+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 30, January 21, 2016. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 30 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: NAVIGATION. 09: PHP. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Simple Standalone Toggletip Widget Pattern By Steve Faulkner. "Tooltips have always bugged me, apart from regularly mispelling as 'TOOTlips' it is a bugger trying to create one that works across browsers with Assistive Technology (AT), in particular screen readers..." https://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2016/01/simple-standalone-toggletip-widget-pattern/ How to Design for Dyslexia By Usabilla. "One in every five visitors to your site might be dyslexic..." https://medium.com/@usabilla/how-to-design-for-dyslexia-71e214fe6964#.gu2qo3skj I'm an Accessibility Consultant. Stop Hiring Me. By Joe Dolson. "...Diving into that godawful website that you need to get rebuilt in the next six months because you're being sued? No, that's really not much fun..." https://www.joedolson.com/2016/01/im-an-accessibility-consultant-stop-hiring-me/ Accessibility is a Process, Not a Project By Jon Metz. "...Developers and Designers should begin to understand that accessibility is not a project problem, but a process problem. A process can be defined as a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. When considered as a process, the conversation becomes addressing the behavior that's employed to perform an activity...By making accessibility an organizational process improvement, the experience of using a product has already become a defined approach." https://medium.com/@jonbmetz/accessibility-is-a-process-not-a-project-ce1c1cdc3aa7#.b504r48dt Renewed Push for Improved Web Accessibility Policy in the United States By Chris Pycroft. "Two separate calls for improved web accessibility of government websites in the United States are gaining momentum..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2016/01/renewed-push-for-improved-web-accessibility-policy-in-the-united-states What to do When You Get Sued... (revisited) By Karl Groves. "... If you find yourself on the wrong end of a complaint letter, there are a number of things you can do to avoid a long, costly, and potentially embarrassing fight..." http://www.karlgroves.com/2016/01/18/what-to-do-when-you-get-sued-revisited/ Blind Student Settles Suit against Miami University By Associated Press. "Attorneys have settled a federal lawsuit filed by a blind student who accused Miami University of using technology that presented a barrier to her education, court records show..." http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/01/15/blind-student-settles-suit-against-miami-university/78872670/ Status Of The Accessibility Of Slack By Maro Zehe. "... the question of how accessible the Slack team communication service is, has come up time and again. Here's my observation after trying it out..." https://www.marcozehe.de/2016/01/16/status-of-the-accessibility-of-slack/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. It's Time to Rethink Vendor Prefixes in CSS By Patrick Catanzariti. "...The times are changing. WebKit's dominance is unintentionally causing a fractured and incompatible web and other browsers are looking to expand their compatibility by implementing -webkit- prefixes to keep up. While this issue should fade as vendor prefixes are phased out, developers need to check that their use of prefixes does not cause unexpected results in non-WebKit browsers." http://www.sitepoint.com/its-time-to-rethink-vendor-prefixes-in-css/ Subgrids Considered Essential By Eric A. Meyer. "Grid layout is a pretty darned fantastic thing. I've been digging into it as I write the grid layout chapter of CSS:TDG4e, and there are more things in here than have been dreamt of in our layout philosophies. One of the things I've recently come to realize is the power and necessity of subgrids..."s http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2016/01/15/subgrids-considered-essential/ Sass: The @media Directive By Steven Bradley. "...Sass both supports and extends the @media rule..." http://vanseodesign.com/css/sass-the-media-directive/ +03: COLOR. 5 Ways to Improve Your Ecommerce Design for Colourblind Users By Geri Coady. "...have you ever thought about the perception of colour, and how it can be perceived differently by different people?..." https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/86314118-5-ways-to-improve-your-ecommerce-design-for-colourblind-users +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. What are the Odds? By Jeff Sauro. "...Percentages are popular because even when people know little about the underlying measure, they can more easily interpret a percentage: they work for any sized sample and are bound from 0 to 100%..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/odds.php Testing By Jeremy Kieth. "I think it's really important that if someone is going to test your site with a screen reader, it should be someone who uses a screen reader every day...Don't think of screen-reader testing as a form of browser testing; think of it as a form of usability testing." https://adactio.com/journal/10104 +05: EVENTS. Planning for a Higher Ed Website Redesign February 29 - March 2, 2016. Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A. http://www.academicimpressions.com/conference/planning-higher-ed-website-redesign Midwest PHP March 4-5, 2016. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://2016.midwestphp.org/ Usability Week - Houston March 7-11, 2016. Houston, Texas, U.S.A. http://www.nngroup.com/training/houston/ Managing Experience Conference March 29-30, 2016. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://mxconference.com/ Fronteers Spring Thing April 1, 2016. Amsterdam, Netherlands https://fronteers.nl/spring Space City JS April 2, 2016. Houston, Texas, U.S.A. http://spacecity.codes/ +06: HTML5. The Woes of Date Input By Ian Devlin. "One of the many new input types that HTML5 introduced is the date input type which, in theory, should allow a developer to provide the user with a simple, usable, recognisable method of entering a date on a web page. But sadly, this input type has yet to reach its full potential..." http://html5doctor.com/the-woes-of-date-input/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. Object-Oriented JavaScript - A Deep Dive into ES6 Classes By Jeff Mott. "Often we need to represent an idea or concept in our programs-maybe a car engine, a computer file, a router, or a temperature reading..." http://www.sitepoint.com/object-oriented-javascript-deep-dive-es6-classes/ +08: NAVIGATION. A New Mobile Navigation Menu By Joey Rabbitt. "Converting the desktop dropdown nav..." https://medium.com/@supjoey/the-curtain-menu-redesigning-drop-down-navigation-for-mobile-bd63b555a3df#.fq20ohkwr Hamburger, Hamburger, Hamburger By Jeremy Keith. "...The answer to the question 'Is the hamburger icon good or bad?' is a resounding and clear 'It depends.'" https://adactio.com/journal/10120 +09: PHP. PHP Arrays - Associative Arrays or Hash Maps By Michelangelo van Dam. "Associative array or hash maps are listings of key and value pairs with a posibility to nest additional keys and values. An associative array is a very powerful construct within PHP." http://www.dragonbe.com/2016/01/php-arrays-associative-arrays-or-hash.html +10: USABILITY. The Illusion of Completeness: What It Is and how to Avoid It By Kim Flaherty. "Users can think they see the entire web page, although additional content exists off-screen. Designers must help users discover all relevant information." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/illusion-of-completeness/ Cringeworthy Words to Cut from Online Copy By Hoa Loranger. "The right words can make or break trust; they affect your tone of voice and how people perceive your site." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/cringeworthy-words/ 3 Facets of Great UX Design: Part 2 By Jerry Cao. "...In this second instalment of our three part series, we're going to examine another of the important tenets of UX design, usability..." http://uxmastery.com/3-facets-great-ux-design-part-2/ [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.]