+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 16, Issue 21, November 16, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 21 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: NAVIGATION. 07: TYPOGRAPHY. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Consistently Inconsistent: When the Most Accessible Experience is Different for Each User By Eric Bailey. "hile working on a web app to make it more accessible, a coworker received an interesting request from the client's QA department…" https://cantina.co/consistently-inconsistent-when-the-most-accessible-experience-is-different-for-each-user/ Inclusive Web Design Checklist By Heydon Pickering. "Aims to be the biggest checklist of inclusive design considerations for the web ever. Includes items for accessibility, performance, device support, interoperability, and language. Pull requests welcome!" https://github.com/Heydon/inclusive-design-checklist The Art of Noise (Video) By Léonie Watson. Léonie's Amuse UX Conference presentation. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/109226409 An IT Accessibility Watchdog? By Lindsay McKenzie. "As lawsuits mount over access to learning technologies for people with disabilities, universities consider banding together to share accessibility reviews of vendor products…" https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/15/universities-mull-creation-it-accessibility-group-review-vendor-products Steps You Can Take Now to Address Web Accessibility at Your Institution By Cyndi Rowland. "…Below are the 9 items we routinely see in letters from OCR…" https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/steps-you-can-take-now-to-address-web-accessibility-at-your-institution/ Location, Location, Location: New Website Accessibility Decision May Encourage Forum Shopping By Jennifer S. Rusie. "On November 8, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire joined the ranks of the federal courts that have held that a website itself is a place of public accommodation-even if the business that maintains the website does not own or operate any physical place of public accommodation…" https://www.natlawreview.com/article/location-location-location-new-website-accessibility-decision-may-encourage-forum Disability Suits Over Website Access Surge By Judy Greenwald. "More courts are ruling against companies over the issue of website accessibility, while the number of lawsuits filed against them continues to grow dramatically…" http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20171106/NEWS06/912317033/Americans-with-Disabilities-Act-lawsuits-over-website-access-surge ADA Lawsuits Against CUs More Than Double in a Month By Tina Orem. "The number of lawsuits filed in Virginia District Courts against credit unions over the accessibility of their websites has risen from nine to more than 20 in the last four weeks, court documents show…" http://www.cutimes.com/2017/11/05/ada-lawsuits-against-cus-more-than-double-in-a-mon Legislative, Regulatory Fixes for ADA Debacle Unclear By David Baumann. "As credit unions try to fight disability lawsuits they believe are an abuse of the legal system, it became even clearer Wednesday that a legislative fix won't come soon…" http://www.cutimes.com/2017/11/08/legislative-regulatory-fixes-for-ada-debacle-uncle Lainey Feingold on What the ADA and Digital Accessibility Laws Look Like Going into 2018 By Patrick Loftus. "…Here are some of our favorite quotes and anecdotes from Lainey's presentation that make pre-internet accessibility laws easy to understand in today's technological context and give us a glimpse into the future of IT accessibility as a whole:…" http://www.3playmedia.com/2017/11/14/lainey-feingold-what-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-looks-like-going-into-2018/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. A Better Focus By Matt Smith. "Inspired by Focusingly, a more visually-pleasing focus for keyboard users applied with CSS outline and outline-offset…" https://codepen.io/AllThingsSmitty/pen/MOYNBO Don't Style :checked and :focus States Identically - Here's Why By Olivier Nourry. "…Users who navigate with the keyboard only (or similar switch-based input devices), and can see the screen, really need to know the current position of the focus, at any time. If "checked" and "focus" styles are identical, then it's like having no focused state at all…" http://accessiblog.fr/2017/11/dont-style-checked-and-focus-states-identically-heres-why/ The New CSS Layout Technologies (Video) By Rachel Andrew. "Rachel Andrew returns! Rachel is a sought out expert on web design layout technologies like CSS Grid and Flexbox, an invited expert to CSS Working Group, and author of several books. Her latest book, The New CSS Layout, is out now from A Book Apart…" https://goodstuff.fm/nbsp/137 Declining Complexity in CSS By Eric A. Meyer. "…core principles and mechanisms are no more complicated than they were a decade or even two decades ago. If anything, they're easier to grasp now, because we don't have to clutter our minds with float behaviors or inline layout just to try to lay out a page. Flexbox and Grid (chapters 12 and 13, by the way) make layout so much simpler than ever before, while simultaneously providing far more capability than ever before…" http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2017/11/14/declining-complexity-in-css/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. My Favorite Usability Testing Question By Chris Gallello. "My favorite approach is to ask,'Who do you know that would like this product? What are they like?' Why? It draws really honest answers out of people because it's a product question disguised as a casual question about the people they know…" https://medium.com/purpledesign/my-favorite-usability-test-question-62fbe3aa9373 Do Observers Affect Usability Test Results? By Jeff Sauro. "Many researchers are familiar with the Hawthorne Effect in which people act differently when observed…" https://measuringu.com/observer-effect/ How To Develop Goals In A Usability Test By Emily Grace Adiseshiah. "…this article will walk you through all the usability basics and show you how to define effective usability test goals…" https://usabilitygeek.com/how-to-develop-goals-usability-test/ +04: EVENTS Applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Universal Design of Instruction (UDI) Principles to Online Courses March 12-18, 2018. Online https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/learn/olc-new-institute-schedule/institute-offerings/?id=413&cohort=303 John Slatin AccessU March 25-29, 2018 Austin Texas, U.S.A. https://knowbility.org/education/accessu/ #PerfMatters Conference March 27-28, 2018. Redwood City, Califorina, U.S.A. http://PerfMattersConf.com/ +05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Basic UI/UX Design Concept Difference Between Wireframe, Prototype, and Mockup By Mockplus. "The differences of wireframe, prototype, and mockup are always get confused by lots of designers, despite the experienced designer, I saw many people asked questions on Quora and Reddit about these terms, so it's essential to make clear about what the hell is it. That would solve a lot of problems and save energy for designers…" https://www.mockplus.com/blog/post/basic-uiux-design-concept-difference-between-wireframe-prototype/ +06: NAVIGATION. 5 Common Usability Pitfalls of Custom Designed Drop-Downs (31% Have Issues) By Christian Holst. "…Our large-scale checkout usability testing and benchmarking reveal that while 82% of e-commerce sites use custom designed drop-downs in the checkout flow, 31% of all custom designed drop-downs have significant usability issues…" https://baymard.com/blog/custom-dropdowns-cause-issues The User Deserves the Right to Know if a New Tab Will Open Itself When Clicking On a Link By Augustin Riedinger. "This happens to me very rarely, maybe few times a month, but when it does, I find it super annoying…" https://augustin-riedinger.fr/en/resources/thoughts-on-target-blank/ +07: TYPOGRAPHY. Is Text Sizing Dead? By Alastair Campbell. "I was listening to Shop Talk show 287, where Chris and Dave were wondering about the old mantras about text-sizing / media queries not being in pixels, I think I can help with this…" https://alastairc.ac/2017/11/is-text-sizing-dead/ Internet is Becoming Unreadable Because of a Trend Towards Lighter, Thinner Fonts By Sarah Knapton. "The internet is becoming unreadable because of a trend towards lighter and thinner fonts, making it difficult for the elderly or visually-impaired to see words clearly, a web expert has found…" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/23/internet-is-becoming-unreadable-because-of-a-trend-towards-light/ +08: USABILITY. The Most Important Rule in UX Design that Everyone Breaks By Jeff Davidson. "…The psychological phenomenon I will be discussing in this article is known as Miller's Law. Rather than just tell you what Miller's Law is, I ask you to take part in this exercise for a more immersive learning lesson…" https://blog.prototypr.io/the-most-important-rule-in-ux-design-that-everyone-breaks-1c1cb188931 F-Shaped Pattern of Reading on the Web: Misunderstood, But Still Relevant (Even on Mobile) By Kara Pernice. "Eyetracking research shows that people scan webpages and phone screens in various patterns, one of them being the shape of the letter F. Eleven years after discovering this pattern, we revisit what it means today." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/ Discoverability in the Age of Touchscreens By Jorge Arango. "How do you understand systems that rely on gestures…" https://medium.com/@jarango/discoverability-in-the-age-of-touchscreens-125fcb392e08 Inline Validation is Problematic 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 Voice First: The Future of Interaction? By Kathryn Whitenton. "Devices (e.g., Echo Show) which include screens, but employ voice as the primary input method point the way towards a more integrated and useful holistic user experience." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/voice-first/ Don't Be Fooled by Surface-Level Design (Video) By Jakob Nielsen. "Look beyond surface-level qualities to assess the value of websites. A website that looks (or sounds) good does not mean that it is. Good websites contain engaging features that help people accomplish their goals…" https://www.nngroup.com/videos/surface-level-design/ [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.]