+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 15, Issue 37, March 9, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 37 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: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 12: USABILITY. 12: XML. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. WCAG 2.1 Draft: Reflections on the New Guidelines and Success Criteria By Scott Hollier. "For people that work in the web accessibity area, today's news that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has now made publically available the first draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 public draft is very exciting..." http://hollier.info/wcag21draft/ Web Accessibility - It's Good For Everyone By Nicolas Steenhout. "Web accessibility benefits everyone..." https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/web-accessibility-its-good-everyone-nicolas-steenhout CSUN 2017 Assistive Technology Conference Backchannel By Sanjay Nasta. "The 2017 CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, sponsored by the California State University Northridge Center on Disabilities, is the largest international conference focused on assistive technology...Below are official conference pages, a selection of tweets, links to the keynote address, and as many presentation slides and related resources as we were able to discover..." http://www.microassist.com/digital-accessibility/csun-2017-backchannel/ CSUN Report - 2017 By Mallory van Achterberg. "Anything written about CSUN generally has to be two parts: the social stuff and the sessions stuff..." http://www.stommepoes.nl/csun2017.html A Collection of Quotable Quotes from CSUN 2017 By Dennis Deacon. "80% of people who use captions aren't deaf or hard of hearing and there 48 million Americans with hearing loss..." http://www.dennisdeacon.com/web-design/accessibility/quotable-quotes-csun-2017/ National Federation of the Blind and Two Blind Students File Suit Against Los Angeles Community College District By The National Federation of the Blind. "The National Federation of the Blind, the nation's leading advocate for equal access to higher education for the blind; its California affiliate, the National Federation of the Blind of California; and two blind students, Roy Payan and Portia Mason, have filed suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division, against the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) (Case 2:17-cv-01697)..." https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-and-two-blind-students-file-suit-against-los-angeles-community-college Berkeley Will Delete Online Content By Carl Straumsheim. "Starting March 15, the university will begin removing more than 20,000 video and audio lectures from public view as a result of a Justice Department accessibility order..." https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/u-california-berkeley-delete-publicly-available-educational-content March 2017 Digital Accessibility Legal Update By Lainey Feingold. "This post includes legal developments about digital accessibility between December 13, 2016 and March 6, 2017..." http://www.lflegal.com/2017/03/update-csun17/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. The Unexpected Power of Viewport Units in CSS By Thomas Lattimore. "The days of fixed-width designs and needing to only test against a handful of viewport sizes are gone. We live in a fluid-width world with a myriad of device sizes and aspect ratios..." https://www.lullabot.com/articles/unexpected-power-of-viewport-units-in-css On Container Queries By Ethan Marcotte. "Over the last few years, a number of web designers, web developers, and agencies have been asking for 'container queries,' saying they'd be a welcome addition to a responsive designer's toolkit. I think they're right..." https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/on-container-queries/ CSS Grid: Responsive and Accessibility By Susan Robertson. (via Jennifer Sutton) "Reflow your content with ease..." https://bocoup.com/blog/css-grid-responsive-and-accessibility Welcome to the Grid By Eric A. Meyer. "Grid is public. It's live right now in the latest Firefox release, Firefox 52. It will similarly be live in the next public Chrome release, due in the next week or so. It's here. I almost can't believe it..." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2017/03/07/welcome-to-the-grid/ Learning CSS Grid Layout By Rachel Andrew. "There seems to be a myth being put around that CSS Grid Layout is going to be really difficult to learn, so difficult that poor web developers will never use it. I call nonsense. .." https://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2017/03/03/learning-css-grid-layout/ CSS Grid Guides on MDN By Rachel Andrew. "A few weeks ago I was approached by the good people over at MDN, asking if I would be interested in writing a comprehensive resource for MDN on CSS Grid Layout..." https://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2017/03/07/css-grid-guides-on-mdn/ CSS Grid Lands in Firefox 52 By Rachel Andrew. "I had no idea, when I spotted an interesting looking specification in a workshop led by Bert Bos back in 2012, that the next 5 years of my life would be consumed by CSS Grid Layout..." https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2017/03/07/css-grid-lands-in-firefox-52/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Website Accessibility Testing - Scanning Tools By Jeffrey Singleton. "...In today's blog, I'll address web accessibility testing - scanning tools that support your audit..." http://insight.cryptzone.com/accessibility/website-accessibility-testing-scanning-tools/ Conducting Qualitative, Comparative Usability Testing By Jim Ross. "...Testing multiple designs early in a project can provide much more useful information than testing just a single design solution. When participants can experience two or more designs during testing, they can provide better feedback..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2017/03/conducting-qualitative-comparative-usability-testing.php 5 Interfaces That Benefit From Usability Testing By Jeff Sauro. "...Regardless of the type of interface, the same core principles that lead to a usable experience apply: 1) An early focus on users and tasks. 2) Iterative design. 3) Empirical measurement. Here are five interfaces that these principles apply to and can benefit from usability testing...." https://measuringu.com/usability-interfaces/ +04: EVENTS. WebVisions New York City April 7, 2017. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://www.webvisionsevent.com/new-york/ Bulgaria Web Summit April 7-8, 2017. Sofia, Bulgaria http://bulgariawebsummit.com/ Front End Design Conference April 19-21, 2017. St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A. http://frontenddesignconference.com/ UX in the City: Oxford April 20-21, 2017. Oxford, England, United Kingdom. http://uxinthecity.net/2017/oxford/ San Francisco UX Conference April 29-May 5, 2017. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. https://www.nngroup.com/training/san-francisco/ Web Accessibility for Developers May 10, 2017. Webinar http://www.eastersealstech.com/a11y/ +05: HTML5. The Document Outline Dilemma By Amelia Bellamy-Royds. "For the past few weeks there has been lots of talk about HTML headings in web standards circles..." https://css-tricks.com/document-outline-dilemma +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Information Architecture: Still Vital to Digital Design By Gerry McGovern. "Over the years, the most neglected, and yet most essential, area of digital design has been information architecture..." http://gerrymcgovern.com/information-architecture-still-vital-to-digital-design/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. Quick Tip: How to Sort an Array of Objects in JavaScript By Olayinka Omole. "If you have an array of objects that you need to sort into a certain order, the temptation might be to reach for a JavaScript library. Before you do however, rember that you can do some pretty neat sorting with the native Array.sort function. In this article I'll show you how to sort an array of objects in JavaScript with no fuss or bother..." https://www.sitepoint.com/sort-an-array-of-objects-in-javascript/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. World Wide Web, Not Wealthy Western Web (Part 1) By Bruce Lawson. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' said Shakespeare's Hamlet, in the famous scene in which Hamlet teaches Horatio to be a web designer..." https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/03/world-wide-web-not-wealthy-western-web-part-1/ Accessibility and the Web of Things - an interview with Dr Scott Hollier and W3C WAI's Shadi Abou-Zahra By Scott Hollier. "While lots of people are passionate about the digital access cause, Shadi Abou-Zahra, the W3C Accessibility Strategy and Technology Specialist, is one of the hardest-working and dedicated people I've ever met in the field, and a great bloke too..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/w3c-column/2017/02/accessibility-and-the-web-of-things-an-interview-with-dr-scott-hollier-and +09: NAVIGATION. Design Better Cards By Andrew Coyle. "The component that symbolizes the web..." https://uxdesign.cc/design-better-cards-c0d12ab581c4 +10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. U.S. Web Design Standards By Standards USA. "Announcing Version 1.0. After a year and a half of development and user research, we're officially launching version 1.0 of the U.S. Web Design Standards..." https://standards.usa.gov/ +11: USABILITY. Comparison Tables for Products, Services, and Features By Kate Meyer. "Use this versatile GUI tool to support users when they need to make a decision that involves considering multiple attributes of a small number of offerings. Consistency in content, scannability, and a simple layout are some of the most important qualities of successful comparison tables." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/comparison-tables/ A Theory of User Delight: Why Usability Is the Foundation for Delightful Experiences By Therese Fessenden. "UI embellishments can only produce surface delight; deep delight can only be achieved in functional, reliable, and usable interfaces." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/theory-user-delight/ Why is Getting Stakeholder Buy-In Important for UX? (Video) By Catherine Toole. "Catherine Toole discusses her experience getting successful improvements made during decades of projects: almost always the same big issue dictates success." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYrgIA_Scbc Complex Doesn't Equal Complicated (TED Video) By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "It's the beginning of the week, and you're trying to address a complex problem in one of your projects..." https://www.lireo.com/complex-doesnt-equal-complicated-ted-video/ Design Principles: Hick's Law - Quick Decision Making By Anton Nikolov. "This week's design principle is focusing on Hick's Law, which is related to the KISS principle..." https://uxplanet.org/design-principles-hicks-law-quick-decision-making-3dcc1b1a0632 Design for Fingers, Touch, and People, Part 1 By Steven Hoober. "...Sometimes readers combine my obsolete data with other out-of-date information, then draw their own incorrect conclusions. I hope put a stop to that now with this updated overview of everything I know about how people interact with touchscreen devices and how you can use that information to design better digital products..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2017/03/design-for-fingers-touch-and-people-part-1.php +12: XML. SVG Animation Demo: Heating Water, from Ice to Steam By Charles McCathieNevile. "Using SVG animation and aria-live to make an accessible interactive STEM demo..." http://svg-access-w3cg.github.io/use-case-examples/beaker.html Accessibility Notes by Chaals: http://svg-access-w3cg.github.io/use-case-examples/beaker-notes.html Slides by Leonie Watson: http://ljwatson.github.io/decks/2017/csun/index.html [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +13: 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.]