+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 16, Issue 01, July 03, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 01 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: MISCELLANEOUS. 06: NAVIGATION. 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. When and When Not to Add Audio Description By Elisa Edelberg. "Audio description is defined as 'the verbal depiction of key visual elements in media and live productions,' and is meant to provide information on visual content that is considered essential to the comprehension of the program..." http://www.3playmedia.com/2017/06/28/when-and-when-not-to-add-audio-description-to-content/ New App Makes Maps More Accessible (Video) By Karyna Rodriguez. (Hat tip to Jennifer Sutton) "For most of us getting directions is as easy as opening an app. But if you have a disability, it might not be that simple. A few U of I students are trying to change that by improving campus maps..." http://www.illinoishomepage.net/news/local-news/new-app-makes-maps-more-accessible/725117377 Despite Reputation, University of Illinois Struggles with Web Accessibility By Steffie Drucker. "If Tim Offenstein had to grade the University of Illinois in terms of web accessibility, he said he would give a B or C+..." http://cu-citizenaccess.org/2017/06/27/despite-reputation-university-of-illinois-struggles-with-web-accessibility/ The Accessibility Gold Mine By Robin Newman. "Why it's smart business to design for accessibility..." https://magenta.as/the-accessibility-gold-mine-50010281f684 Plaintiffs Score Another Victory in a Website Accessibility Lawsuit By Minh Vu. "A federal judge in the Central District of California has allowed a blind plaintiff to continue his lawsuit about the accessibility of a public accommodation's website under Title III of the ADA, despite the diametrically opposite views of his Central District colleague..." http://www.adatitleiii.com/2017/06/plaintiffs-score-another-victory-in-a-website-accessibility-lawsuit/ Hobby Lobby Court Order (PDF) By United States District Court Central District of California. "...The lack of specific regulations does not eliminate Hobby Lobby's obligation to comply with the ADA or excuse its failure to comply with the mandates of the ADA...The DOJ has repeatedly affirmed that Title III applies to websites that meet the definition of a public accommodation...Since 1996, the DOJ has not wavered from its view that the ADA applies to websites that meet the definition of a public accommodation...For the foregoing reasons, Hobby Lobby's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's FAC is DENIED..." http://www.adatitleiii.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/121/2017/06/Hobby-Lobby-Order.pdf +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. How To Define And Use CSS Custom Properties By Steven Bradley. "...I thought it would be a good time to revisit the topic and I've written a short series to show you how to work with custom properties in general and then to show you more practical examples..." http://vanseodesign.com/css/custom-properties/ Using CSS Variables Correctly By Mike Riethmuller. "CSS Variables (also known as Custom Properties) are now supported in all modern browsers and people are starting to use them production..." https://madebymike.com.au/writing/using-css-variables/ CSS vs. JavaScript: Trust vs. Control By Christian Heilmann. "I wrote a talk about what using CSS means and how we don't use it to its strengths." https://christianheilmann.com/2017/06/21/css-vs-javascript-trust-vs-control/ Five Huge CSS Milestones By Chris Coyier. "... 1.) Firebug... 2.) Chrome... 3.) CSS3... 4.) Preprocessing... 5.) Flexbox & Grid..." http://mediatemple.net/blog/tips/five-huge-css-milestones/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Why Usability Testing is so Crucial By Philip Jenkinson. "...Making digital communications accessible to people with disability is about following a series of processes so that no-one is excluded, and one of the most important components in ensuring accessibility for people of all abilities is usability testing..." http://www.mediaaccess.org.au/digitalaccessibilityservices/why-usability-testing-is-so-crucial/ Why the SUPR-Q is Better than SUS for Websites By Jeff Sauro. "...Here are four major reasons we use and recommend the Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank-Questionnaire (SUPR-Q) to measure the website user experience..." https://measuringu.com/suprq-sus/ +04: EVENTS. Planning & Producing Accessible Videos for Web, Social Media & eLearning July 20, 2017. Online https://www.accessibilityonline.org/ada-tech/session/?id=110604 Confab Intensive September 11-13, 2017. Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. http://confabevents.com/events/intensive-2017 Web Accessibility Training September 26-27, 2017. Logan, Utah, U.S.A. http://webaim.org/training Fronteers Conference October 6-7, 2017. Amsterdam, The Netherlands https://fronteers.nl/congres/2017 +05: MISCELLANEOUS. Quick! What's The Most Neglected Word In Web Development? (Podcast) By Jonathan Freed, Ivan Stegic. "It's with great appreciation we welcome Mike Gifford, founder and president of Open Concept, a web development firm specializing in open source development with Drupal located in Ottawa, CA. A recognized authority on accessibility, Mike shares great insight to a very important issue..." https://ten7.com/blog/post/audiocast-006-quick-whats-most-neglected-word-web-development Evidence, Not Ego, Must Drive Digital Transformation By Gerry McGovern. "...Gut instinct, experience and opinion are only useful when what is in front of us is going to be very similar to what is behind us. In a complex world full of surprises and randomness, gut instinct is very often dangerous..." http://gerrymcgovern.com/evidence-not-ego-must-drive-digital-transformation/ Team Conflict: Four Ways to Deflate the Discord that's Killing Your Team By Jessica Hall. "Interpersonal relationships and team dynamics can be tricky. We often eschew the values of team work and working together, but balancing relationships when everyone has a good idea is tough. Jessica Hall shares some thoughts on how to navigate those tricky spots so your team can start communicating and get back to what they do best." https://alistapart.com/article/team-conflict-four-ways-to-deflate-the-discord-thats-killing-your-team Back to Basics: Writing Design Guidelines By Anne Gibson. "Many of us work in places where design guidelines for components, patterns, and heuristics are already developed for the products we're working on. Many of us do not..." http://www.theinterconnected.net/kirabug/back-to-basics-writing-design-guidelines +06: NAVIGATION. Don't Use Split Buttons for Navigation Menus By Raluca Budiu. "Menu on hover, category landing page on click: we discuss challenges and solutions for replicating this pattern on touchscreens." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/split-buttons-navigation/ 10 Ways to Design Menus That Don't Suck By Carrie Cousins. "There are definite right and wrong ways to design navigation menus..." https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2017/06/10-ways-to-design-menus-that-dont-suck/ +07: TOOLS. Upgrade Your Accessibility Testing with the New aXe Extension 3.0 By Marcy Sutton. "...a brand-new version of our free aXe extension for Chrome is now available for download..." https://www.deque.com/blog/upgrade-accessibility-testing-axe-extension-3-0/ Dangers of Website Accessibility Testing Tools By Criterion. "Many Section 508 and WCAG accessibility vendors, who make most of their revenues licensing automated website accessibility testing tools, have recently begun posting articles that claim their HTML validation tools are the answer to Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 compliance testing. Although the sales pitch may sound promising, the results are not..." http://www.criterion508.com/blog Color Theory By Tiffany B. Brown. "Ever want to pick a start color and then click a button to create a color scheme? Me too. So I built it." https://colors.webinista.com/ +08: USABILITY. Inline Validation is Problematic (Hat tip to Jennifer Sutton) By Adam Silver. "Inline validation informs users whether what they type is valid as they type. The theory is that it's easier to fix errors as soon as they occur instead of waiting until submission. The thing is, inline validation causes several problems..." https://medium.com/simple-human/inline-validation-is-problematic-399dd01d436f Wizards: Definition and Design Recommendations By Raluca Budiu. "A common application-design pattern for inputting information, wizards work well for processes that are performed only occasionally." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/wizards/ How to Prioritize Ideas from UX Brainstorming Sessions (Video) By Kate Kaplan. "UX workshop facilitation techniques for helping teams rank feature ideas and create action plans." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWIJosey8nI What You Should Know About User Experience By Nick Babich. "UX stands for 'user experience.' When we say 'user experience,' we're referring to how humans interact with a product-online or in the physical world..." https://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/what-is-ux-and-why-should-you-care/ [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.]