+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 15, Issue 32, February 2, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 32 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: TOOLS. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Interstellar Travel for All By Tau Station. "...So how can we make a canvas star map like this accessible to a wider range of players? Or rather, how can we make sure players aren't just looking at a blank screen?..." https://taustation.space/blog/interstellar-travel-for-all/ Gaming Interview: 'Tau Station' - Making a Whole Universe Accessible By Tristan Parker. "As the accessible gaming community grows at a rapid pace, so too does the number of games being developed with accessibility for all users in mind. 'Tau Station' is a fascinating example of good practice in this area." http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=1301 One Third of Councils Fail Web Accessibility Testing in UK-Wide Survey By Tristan Parker. An annual review of council websites across the UK has revealed that one third of local government sites failed first-stage testing to find out how accessible their websites are for users with disabilities. http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=1293 Scaling Accessibility with WorldSpace Attest By Marcy Sutton. "In this post, accessibility evangelist and senior front-end engineer Marcy Sutton explores how to scale accessibility with WorldSpace Attest, which helps catch accessibility issues early on in the development process..." http://www.deque.com/blog/scaling-accessibility-worldspace-attest/ The Optimizer's Guide to Web Accessibility By Shanelle Mullin. "What if you found out you are, at best, only optimizing your site for 81% of the people who might possibly visit it?..." https://conversionxl.com/web-accessibility/ Slides: Implementing Accessibility for a11yTO By Adrian Roselli. "Accessibility Toronto has started a series this year where its members will be able to get (re)introduced to accessibility..." https://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2017/01/slides-implementing-accessibility-for-a11yto/ Accessibility Patterns for the Web By eBay. (Hat Tip to Jennifer Sutton) "This site contains all working examples for the book eBay MIND Patterns - Accessibility Patterns for the Web..." http://ianmcburnie.github.io/mindpatterns/ Court Says Settlement Agreement Does Not Bar Later Website Accessibility Lawsuit by a Different Plaintiff By Kristina M. Launey & Minh Vu. "With the recent proliferation of web accessibility demand letters and lawsuits, businesses often ask whether settling a claim with one plaintiff will bar future lawsuits brought by different plaintiffs. One federal judge recently said no..." http://www.adatitleiii.com/2017/01/court-says-settlement-agreement-does-not-bar-later-website-accessibility-lawsuit-by-a-different-plaintiff/ Agreement Between Mass. Eye and Ear and Bay State Council of the Blind By Law Office of Lainey Feingold. "...By September 30, 2016, all electronic document files shall satisfy WCAG 2.0 Conformance Level AA Success Criteria..." http://www.lflegal.com/2017/01/meei-agt/ Section 508 Refresh! By Dennis Lembree. "Huge news! The very long awaited 'Section 508 Refresh' was officially published in the U.S. Federal Register January 18, 2017..." http://www.webaxe.org/section-508-refresh/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Selectors - Specificity By Tiffany B. Brown. "Think of specificity as a score or rank that determines which style declarations are ultimately applied to an element. The universal selector (*) has low specificity. ID selectors are highly specific. Descendant selectors such as p img and child selectors such as .panel > h2 are more specific than type selectors such as p, img, or h1..." https://www.sitepoint.com/css-selectors-specificity/ Level Up Your CSS Skills With These 20 Pro CSS Tips By Vail Joy. "This guide covers 20 Pro CSS Tips to help you cut down on duplicate rules and overrides, standardize the flow of styling across your layouts and will help you create a personal starting framework that is not only efficient, but solves many common problems..." http://webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/level-css-skills-20-pro-css-tips CSS Fundamentals: Design Principles 1-3 of 10 By Molly E. Holzschlag. "There are 10 #CSS Design Principles..." http://www.molly.com/2017/01/26/css-fundamentals-design-principles-1-3-of-10/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. How Accurate Are UX Metrics From Online Panels? By Jeff Sauro. "Online panels are a major source of participants for both market research and UX research studies..." http://measuringu.com/ux-panel-metrics/ Guerrilla UX By Sara Cruz. "How we made Agile and User testing play nice..." https://blog.prototypr.io/guerrilla-ux-3203b43d9319 +04: EVENTS. Global Accessibility Awareness Day May 18, 2017. Everywhere http://www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/ CSS-Day June 17, 2017. Amsterdam, The Netherlands http://cssday.nl/2017 Code 2017 July 26-27, Melbourne, Australia. July 31-August 1, Sydney, Australia. August 7, Brisbane, Australia. http://www.webdirections.org/code17/ ASSETS October 29-November 1, 2017. Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. http://assets17.sigaccess.org/ An Event Apart Denver December 11-13, 2017. Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. https://aneventapart.com/event/denver-2017 +05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Using Card Sorting to Create Stronger Information Architecture By Jitesh Jaidev Jumani. "...During a typical card-sorting exercise, participants organize a set of cards comprising navigation items for a particular context into categories or groups that seem logical to them..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2017/01/using-card-sorting-to-create-stronger-information-architectures.php +06: JAVASCRIPT. A Beginner's Guide to JavaScript Variables and Datatypes By Tania Rascia. "So you've decided to learn JavaScript, the programming language of the web. If it seems like a daunting journey ahead and you don't know where to start, here's a little secret: it doesn't take any special skill to learn how to program, and everyone starts at zero. Take it one step at a time, and you'll get there..." https://www.sitepoint.com/beginners-guide-javascript-variables-and-datatypes/ +07: TOOLS. Contrast-Finder By Asqatasun. "Contrast-Finder finds correct color contrasts for web accessibility..." https://app.contrast-finder.org/result.html +08: USABILITY. Flat Design Decreases User Efficiency (Video) By Kate Meyer. "Clickable UI elements with absent or weak visual signifiers condition users to click and hover uncertainly across pages-reducing efficiency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03ANk1Iq1iE The Aesthetic-Usability Effect By Kate Meyer. "Users are more tolerant of minor usability issues when they find an interface visually appealing. This aesthetic-usability effect can mask UI problems and can prevent issue discovery during usability testing." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ Microcontent: A Few Small Words Have a Mega Impact on Business By Hoa Loranger and Jakob Nielsen. "Well-written, short text fragments presented out of supporting context can provide valuable information and nudge web users toward a desired action. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/microcontent-how-to-write-headlines-page-titles-and-subject-lines/ Unified UX (Video) By Cameron Moll. "With multi-screen use progressively increasing among web users, creating a unified user experience across screens is imperative to our work. In this 60-minute presentation captured live at An Event Apart Austin, designer and Authentic Jobs founder Cameron Moll examines what's required to deliver a unified, consistent user experience regardless of where the digital experience begins, continues, or ends." https://aneventapart.com/news/post/unified-ux-by-cameron-moll-an-event-apart-video [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.]