+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 15, Issue 36, March 2, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 36 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 First Public Working Draft By Joshue O Connor. "The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) is very happy to announce that the first public working draft of the new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 is available..." https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/02/wcag21-fpwd/ Quick Guide to WCAG 2.1 First Public Working Draft By David MacDonald. "What's new and how to submit comments..." http://davidmacd.com/blog/wcag-2.1-quick-guide.html Alexa 100 Accessibility Updates By Jared Smith. "...The number of errors found has increased 60% over the last 5 years - from an average of 25 errors in 2011 to 40 errors in 2017..." http://webaim.org/blog/alexa-100-accessibility-updates/ What We Found When We Tested Tools on the World's Least-Accessible Webpage By Mehmet Duran. "We recently conducted an audit of automated accessibility testing tools. We built a website full of accessibility fails to test them on. We've published our findings here. In this blog post we talk about what we did and what we discovered." https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2017/02/24/what-we-found-when-we-tested-tools-on-the-worlds-least-accessible-webpage/ Screen Reader and Browser Combination for Accessibility By Rakesh Paladugula. "Screen reader testing is a common action item while testing for accessibility..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2017/02/screen-reader-and-browser-combination-for-accessibility/ Inclusive Design Fundamentals By Dennis Lembrée, Caitlin Geier, and Matthew Isner. Resources from the Inclusive Design Fundamentals Workshop. https://isner.github.io/inclusive-design-fundamentals/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. The Benefits of Learning How to Code Layouts With CSS By Jen Simmons. "Yesterday, I wrote about CSS Grid. Ted Mazer responded by asking on Twitter: 'As a beginning front end developer, is it going to be beneficial to jump right into becoming proficient at this layout style?'..." http://jensimmons.com/post/feb-28-2017/benefits-learning-how-code-layouts-css +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Role of Data in Measuring UX By Priya Saraswat. "Rainy afternoon and a mundane workday. I was sitting at my desk when a mail pop up in my inbox with subject - 'Request Completed - XXX Performance data from Nov 2016 to Jan 2017'..." https://medium.theuxblog.com/role-of-data-in-measuring-ux-dda7d81c6a7e Agile-Friendly Ways to Think About Usability Testing By Luke Smith. "...How usability testing makes its way in can depend on the product owner's approach or the organization's UX maturity. When it works well, there is a common pragmatism that helps makes the tortured relationship more like a healthy marriage. The differences between Agile and UX are not irreconcilable; as with many things, attitude seems to be the key in making it work. There are plenty of good guides out there on how to get user testing done in an Agile environment..." http://blog.handrailux.com/agile-friendly-usability-testing/ How to Collaborate with Stakeholders in UX Research By Susan Farrell. "To make UX research more efficient and effective, get everyone involved. When teams understand user concerns and usability issues, they become better at preventing problems." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/collaborating-stakeholders/ Against 'Shoot First, Ask Questions Later' - My Response to 'User Research is Overrated' By Barry Prendergast. "I have just read 'User Research is Overrated' by Jonathan Courtney over at AJ Smart and I feel compelled to respond..." https://blog.prototypr.io/against-shoot-first-ask-questions-later-my-response-to-user-research-is-overrated-5389f21fb20 +04: EVENTS. Web Design: Landmarks, Headings, Page Titles and Navigation March 15, 2017. Online. http://disability.illinois.edu/academic-support/accessible-it-group/badging#web_design_landmarks_headings_page_titles_and_navigation_6 Building Drupal's Solid Accessibility Defaults March 16, 2017. Webinar https://www.accessibilityonline.org/ada-tech/session/?id=110602 JazzCon.Tech March 22-24, 2017. New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A. http://www.jazzcon.tech/ Destination Code March 27-30, 2017. Eden, Utah, U.S.A. https://destination.codes/ UX in the City: Manchester April 4-5, 2017. Manchester, England, United Kingdom. http://uxinthecity.net/2017/manchester/ Boston UX Conference April 9-13, 2017. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. https://www.nngroup.com/training/boston/ LX Leading Experience April 24-25, 2017. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://www.lxconference.com/ +05: HTML5. On EME in HTML5 By Tim Berners-Lee. "The question which has been debated around the net is whether W3C should endorse the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) standard which allows a web page to include encrypted content, by connecting an existing underlying Digital Rights Management (DRM) system in the underlying platform..." https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/02/on-eme-in-html5/ The Myth of Automated Heading Outlines By Sarah E. Bourne. "...heading and content hierarchies are based on the authors' intent and the what they are trying to communicate. No algorithm can read a person's mind, so if you want your heading levels useful and meaningful, you have to do it yourself..." http://sarahebourne.posthaven.com/the-myth-of-automated-heading-outlines +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Using IA and Plain Language to Make Federal Websites More Usable By Anne Dougherty. "In its simplest form, information architecture is defined as 'The practice of deciding how to arrange the parts of something to be understandable,' according to the Information Architecture Institute..." http://www.aquilent.com/using-ia-and-plain-language-to-make-federal-websites-more-usable/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. ARIA Widget Checklist: For Screen Reader Testing By Bryan Garaventa. "One of the most significant challenges with ARIA support is determining support level differences between assistive technology and browser combinations, and doing so in a structured manner so that bugs can be accurately and reliably submitted to AT venders so that these support levels can steadily increase equally..." https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/aria-widget-checklist-screen-reader-testing/ +08: NAVIGATION. 7 Navigational Implementations that Make Kohl's 'Best in Class' By Christian Holst. "After usability testing 19 leading e-commerce sites and subsequently benchmarking 50 major e-commerce sites (twice) on Homepage & Category UX performance, and finally analyzing the 7,900+ manually reviewed UX parameters in that benchmark database, we find that..." https://baymard.com/blog/kohls-category-navigation-ux +09: TOOLS. Accessibility Color Wheel By Giacomo Mazzocato. "Choose a foreground color by pointing the mouse over the wheel or the vertical grey gradation strip and click or, if you have a touch screen, just touch them. Then click the "Background" button and choose a background color the same way. If a checkmark becomes visible the color pair is good for accessibility. Otherwise change one color or both by selecting foreground or background with the buttons." http://gmazzocato.altervista.org/colorwheel/wheel.php Va11yS By International Business Machines (IBM). "Va11yS, or Verified Accessibility Samples, is a repository of live working code samples that designers and developers can easily access to test with different assistive technologies and tools." https://developer.ibm.com/open/openprojects/va11ys/ +10: USABILITY. What is Lean UX? By Jonathan Follett. "Streamlining user experience for an increasingly agile world..." https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/what-is-lean-ux Optimizing for Context in the Omnichannel User Experience By Kim Flaherty. "Design for each channel's unique strengths and role in the customer journey to create usable context-specific experiences." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/optimizing-omnichannel-ux/ Video of the Week: Karen McGrane - Adaptive Content, Context, and Controversy By John Allsopp. "Video of the Week is back for 2017. These are videos of full length conference presentations, typically 45 minutes to an hour long, often keynotes and always fascinating..." https://www.webdirections.org/blog/video-week-karen-mcgrane-adaptive-content-context-controversy-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.]