+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 16, Issue 17, October 19, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 17 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: BOOKS. 03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 04: DRUPAL. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: HTML. 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: TOOLS. 11: TYPOGRAPHY. 12: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Alt-Texts: The Ultimate Guide By Daniel Göransson. "This post contains everything you need to know about alt-texts…" https://axesslab.com/alt-texts/ Usability and Accessibility The new WCAG 2.1 and Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics By Erin Marchak. "With this focus on usability, I found that the majority of the WCAG 2.1 success criteria fit into Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics…" https://medium.com/@myplanet/usability-and-accessibility-213c3185314f Get Started with Web Accessibility By Laura Kalbag. "What is web accessibility? We explain accessible web design principles, and share top tips and resources for getting started…" http://www.creativebloq.com/advice/get-started-with-web-accessibility The Secrets Behind UW's Successful Accessibility Initiative By Sofia Enamorado. "Since 1984, the University of Washington's (UW'S) accessibility task force has been working closely with departments and their faculty to educate and incorporate tools to facilitate classroom accessibility…" http://www.3playmedia.com/2017/10/11/secrets-behind-uws-successful-accessibility-initiative/ Roll Up Your Sleeves! Why Accessibility in Higher Ed Needs All Hands On-Deck By Rick Johnson. "Fundamentally, delivering an accessible platform is not about checking a box and saying, 'It's done.' Why accessibility is never-ending and needs IT and vendor input…" https://www.ecampusnews.com/ed-tech-leadership/accessibility-higher-ed-hands-deck/ Up Your Writing with Plain Language By Ashley Bischoff. Slides from Ashley's Fronteers conference presentation. http://www.handcoding.com/presentations/plainwriting/#cover The Confusing Path of Accessibility By Kim Krause Berg. "Accessibility for websites, apps and the software that creates them is a specialty that's ignored until there's a fire and suddenly, companies plead for help…" https://searchnewscentral.com/blog/2017/10/18/the-confusing-path-of-accessibility/ Nine Credit Unions Sued Over Website Accessibility, States Credit Union Times By Tina Orem. "The complaints, all of which were filed in District Courts in Virginia by the same two law firms on behalf of the same plaintiff…" http://www.cutimes.com/2017/10/05/nine-credit-unions-hit-with-ada-suits-over-website Spate of Web-Accessibility Suits Filed in New York By Lindsay McKenzie. "Eight colleges have been sued in federal court in New York in the last two weeks for having websites that, the suits claim, are inaccessible to people with disabilities, The New York Times reported Wednesday…" https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/12/spate-web-accessibility-suits-filed-new-york +02: BOOKS. Hamraie, Aimi. Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability 1st Edition, University of Minnesota Press, 2017. +03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Naming Things In CSS Grid Layout By Rachel Andrew. "…In this article, I'll take an in-depth look at the various ways to name lines and areas in CSS Grid Layout, and some of the interesting possibilities this creates…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/10/naming-things-css-grid-layout/ 8-Point Grid: Vertical Rhythm By Elliot Dahl. "…This post is about how to establish vertical rhythm and set typography in an 8pt grid system. To get caught up, check out The Intro to 8-Point Grid Systems and get tricky with 8-Point Grid: Borders and Layouts…" https://builttoadapt.io/8-point-grid-vertical-rhythm-90d05ad95032 Component Variants with Scoped CSS Variables By Jonathan Harrell. "Scoped CSS variables provide an incredibly easy and clean way to create variants of common interface components like buttons…" https://jonathan-harrell.com/component-variants-scoped-css-variables/ The Ultimate Guide to Flexbox - Learning Through Examples By Ohans Emmanuel. "What's the best way to understand Flexbox? Learn the fundamentals, then build lots of stuff. And that's exactly what we're going to do in this article…" https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-ultimate-guide-to-flexbox-learning-through-examples-8c90248d4676 +04: DRUPAL. Highlights from Drupalcon Vienna By Mikke Schirén. "So last week we went with a big crowd (16 of us) from Digitalist to Drupalcon in Vienna to join the about 2000 other attendees. We went to sessions and BOF:s about caching in Drupal 8, Symfony components in Drupal core, Docker, Config split, Decoupled Drupal, Multi-sites in Drupal 8 and a lot of other things…" https://digitalist.se/highlights-drupalcon-vienna Drupal Usability Meeting (Video) By Gábor Hojtsy. "The October 10 meeting covers decoupled core UI, admin redesign discussion, and field cloning…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ9QMjX2PWI +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. Don't Let Your Brain Deceive You: Avoiding Bias In Your UX Feedback By Hunter Jensen. "You know that user feedback is crucial - after all, your users will decide whether your app succeeds or not - but how do you know whether users are being fair and objective in their feedback?…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/10/avoid-bias-ux-feedback/ 6 Practical Tips for Testing Prototypes By Jeff Sauro. "Prototypes are an effective method for incorporating early and frequent user feedback into the design process…" https://measuringu.com/prototype-testing/ Storing and Sharing User Research By Katy Arnold. "At the Home Office we believe our user research is valuable and should be used to inform decision making at all levels.…" https://hodigital.blog.gov.uk/2017/10/13/storing-and-sharing-user-research/ +06: EVENTS. DesignOps Summit November 6-8, 2017. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://designopssummit.com/ World Usability Day at the University of Minnesota Inclusion through User Experience November 9, 2017. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. https://it.umn.edu/world-usability-day-2017 Introduction to Mobile Web Accessibility Testing & Development November 9, 2017. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. https://www.microassist.com/instructor-led-training/introduction-mobile-web-accessibility-testing-development/ HalfStack 2017 November 17, 2017. London, England, United Kingdom http://halfstackconf.com/ +07: HTML. HTML Quick-Start Guide for an Accessible Website By Sawsan. "You want to be accessible friendly but don't know where to start? Here a small selection of guidelines and good links to help you make your first steps into web accessibility…" https://medium.com/@saawsan/html-quick-start-guide-for-an-accessible-website-19c064ff5849 You Can get Pretty Far in Making a Slider with Just HTML and CSS By Chris Coyier. "A 'slider, as in, a bunch of boxes set in a row that you can navigate between…" https://css-tricks.com/can-get-pretty-far-making-slider-just-html-css/ +08: JAVASCRIPT. Testing Shadow DOM with aXe Coconut (Video) By Rob Dodson. "Today we're going to look at aXe Coconut, the leading edge of the aXe developer toolchain. You can think of aXe Coconut kind of like Chrome Canary or Firefox Nightly. It's a preview channel for developers to test out new versions of the library and offer feedback before they hit the stable version. One of the coolest features in the latest version of aXe Coconut is the ability to inspect Shadow DOM! This is huge for anyone doing Web Component accessibility testing. Today we'll walk through inspecting a media player created with Shadow DOM and show off some of the new audits made possible by aXe Coconut…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uyQdC3LqLo +09: NAVIGATION. How to Use Breadcrumb Navigation in 2017 By Alan Smith. "…Let us explore the evolving role of breadcrumbs, how they impact search engine optimisation (SEO) and UX design when you should avoid them, and how site owners can keep their breadcrumb acumen fresh into the future…" https://usabilitygeek.com/how-to-use-breadcrumb-navigation-2017/ +10: TOOLS. Web Accessibility Testing Tools Recommended by Colleges and Universities By Vance Bell. "…With the Section 508 refresh requirements published in January 2017 going into effect January 2018, I was curious what accessibility tools higher education was placing in the hands of content creators…" https://vancebell.com/blog/web-accessibility-testing-tools-recommended-by-colleges-and-universities/ +11: TYPOGRAPHY. Web Typography: Numerals By Richard Rutter. "In this excerpt from Chapter 2 of Richard Rutter's Web Typography, he explains the importance of proper numeral usage in our work, including when you should and shouldn't use 'old-style' numerals." https://alistapart.com/article/web-typography-numerals +12: USABILITY. Response to Criticisms of Flat-Design Eyetracking Study By Kate Meyer. "We discuss the objections raised to our study of user gaze patterns on weak and strong signifier UIs." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-criticisms-flat-design/ We Can Do Better on Mobile: Designing for the Medium By Amy Schade. "Mobile designs need to do more than shrink a desktop experience to a smaller screen: they must create innovative, integrated and enhanced experiences." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/better-mobile/ The Cult of Conversational Design and Why Forms Aren't Dead Yet By ShekMan Tang. "Everywhere we looked, conversational UIs were breaking out of messaging apps and into the products we use every day, from shoe shopping to cosmetics and everything in between…" https://blog.intercom.com/why-forms-arent-dead-yet/ Design for How People Think (Video) By Don Norman. "Design for how people are, not what you want them to be…" https://www.nngroup.com/videos/design-how-people-think/ From Building Trust to Building Use By Gerry McGovern. "The world is facing a crisis in traditional trust. And that's a good thing. Traditional trust has facilitated a type of god-like leadership and management model based on hierarchy and ego…" http://gerrymcgovern.com/building-use-from-building-trust/ 7 Product Page UX Implementations that Make REI Best-in-Class By Edward Scott. "After benchmarking 60 major e-commerce sites on Product Page UX performance, and analyzing the 5,880 manually reviewed UX parameters, we find that…" https://baymard.com/blog/rei-product-page-ux Principle of Least Astonishment By Wikipedia. "…A typical formulation of the principle, from 1984, is: 'If a necessary feature has a high astonishment factor, it may be necessary to redesign the feature'." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment 100 UX Design Quotes to Inspire and Motivate You By Kristina Guzikova. "…We've put together a compilation of 100 inspiring, tweetable quotes from some of our favorite influencers and experts in the UX community- even including some from before the term 'UX' had been coined…" https://www.intechnic.com/blog/100-ux-design-quotes-to-inspire-and-motivate-you/ [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.]