaching HighEdWeb New England March 18, 2016. South Hadley, Massachusetts, U.S.A. http://ne16.highedweb.org/ WebVisions NYC April 7, 2016 New York, New York, U.S.A. http://www.webvisionsevent.com/new-york/ The IA Summit May 4-8, 2016. Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. http://www.iasummit.org/ John Slatin AccessU May 9-11, 2016. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. http://www.knowbility.org/v/john-slatin-accessu/ An Event Apart Boston May 16-18, 2016. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. http://aneventapart.com/event/boston-2016 +05: HTML5. Test - Screen Readers and the iframe Element By Jon Gibbins. "I have always advised putting a title attribute on iframe elements, even ones that hold no useful user content. For those iframes with no useful content, something like title="No content" should suffice. This advice is still valid for older screen readers, but iframe elements behave quite differently on modern platforms." http://lab.dotjay.co.uk/tests/screen-readers/iframes/ Gethtml By Urban Sanden. "all the html elements" https://gethtml.at/ +06: MISCELLANEOUS. Understanding Web Accessibility Standards: A Conversation with W3C's Shawn Henry By Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology (PEAT). "In order to help technology providers and employers understand the basics of WCAG and other related accessibility standards, PEAT spoke with the W3C's Shawn Henry, who leads their worldwide education and outreach promoting web accessibility." http://www.peatworks.org/content/understanding-web-accessibility-standards-conversation-w3cs-shawn-henry +07: PHP. PHP 7 is Now Available - New Features and Improvements By Thijs Feryn. "...PHP 7 is finally out there and to celebrate the release, I created a video that highlights a couple of interesting features that PHP 7 offers..." http://blog.feryn.eu/php-7-is-now-available-new-features-improvements/ Leaner, Meaner PHP 7 Promises Huge Performance Boost By Paul Krill. "PHP 7.0.0, released yesterday after two years in development and eight release candidates, brings with it a doubling of performance said Rasmus Lerdorf, the founder of the language." http://www.infoworld.com/article/3011967/web-development/php-7-offers-twice-the-performance.html Learn PHP 7, Find Out What's New, and More By Bruno Skvorc. "PHP 7, the next version of the world's most popular programming language, has been released..." http://www.sitepoint.com/learn-php-7-find-out-whats-new-and-more/ +08: TYPOGRAPHY. Get Expressive with Your Typography By Richard Rutter. "...we make judgements about text based on the typefaces in which it is set..." https://24ways.org/2015/get-expressive-with-your-typography/ +09: USABILITY. List Thumbnails on Mobile - When to Use Them and Where to Place Them By Aurora Bedford. "Decide whether and where to display thumbnails for list items based on the images' importance relative to associated text, on whether images will be displayed for all list items, and on whether the small images are recognizably different from each other." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-list-thumbnail/ 3 UX Mistakes That Are Killing Your Design By Jerry Cao. "UX design certainly isn't easy, but the high expectations of clients and stakeholders might suggest otherwise. The decision-makers don't always understand the design process, and they look to the designer as the all-knowing, all-fixing genius." http://www.sitepoint.com/3-ux-mistakes-kill-design/ How Infinite Scrolling Breaks UX By Marc Schenker. "...Sometimes, conventional wisdom is simply dead wrong, as it is in infinite scrolling's case..." http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/11/how-infinite-scrolling-breaks-ux/ Design Principles for Reducing Cognitive Load By Jon Yablonski. "Every time you visit a website, a process of learning is initiated in the brain..." http://jonyablonski.com/2015/design-principles-for-reducing-cognitive-load/ +10: XML. How To Work With The SVG Text Spacing Properties By Steven Bradley. "Most of the time the default spacing between characters and words is perfectly fine, but when working with display type in headlines and subheads you may want to adjust the spacing in your text. SVG provides a way to do just that..." http://vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-text-spacing-properties/ [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.]