+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 17, Issue 25, December 12, 2018. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 25 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: DRUPAL. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: TOOLS. 11: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Understanding WCAG 2.1 Guideline 2.5: Input Modalities By Bureau of Internet Accessibility. "…To account for the need to navigate and operate controls through various input methods, WCAG 2.1 includes a new guideline: 2.5 Input Modalities…" https://www.boia.org/blog/understanding-wcag-2-1-guideline-2-5-input-modalities Unlocking Accessibility for UX/UI Designers By Denis Boudreau. "In today's article, Denis Boudreau explains that the accessibility community, have been lying for the better part of the last twenty years. Web accessibility is hard. It's complicated. And you don't need to care about all of that WCAG stuff." https://www.24a11y.com/2018/unlocking-accessibility-for-ux-ui-designers/ Web Accessibility: What You Say vs. What I Hear By Mikey Ilagan. "…I've noticed a recurring theme. Issues identified through assistive technology such as screen readers are often treated as bugs-backlogged and forgotten in lieu of new feature development. Let me be clear: I think looking at accessibility this way is all wrong…" https://www.thinkcompany.com/2017/12/web-accessibility-what-you-say-what-i-hear/ Microsoft Makes Real-Time Captions and Translation Standard in Office 365 PowerPoint By James Thorne. "The next PowerPoint presentation you see may have live captions or subtitles, as Microsoft rolls out a real-time voice translation feature to millions of subscribers. Think of it as an AI-powered Babel fish for the conference room…" https://www.geekwire.com/2018/microsoft-makes-real-time-captions-and-translation-standard-in-office-365-powerpoint/ The Current State of Automatic Speech Recognition By Jaclyn Leduc. "…Will a completely automated captioning solution ever exist? The answer, at least for the conceivable future, is no. For now, a human editor must be involved in the captioning and transcription process in order to produce 99% accurate captions." https://www.3playmedia.com/2018/12/05/the-current-state-of-automatic-speech-recognition-why-we-still-need-humans-for-captioning/ The Ultimate Guide to Audio Description By 3Play Media. "Just about everything you need to know about audio description and then some…" https://www.3playmedia.com/resources/popular-topics/audio-description/ Disability is a Spectrum, Not a Binary By Steve Barnett and Nicola du Toit. "…Steve Barnett and Nicola du Toit look at disability as a spectrum instead of a binary and by making things accessible, we help more people than we might realize." https://www.24a11y.com/2018/disability-is-a-spectrum-not-a-binary/ How Ableism Leads to Inaccessibility By Olivier Nourry. "…Olivier Nourry discusses Ableism, the belief that a fully-functional body and mind are the norm for a human being and considers people with disabilities as unworthy and how in many ways, inaccessibility is a by-product of ableism-based thinking." https://www.24a11y.com/2018/how-ableism-leads-to-inaccessibility/ The Accessibility Elves By Michael E Ryan. "There are many different roles in software that can help improve accessibility. In today's piece, Mike introduces us to the seven elves working on accessibility as part of the Inclusive Design Team." https://www.uxmas.com/2018/the-accessibility-elves Lessons from Gutenberg By Adrian Roselli. "…there are lessons to be learned from Gutenberg that, thanks to its open nature, we can apply to other projects. Ideally, you want to make your next project the Anti-Gutenberg…" http://adrianroselli.com/2018/12/lessons-from-gutenberg.html Colleges, Including Saint Rose, Hit with Website Lawsuits By Rick Karlin. "The College of Saint Rose is among the most recent targets of a series of lawsuits filed against colleges and other organizations related to their websites…" https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Colleges-including-Saint-Rose-hit-with-mass-13442769.php 50 Colleges Hit With ADA Lawsuits By Lindsay McKenzie. "A blind man is taking 50 colleges to court, alleging their websites are inaccessible to people with disabilities." https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/10/fifty-colleges-sued-barrage-ada-lawsuits-over-web-accessibility +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Managing Flow and Rhythm with CSS Custom Properties By Andy Bell. "An important part of designing user interfaces is creating consistent vertical rhythm between elements. Creating consistent, predictable space doesn't just make your web pages and views look better, but it can also improve the scan-ability…" https://24ways.org/2018/managing-flow-and-rhythm-with-css-custom-properties/ What Do You Name Color Variables? By Chris Coyier. "I remember the very first time I tried Sass on a project. The first thing I wanted to do was variablize my colors. From my naming-things-in-HTML skillz, I knew to avoid classes like .header-blue-left-bottom because the color and position of that element might change. It's better for to reflect what it is than what it looks like…" https://css-tricks.com/what-do-you-name-color-variables/ A CSS Venn Diagram By Adrian Roselli. "This post is just a summation of what I made with some stuff I learned…" http://adrianroselli.com/2018/12/a-css-venn-diagram.html An Introduction and Guide to the CSS Object Model By Louis Lazaris. "…In this guide, I'm going to go through many of the most important features of the CSSOM, starting with stuff that's more commonly known, then moving on to some more obscure, but practical, features…" https://css-tricks.com/an-introduction-and-guide-to-the-css-object-model-cssom/ +03: COLOR. My Struggle with Colors By Zain Adeel. "Demystifying colors for accessible digital experiences…" https://uxdesign.cc/my-struggle-with-colors-52156c664b87 +04: DRUPAL. Drupal's Commitment to Accessibility By Dries Buytaert. "…I've come to believe that accessibility is not something you do for a small group of people. Accessibility is about promoting inclusion. When the product you use daily is accessible, it means that we all get to work with a greater number and a greater variety of colleagues. Accessibility benefits everyone…" https://dri.es/drupal-commitment-to-accessibility +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. Can You Use a Single Item to Predict SUS Scores? By Jeff Sauro. "The System Usability Scale (SUS) has been around for decades and is used by hundreds of organizations globally…" https://measuringu.com/single-item-sus/ Help! I Don't Know What Type of User Research To Do By Cheryl Paulsen. "Choosing the right research method isn't always easy, for multiple reasons…" https://medium.com/@cheryl.paulsen/help-i-dont-know-what-type-of-user-research-to-do-42d76fa4d9f +06: EVENTS. Your Accessibility Evolution: an Ongoing Journey December 19, 2018. Online https://zoom.us/webinar/register/8215439609329/WN_hWHVOOfeS2iChWJXnf5aKQ Web Accessibility Testing With Screen Readers January 22, 2019. Online https://www.maxability.co.in/2018/12/webinar-january-2019-web-accessibility-testing-with-screen-readers/ World IA Day February 23, 2019. Everywhere. https://www.worldiaday.org/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. The Baseline Costs of JavaScript Frameworks By Ankur Sethi. "…Your React application will never load faster than about 1.1 seconds on an average phone in India, no matter how much you optimize it. Your Angular app will always take at least 2.7 seconds to boot up…" https://blog.uncommon.is/the-baseline-costs-of-javascript-frameworks-f768e2865d4a React Native Accessibility Is Pretty Bad By Doug Russell. "Allow me to preface this by saying that React Native sets out to solve problems I don't think are very interesting to solve. In particular I don't think that sharing a single UI between disparate platforms is desirable from any perspective that isn't cost savings and that even from that perspective it's dicey…" http://www.takingnotes.co/blog/2018/11/09/react-native-accessibility/ A New Day: Making a Better Calendar By Gerard Cohen. "This calendar year is almost over and we still don't have any solid guidance or official ARIA pattern on how to build an interactive and accessible calendar widget. Gerard Cohen shows us how to obtain an improved calendar experience." https://www.24a11y.com/2018/a-new-day-making-a-better-calendar/ My Favourite Accessible Accordion Pattern By Graham Armfield. "…This post looks at the requirements for an accessible accordion component, and shows you how to build one. I'll also talk about why I favour the pattern presented here over others that are available…" https://www.hassellinclusion.com/blog/accessible-accordion-pattern/ The (Switch)-Case for State Machines in User Interfaces By David Khourshid. "…one important (and very old) mathematical model of computation can be used for describing the behavior and all possible states of a user interface: the finite state machine…" https://24ways.org/2018/state-machines-in-user-interfaces/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Reluctant Gatekeeping: The Problem With Full Stack By Heydon Pickering. "Much of my career as a web designer has been spent, quite happily, working alongside programmers, engineers, people with computer science degrees. In this symbiotic relationship, each party has a secure job with a well-defined role, and gets to work on the thing they are best at and enjoy the most…" http://www.heydonworks.com/article/reluctant-gatekeeping-the-problem-with-full-stack Be the Villain By Eric Bailey. "Eric Bailey asks us to take on the role of King Herod in our projects to consider how the products, services and processes we design could be abused to cause harm rather than to do good. No matter how good our intentions, we must remember that not every user has pure motivations and that every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." https://24ways.org/2018/be-the-villain/ Microsoft Targets Better Accessibility in Chromium By Paul Thurrott. "…the first feature Microsoft has committed to adding to Chromium is for accessibility…The feature is called UI Automation Providers and it will allow Chromium-based browsers on Windows to seamlessly interact with accessibility client applications like Narrator…" https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/194887/microsoft-targets-better-accessibility-in-chromium More on Edge Moving to Chromium: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html#edge +09: NAVIGATION. Not Your Father's Navigation Strategy: There's More Than Just the TAB Key By Rachel Olivero. "…Rachel Olivero explains that while the use of the Tab key for navigation among web components is appropriate in the right circumstances, effectively utilizing quick navigation keys and element lists can offer greater flexibility for screen access software users…" https://www.24a11y.com/2018/more-than-just-the-tab-key/ Journey Mapping 101 By Sarah Gibbons. "A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/journey-mapping-101/ +10: TOOLS. PAVE (PDF Accessibility Validation Engine) By ICT-Accessibility Lab of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) in collaboration with the Swiss Federation of the Blind and Visually Impaired. "You can use PAVE to make your PDF documents accessible and to interpret conventional reader programs correctly…" http://pave-pdf.org/index.en.html W3C is Coming to Your A11Y Tools By Wilco Fiers. "…Wilco Fiers talks about the upcoming harmonization of both automated accessibility testing tools and manual, human testing, lead by the W3C's Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) Task Force." https://www.24a11y.com/2018/w3c-is-coming-to-your-a11y-tools/ Mobilizing Android Accessibility At Airbnb By Diane Ko and Julia Fu "…Diane Ko and Julia Fu talk about accessibility and the Airbnb Android App, the advantages and challenges of the Android platform and how they spread accessibility awareness and know-how through documentation and training." https://www.24a11y.com/2018/android-accessibility-at-airbnb/ +11: USABILITY. De-jargonising Design By Donna Spencer. "…Unfortunately jargon only works when the group we're communicating with has the right background knowledge to understand it, and if they have similar experiences to our own. Even more unfortunately, the people we spend most of our time communicating with are not our peers-they're usually our business colleagues, developers and clients. They are left feeling stupid when we rattle off our jargon-filled methods, techniques and design principles…" https://www.uxmas.com/2018/dejargonising-design The Anchoring Principle By Therese Fessenden. "People tend to focus on a single, initial piece of information, which influences how they estimate value and make subsequent decisions." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/anchoring-principle/ A 4 Minute UX Facilitator's Guide (Video) By Sarah Gibbons. "As a facilitator, it's your responsibility to make sure the time spent in workshops is as productive as possible for attendees, while at the same time ensuring that you get the insights you need in order to move your project forward." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/ux-facilitator-guide/ Product List UX: Explain Industry-Specific Filters (91% Don't) By Edward Scott. "In our large-scale usability testing of product lists and filters, we observe that filters can turn an overwhelming and unmanageable product list into one that's much more focused on products relevant to the user - increasing the likelihood of a user finding a suitable product to purchase…" https://baymard.com/blog/explain-industry-specific-filters [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +17: 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.]