+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 16, Issue 30, January 18, 2018. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 30 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: HTML. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Is Machine Learning The Solution to Web Accessibility? By Everett Zufelt. "…There is a long way to go before a piece of assistive technology, or better yet a main stream browser, will be able to remediate the barriers to content accessibility on the web." https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/machine-learning-solution-web-accessibility-everett-zufelt/ Web Accessibility in Higher Education By Ryan Drawdy. "…This article is based on an interview with Mark Greenfield, Digital Strategist for the University at Buffalo…" https://www.helixeducation.com/resources/enrollment-growth-university/web-accessibility-mark-greenfield/ The Overlooked, Misunderstood Nature of Accessibility By Mads Soegaard. "…A design is only useful if it's accessible to the user: any user, anywhere, anytime. We often mistake the concept of accessibility as involving people with disabilities. However, we're all disabled in many contexts and circumstances. Accessibility is all about people…" https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/accessibility-usability-for-all Small Tweaks That Can Make a Huge Impact on Your Website's Accessibility By Andy Bell. "…I've written this post to give you some tips on small things that can make a big difference, while hopefully not affecting your development process too much…" https://css-tricks.com/small-tweaks-can-make-huge-impact-websites-accessibility/ Section 508 Refresh (Part 2) By Matt Feldman. "…In today's article, we are shifting focus to the important initiatives that have taken place to better prepare agencies and vendors to support this new accessibility standard…" https://developer.paciellogroup.com/blog/2018/01/section-508-refresh-part-2/ Inclusive Design Principles: Provide a Comparable Experience By Henny Swan. This is our second post in a series that digs deeper into the thinking and application of the Inclusive Design Principles…" https://developer.paciellogroup.com/blog/2018/01/inclusive-design-principle-provide-a-comparable-experience/ Increasing Accessibility By Eric A. Meyer. "Thanks to the fantastic comments on my previous post, I've made some accessibility improvements…" https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2018/01/10/increasing-accessibility/ Federal Websites Failing to Meet Standards, Industry Leaders Weigh In By MeriTalk. "Communication is key-especially for the Federal government. One of the most important ways the government communicates with citizens is through agency websites. In fact, the Federal government has roughly 4,500 websites on more than 400 domains. However, the vast majority of those websites aren't meeting industry standards." https://www.meritalk.com/articles/federal-websites-failing-to-meet-standards-industry-leaders-weigh-in/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. How Big Is That Box? Understanding Sizing In CSS Layout By Rachel Andrew. ""A key feature of Flexbox and Grid Layout is that they can deal with distributing available space between, around and inside grid and flex items…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/01/understanding-sizing-css-layout/ The Latest Ways to Deal with the Cascade, Inheritance and Specificity By Ollie Williams. "The cascade is such an intrinsic part of CSS that they put it right there in the name…" https://css-tricks.com/latest-ways-deal-cascade-inheritance-specificity/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Why Do I Need a Usability Site Audit? By Kim Krause Berg. "If you have ever used a website and become frustrated with it, you know first hand why a usability site audit is necessary…" https://creativevisionwebconsulting.com/need-usability-site-audit/ Five User Research Rules of Thumb By Leisa Reichelt. "Over years of experience you begin to collect ways of working and talking about how you work that accrete into rules of thumb…" http://www.disambiguity.com/five-user-research-rules-of-thumb/ User Experience Benchmarks for Wireless Carrier Websites By Jeff Sauro. "…A two-part UX benchmark (retrospective and task-based) analysis of wireless carrier websites was conducted in 2017 using 393 participants. The overall user experience of the industry was slightly below average and improved relative to the 2012 analysis we conducted. In general, customers don't recommend these experiences as there are on average four times as many detractors as promoters…" https://measuringu.com/wireless-ux/ Outsourcing a UX Benchmark vs. Doing it Yourself By Jeff Sauro. "Benchmarking is an essential part of a plan to systematically improve the user experience…" https://measuringu.com/outsourcing-benchmark/ +04: EVENTS. January Nerd Therapy: Accessibility-Why You Need to Think About ALL Your Users! January 25, 2018. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. https://www.meetup.com/NerdTherapy/events/246839464/ SmashingConf San Francisco April 17-18, 2018. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/events/san-francisco-2018/ Advanced CSS Layouts With Flexbox and CSS Grid April 19, 2018. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/workshops/advanced-css-layouts-with-flexbox-and-css-grid/ CHI 2018 April 21-26, 2018. Montréal, Canada https://chi2018.acm.org/ 15th International Web for All Conference W4A'18 April 22-24, 2018. Lyon, France http://www.w4a.info The Web Conference 2018 April 23-27, 2018. Lyon, France https://www2018.thewebconf.org/ +05: HTML. The Title Attribute By Arnold Goodway. "…Sorry Mr. TITLE attribute, in the future we will think twice before we use you." https://arnoldgoodway.com/the-title-attribute/ Meet the New Dialog Element By Keith J. Grant. "HTML 5.2 has introduced a new element for native modal dialog boxes…" https://keithjgrant.com/posts/2018/meet-the-new-dialog-element/ HTML5 Autoplay Attribute By Rakesh Paladugula. "HTML5 autoplay is a new attribute to support the multimedia content…Using HTML5 autoplay is not a good practice as per WCAG 2.0 standards…" http://www.maxability.co.in/2018/01/html5-autoplay-attribute/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 4 Powerful Ways to Use Rapid Prototyping to Drive Product Success By Teresa Torres. "…when we think of rapid prototyping and usability testing as one and the same, we tend to underestimate the power of prototyping…" https://www.producttalk.org/2018/01/rapid-prototyping/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. But Really, What is a JavaScript Test? By Kent C. Dodds. "Let's take a step back and understand automated testing of JavaScript from square one…" https://blog.kentcdodds.com/but-really-what-is-a-javascript-test-46fe5f3fad77 +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Legends of the Ancient Web By Maciej Ceglowski. "This is the text version of a talk I gave on May 24, 2017, at the Front Trends conference in Warsaw…" http://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm Women in UX: Meet Henny Swan, Advocate for UX Inclusivity By Sheena Lyonnais. "It was the 1990s, back when websites were flashier than RuPaul's most glamorous gown…" https://theblog.adobe.com/women-ux-meet-henny-swan-advocate-ux-inclusivity/ Make Your Coding Easier, Use DuckDuckGo Cheat Sheets By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "…DuckDuckGo has additional features that can make my work life easier: built-in cheat sheets to help web designers and developers…" https://www.lireo.com/make-your-coding-easier-use-duckduckgo-cheat-sheets/ +09: TOOLS. ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector) By United States Social Security Administration. "ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector) is a "favelet" or "bookmarklet" used by web developers and testers to inspect web content for accessibility." https://www.ssa.gov/accessibility/andi/help/install.html +10: USABILITY. The Hawaii Missile Alert Culprit: Poorly Chosen File Names By Jared M. Spool. "…This wasn't a thoughtfully designed menu, any more than any random collection of user-named objects are…" https://medium.com/ux-immersion-interactions/the-hawaii-missile-alert-culprit-poorly-chosen-file-names-d30d59ddfcf5 The State of Mobile User Experience By Raluca Budiu. "Findings from our 4th comprehensive study of mobile usability: Ten years from the original iPhone, the field of mobile user experience has finally reached maturity." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/state-mobile-ux/ Attention Leans Left on Websites (Video) By Therese Fessenden. "Eyetracking research shows people spend disproportionately more viewing time on the left half of the page versus on the right half." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/attention-leans-left-websites/ Designing for Simplicity of Use By Gerry McGovern. "If you want to make things truly simple to use by your customers, you will nearly always have to make your organization take on more complexity." http://gerrymcgovern.com/designing-for-simplicity-of-use/ Complexity Bias: Why We Prefer Complicated to Simple By Farnam Street. "Complexity bias is a logical fallacy that leads us to give undue credence to complex concepts…" https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2018/01/complexity-bias/ Understand the Social Needs for Accessibility in UX Design By Ruby Zheng. "…Here, we will look at the social need of why you should design with accessibility in mind…" https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/understand-the-social-needs-for-accessibility-in-ux-design Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking By Sarah Gibbons. "Visualizing user attitudes and behaviors in an empathy map helps UX teams align on a deep understanding of end users. The mapping process also reveals any holes in existing user data." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +11: 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.]