+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 17, Issue 29, January 9, 2019. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 29 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. An Alt Text Primer By Nicolas Steenhout. "…The alt attribute must be present on images. If the image is decorative, it's fine to use an empty alt attribute. If the image is informative, use clear and concise alt text." https://knowbility.org/blog/2019/an-alt-text-primer/ Create your Accessibility 'Aha!' Moment By Teaching VoiceOver to Everyone By Sheri Byrne-Haber. "…Teaching people how to use VoiceOver is a very good first step to exposing people not just to accessibility, but the reasons behind why everything should be accessible…" https://medium.com/@sheribyrnehaber/create-your-accessibility-aha-moment-by-teaching-voiceover-to-everyone-1b92845b49bd The State of the Web: Making the Web More Accessible (Video) By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "When you create an accessible website using best practices for design, development, and content, your website provides a great user experience for everyone…" https://www.lireo.com/state-of-web-accessibility/ A Guide for Creating and Buying Accessible Online Training within Your Organization's Training Program By Kevin Gumienny. "…go with WCAG 2.1-and recognize that meeting the additional success criteria fall under the 'quality of work argument, rather than 'required by law'…" https://www.microassist.com/learning-dispatch/guide-to-accessible-elearning-training-managers/ Beyonce's Parkwood Entertainment Sued Over Website Accessibility By Ashley Cullins. "A blind woman claims she can't use Beyonce.com without the help of a sighted companion…" https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/beyonces-parkwood-entertainment-sued-1172909 Beyonce.com Lawsuit Reminds Us How Shitty the Web Is for Users With Visual Impairment By Melanie Ehrenkranz. "Mary Conner, a legally blind woman, filed a class-action lawsuit against Beyoncé Knowles' entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment on Thursday alleging that the superstar's official website isn't accessible for visually impaired users…" https://gizmodo.com/beyonce-com-lawsuit-reminds-us-how-shitty-the-web-is-fo-1831493336 Local Governments on Alert over Lawsuits Targeting ADA Violations Over Website Documents By Martin E. Comas. "…At least three Central Florida cities - Lake Mary, Longwood and Oviedo - have temporarily removed many public documents from their websites to protect themselves from lawsuits alleging a violation of the Americans with Disability Act…" https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ne-ada-lawsuits-blind-local-governments-20190104-story.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. If It's Interactive, It Needs a Focus Style (Video) By Eric Bailey. "Focus styles don't have to be ugly! Focus styles are an integral part of any mature design system. This talk will discuss the intersection of WCAG compliance and Inclusive Design, as well as new focus-related CSS selectors. Additionally, strategies for how to effectively implement them in your organization…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43OYDFgLjMQ Making Future Interfaces: Algorithmic Layouts (Video) By Heydon Pickering. "Learn how to create CSS layouts that are self-governing, using Flexbox and Grid." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOUtkN6M52M 10 Amazing New CSS Techniques By Rachel Andrew. "Explore the best new CSS that's starting to land in browsers." https://www.creativebloq.com/features/10-amazing-new-css-techniques Stepping Away From Sass By Cathy Dutton. "As I moved towards some of the more modern features of CSS the need to target specific screen sizes with unique code was removed…" https://cathydutton.co.uk/posts/why-i-stopped-using-sass/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Formative vs. Summative Usability Evaluation (Video) By Maria Rosala. Usability testing and other UX evaluation methods can be divided into two major categories: formative evaluation and summative evaluation. Both have their place, but at different stages in the design lifecycle, and they have different characteristics, for example in the number of test participants needed for a good study. (3 min. video) https://www.nngroup.com/videos/formative-vs-summative-evaluation/ +04: EVENTS. Hands-On Training on New A11y Test Tool (ANDI) January 15, 2019. Westminister, Colorado, U.S.A. https://www.meetup.com/a11yFR/events/257573099/ Accessibility Training January 15-16, 2019. Logan, Utah, U.S.A. https://webaim.org/training/ London Accessibility Meetup #22 January 17, 2019 London, England, United Kingdom https://www.meetup.com/London-Accessibility-Meetup/events/257859788/ Women of Accessibility January 23, 2019. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/breaking-the-glass-visa-women-of-accessibility-panel-event-tickets-54316961494 Building the Business Case for Accessibility January 24, 2019. Online https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/content.asp?admin=Y&contentid=556 Sustainable UX 2019 Design vs. Climate Change February 12, 2019. Online https://sustainableux.com/ The UX Conference February 21, 2019. London, England, United Kingdom https://theuxconf.com/ +05: HTML. Tables, Tequila and Beer By Steve Faulkner. "In a recent article tables and beers I explained how browsers correctly represent table semantics of simple tables with either a row or column of headers. Thus alleviating the need to use the scope attribute to identify a th as a row or column header. In this article I take it a little further, with tequila and beer." https://codepen.io/stevef/post/tables-tequila-and-beer Short Note on Scoping Mechanisms By Steve Faulkner. "In 2 recent articles I have illustrated why the scope attribute is not needed on data tables with one row or column of th elements, or data tables with 1 row and column of th elements (first row and first column)…" https://developer.paciellogroup.com/blog/2019/01/short-note-on-scoping-mechanisms/ It's More Important to Load Fast Than to Code Fast By Estelle Weyl. "…If you always keep your user's needs in mind, you can, on the first try, develop a site or app that is not only accessible and fast to load, but is also secure, private, internationalizable, and usable…HTML is by default fast and accessible. It's our job to not break it. Semantic HTML comes with standardized user interactions. For example, take the radio button. All you have to do is give all the radio buttons in your button group the same name, preferably with differed values…" https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2018/important-load-fast-code-fast/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. An Information Architecture Framework for the Internet of Things By Flávia Lacerd, Mamede Lima-Marques, and Andrea Resmini. "This paper formalizes an approach to the Internet of Things as a socio-technical system of systems and a part of the infosphere. It introduces a principle-based, human-centered approach to designing Internet of Things artifacts as elements of contextual cross-channel ecosystems…" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-018-0332-4 +07: JAVASCRIPT. Learn JavaScript By Jad Joubran. "Learn in an interactive environment. Study short lessons and practice in an intuitive environment based on Tests…" https://learnjavascript.online/ What ARIA Does Not Do By Steve Faulkner. "…ARIA does not magically make any element act differently to what it is, it only provides a method to make it appear as something else to assistive technology users…Developers must provide the substance to the semantics conveyed using ARIA, otherwise users are confronted with a UI masquerade…" https://stevefaulkner.github.io/Articles/What%20ARIA%20does%20not%20do.html +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Google-Whisperers Beat reCaptcha Voice Challenge with 90% Success Rate By Richard Chirgwin. "Code's up on Github and Google's fine with that University of Maryland researchers have given Google a "welcome to 2019" gift by breaking its latest reCaptcha audio challenge…" https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/03/recaptcha_voice_challenge/ History Of The Web By Jay Hoffmann. "The History of the Web is a newsletter I write each week. It is the culmination of years and years of research, endless reams of notes, and a deep passion for the World Wide Web distilled down to an interesting new story plucked from the web's past each week. It's been an incredible (and unexpected) journey, and something I'm extremely proud of." https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/ History Of The Web in Book Format: https://leanpub.com/webhistory/ +09: TOOLS. Auto Alt Text (Chrome Extension) By Abhinav Suri. "Use the power of AI to caption images with a simple right-click…" https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-alt-text/lgmkhmedpaidhgonghfhijjlgaballje?hl=en +10: USABILITY. Baseline Rules for Scrollbar Usability By Adrian Roselli. "Now that one of the most popular CSS resource sites on the innertubes has implemented styled scrollbars in the browser I think the time is right (or too late?) for me to try to capture a starting point for ensuring they are usable…" http://adrianroselli.com/2019/01/baseline-rules-for-scrollbar-usability.html How to Stop Opening Links in New Windows Without Warning By Nicolas Steenhout. "Links opening in new windows are an accessibility barrier we find on most websites we audit. …" https://knowbility.org/blog/2019/links-opening-new-windows-no-warning/ Why Microinteractions are Important for UX By Alita Joyce. "Defining microinteractions and why getting these small UI details right matters for the quality of the user experience." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/microinteractions/ Reader Mode: The Button to Beat By Eric Bailey. "…If you spend the effort to craft your experiences with a mind to semantics from the start, your content will be able to adapt to specialized reading modes, as well as whatever the future holds with little to no additional effort. Today's Reader Mode could be tomorrow's smart bathroom mirror…" https://css-tricks.com/reader-mode-the-button-to-beat/ Laws of UX By Jon Yablonski. "Laws of UX is a collection of the maxims and principles that designers can consider when building user interfaces…" https://lawsofux.com/ User-Experience Quiz: 2018 UX Year in Review By Raluca Budiu. "Test your UX knowledge by taking our quiz. All questions and answers are based on articles that we published last year." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-quiz/ [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.]