+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 16, Issue 27, December 28, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 27 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: COLOR. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Screen Reader User Survey #7 Results By Jared Smith. "The full results from our most recent Screen Reader User Survey are available…" https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/ Heydon Pickering - Prioritizing Accessibility (Video) By Carie Fisher. "This month we are super happy to have Heydon Pickering as our guest speaker. Heydon will be talking today about "Prioritizing Accessibility…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-TW_kbkzo0 Congrats! You Just Received an Inaccessible Gift Card By Dennis Deacon. "Dennis Deacon returns with a recent experience with the timely act of redeeming a gift card, and the impact that accessibility plays into gift giving." https://www.24a11y.com/2017/congrats-you-just-received-an-inaccessible-gift-card/ Warning: WordPress.com's Falling Snow Feature May Make Your Site Inaccessible By Jeff Chandler. "…falling snowflakes are akin to videos or audio playing automatically after a page loads. Seeing the snowflakes falling without anything triggering the action can induce panic attacks. While autoplays are annoying to begin with, they are devastating to those with disabilities…" https://wptavern.com/warning-wordpress-coms-falling-snow-feature-can-make-your-site-inaccessible Assistive Tech Switch Device (Video) By Rob Dodson. "Switch Access lets anyone with limited dexterity control their phone or computer. If you're building a mobile site, it's important to understand how switch device users will access your content…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1yoOLhx_qA Schools Commit to Website Accessibility By Matt Lasley. "The Grayson County School Board on Thursday, Dec. 14 approved a resolution agreement with the United States Department of Education/Office of Civil Rights to ensure that its websites will remain accessible to individuals with disabilities…" http://www.gcnewsgazette.com/Content/Default/Local-News-Stories/Article/Schools-commit-to-website-accessibility/-3/9/208 DOJ Nixes All Pending ADA Rulemakings, Including Website Access Rules By Minh N. Vu. "The Justice Department withdraws pending rulemakings for accessible websites, furniture and non-fixed equipment. The current Department of Justice's (DOJ) regulatory approach to Title III of the ADA is yet another example of what a difference an election can make…" https://www.adatitleiii.com/2017/12/doj-nixes-all-pending-ada-rulemakings-including-website-access-rules/ DOJ Withdraws ADA Rulemaking Process By Jared Smith. "Today the Department of Justice announced that it is withdrawing the process for updating technical guidance for websites under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This leaves the web in a precarious position - one where inaccessibility can be considered discriminatory, but without any guidance as to what 'inaccessibility' actually means." https://webaim.org/blog/dojhaltswebguidance/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Building Better UI Designs with Layout Grids By Nick Babich. "This article aims to give you a good understanding of grid systems, what they are, and how they can be applied to your design process. Understanding how to use grids will come from practical experience." https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/12/building-better-ui-designs-layout-grids/ Using SCC Counters By Adam Laki. "The CSS counters are variables which we can increment or decrement with the specific property. With the help of it, we can achieve some generic iteration like in a programming language." https://pineco.de/using-css-counters/ +03: COLOR. Color Contrast, Beyond the Basics By Beth Raduenzel. "At first glance, the WCAG 2.0 AA guideline for contrast minimums appears to be one of the easiest, most straightforward success criterion to achieve…" https://www.24a11y.com/2017/color-contrast-beyond-basics/ 5 Tips on Designing Colorblind-Friendly Visualizations By Jeffrey Shaffer. "Don't use red & green together…" https://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2016/4/examining-data-viz-rules-dont-use-red-green-together-53463 How 'Invert Brightness' Can Improve Accessibility and Help Us Use Our Devices By Matthew Atkinson. "This post continues our series looking at innovative assistive technologies…" https://developer.paciellogroup.com/blog/2017/12/how-invert-brightness-can-improve-accessibility-and-help-us-use-our-devices/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Mobile Usability Research - The Important Differences from the Desktop By Interaction Design Foundation. "It's important to remember that while we may use the same methods for mobile usability research as we use for other types of usability research; the mobile environment is different to the environment at the desktop…" https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/mobile-usability-research-the-important-differences-from-the-desktop +05: EVENTS. Commitment to Digital Accessibility: Best Practices for Inclusive Technology January 17, 2018. Online. http://www.adainfo.org/training/Best-Practices-Inclusive-Technology Introduction to Mobile Web Accessibility Testing & Development Training February 8, 2018. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. https://www.microassist.com/landing-pages/introduction-mobile-web-accessibility-testing-development-training/ Up Front March 16, 2018 Manchester, England, United Kingdom http://upfrontconf.com/ 33rd CSUN Conference March 19-23, 2018. San Diego, Califorina, U.S.A. http://www.csun.edu/cod/conference/2018/sessions/index.php/ +06: HTML. The Trials and Tribulations of the Title Attribute By Scott O'Hara. "…because of some bad practices and inconsistent support, many title attribute use cases are pointless at best-or actively harmful-to those who can access them. The continued lack of support from all browser vendors to reveal titles to non-mouse users, and just the fact that tooltips in general call out inadequacies with user interfaces, should deter their usage for more straightforward and always accessible content." https://www.24a11y.com/2017/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-title-attribute/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. I Just Asked 23,000 Developers What They Think of JavaScript. Here's What I Learned. By Sacha Greif. "I recently published our results for the 2017 edition of the annual State of JavaScript survey, collected from over 23,000 developers…" https://medium.freecodecamp.org/i-just-asked-23-000-developers-what-they-think-of-javascript-heres-what-i-learned-9a06b61998fa No ARIA is Better Than Bad ARIA (Tweet) By Steve Faulkner. "Principal 1: A role is a promise Principle 2: ARIA Can Both Cloak and Enhance, Creating Both Power and Danger." https://twitter.com/stevefaulkner/status/946370347389128704 +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Interview with Jeffrey Zeldman - Part 2 By Nicolas Steenhout. "Continuing my conversation with Jeffrey Zeldman. Among other things, Jeffrey talks about how accessibility needs to be baked in from the very start, and how retrofitting accessibility into a project just doesn't work…" https://www.patreon.com/posts/a11y-rules-22-2-15666989 The Web We May Have Lost By Christian Heilmann. "The current blow to the open web that is the Net Neutrality ruling feels terrible to me…" https://christianheilmann.com/2017/12/17/the-web-we-may-have-lost/ Rated Zero By Ethan Marcotte. "…The more I've thought about it, I think there's a strong, clear line between ISPs choosing specific kinds of content to prioritize, and projects like Google's Accelerated Mobile Project. And apparently, so does the FCC chair…" https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/rated-zero/ Then and Now: The Bauhaus and 21st Century Design By Don Norman. "The Bauhaus movement in Germany, roughly 1919-1933, marked a major turning point for design and its role in society. It exerted a powerful and influential role in the development of artist style. But today, for many designers, it is more of a historical curiosity than a role model. Why? What has changed?…" https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/then_and_now_the_ba.html +09: USABILITY. 18 Designers Predict UI/UX Trends for 2018 By Valerie Veteto. "…In the end, a designer's obsession always circles back to one simple question: How can we improve the user's experience?… " https://blog.figma.com/18-designers-predict-ui-ux-trends-for-2018-2d04d41361c6 Don't Drop the Patient! Examine the Entire System (Video) By Don Norman. "Behavioral designers must look at the entire system to solve complex social and structural problems." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfOpgyGqgx8 The Fold Still Matters… Sometimes By Kayla Heffernan. "Some people say it's a myth, some swear it's not 1997 anymore, and others say people don't always scroll. Kayla simply says people were missing the sign in prompt in her new designs and she needed to make it work. In this short snippet she explains how she worked it out, provides some Sketch templates you may find useful, and even shares a tip on how to manage stakeholders." http://uxmas.com/2017/the-fold-still-matters-sometimes The Power of White Space By Mads Soegaard. "…It is all about being easier to read. Active white space guides the focus and attention of users. It is more about standing out and making a statement." https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/the-power-of-white-space Designing Tables for Reusability By Ada Rafalowicz and Havana Nguyen. "…When we reviewed prototypes from across product teams, we saw that tables were inconsistent - they had a diverse array of competing UX decisions…" https://uxdesign.cc/designing-tables-for-reusability-490a3760533 How to Make Your App Lovable By Enchant. "…What is their secret sauce?…There's a common theme behind all of these: clarity…" https://www.enchant.com/blog/app-clarity A 100-Year of User Experience By Jakob Nielsen. "The UX profession has grown substantially since 1950 and it is now truly worldwide. Even so, the expected growth until 2050 will dwarf anything we've seen so far. Many drivers of UX growth are not immediately apparent to most people in the field." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/100-years-ux/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +10: 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.]