+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 18, Issue 02, July 9, 2019. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 02 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: NAVIGATION. 07: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 08: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Maybe You Don't Need a Date Picker By Adrian Roselli. "…The problem is that nearly every implementation of a date picker is a barrier for some set of users…" http://adrianroselli.com/2019/07/maybe-you-dont-need-a-date-picker.html Accessibility Support By Michael Fairchild et al. "Will your code work with assistive technologies?…This is a community driven website that aims to help inform developers about what is accessibility supported. In order to conform to WCAG 2.0, you must write code in ways that are supported by assistive technologies (such as screen readers)…" https://a11ysupport.io How to Identify a Toxic Accessibility Culture, and What You Can do About It By Sheri Byrne-Haber. "A broken organizational culture makes everything disability-related harder, from implementing accessibility projects to getting critical support to move the disability / accessibility needle forward…" https://medium.com/@sheribyrnehaber/how-to-identify-a-toxic-accessibility-culture-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-29c8ec9dc500 Keeping it Simple with Image alt text for Accessibility By Andy Bell. "…The few seconds that it takes you to do add some helpful alt text or apply an empty alt attribute will make folks who need alt text's experience on your website that little bit better…" https://andy-bell.design/wrote/keeping-it-simple-with-image-alt-text-for-accessibility/ Understanding SC 3.2.2 on Input By Raghavendra Satish Peri. "Changing the setting of any user interface component does not automatically cause a change of context unless the user has been advised of the behavior before using the component…" https://www.digitala11y.com/understanding-sc-3-2-2-on-input/ Why Do We Fix AI Bias But Ignore Accessibility Bias? By Kalev Leetaru. "…governments that once actively intervened on behalf of accessibility have conversely stepped back in the social media era, willing to accept the disenfranchisement of a whole swath of society as Congress' interest in combating discrimination in the digital era wanes…" https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/07/06/why-do-we-fix-ai-bias-but-ignore-accessibility-bias/ How to Write More Accessible Social Media Posts By Andrew Arch and Sarah Pulis. "…In this article, we'll focus on how you can make your posts more accessible on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram…" https://www.and.org.au/articles.php/43/how-to-write-more-accessible-social-media-posts [Study] How Captions and Transcripts Impact Student Learning and Comprehension By Jaclyn Leduc. "The University of South Florida St. Petersberg (USFSP) is making significant strides to create a more accessible campus and is dedicated to providing accessible tools that are conducive to educational success for every student…" https://www.3playmedia.com/2019/07/03/how-captions-and-transcripts-impact-student-learning/ Q&A: Impact of Captions & Transcripts on Student Learning & Comprehension By Amantha Sauld. "At the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USFSP), the accessibility committee is working diligently to make the university's educational content accessible to all students…" https://www.3playmedia.com/2019/07/02/impact-of-captions-transcripts/ Accessible Design and Culture: Why it's Better for Business and All Your Users By Keaton Robbins. "…most content authors or webmasters do exactly what the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) tell them. Nothing more, nothing less. 'Compliance with standards does not equal accessibility. But creating an accessible site means you'll be compliant…" https://www.voices.com/blog/accessible-design/ Accessibility with Nicolas Steenhout and Christopher Schmitt (Podcast) By Dave Rupert and Chris Coyier. "We're talking accessibility with Christopher and Nicolas from Knowbility. Does accessibility transcend the web? Is it discouraging how much work still needs to be done? How do we get people the skills needed to help with accessibility on the web? Should accessibility be a role in house? And is Javascript the enemy of accessibility?…" https://shoptalkshow.com/episodes/367/ MLB Strikes Out on Accessibility By Kelly Ford. "Although it took a structured negotiation and settlement, at one point MLB seemed like it was turning the corner on improving and sustaining accessibility. Sadly that time seems to have passed, much like a favorite star of yesterday…" http://blog.kellyford.org/mlb-strikes-out-on-accessibility/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Intent To Ship: Alternative Text for CSS Generated Content By @meredithl and @aboxhall. "This change allows for alternative text to be supplied for the content supplied using the CSS content property, to be used for non-visual mediums…" https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/blink-dev/nC5p6W8nM3g/Bk6GOoaYAwAJ Block Formatting Context By Jenny Evans et al. "A block formatting context is a part of a visual CSS rendering of a web page. It's the region in which the layout of block boxes occurs and in which floats interact with other elements…" https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Block_formatting_context CSS Custom Properties in the Cascade By Miriam Suzanne. "In this article, Miriam takes a deeper dive into the 'CSS Custom Properties for Cascading Variables' specification to ask, 'Why are they called custom properties, how do they work in the cascade, and what else can we do with them?' Pushing past the 'variable' metaphor, custom properties can provide new ways to balance context and isolation in CSS patterns and components." https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/07/css-custom-properties-cascade/ An Approach to Responsive Layouts Based on CSS Custom Properties and em Units By Sebastiano Guerriero. "How to set smart variables that control the responsiveness of your web project…" https://codyhouse.co/blog/post/responsive-layouts-css-custom-properties-em-units A Little Reminder That Pseudo Elements are Children, Kinda. By Chris Coyier. "Here's a container with some child elements…" https://css-tricks.com/a-little-reminder-that-pseudo-elements-are-children-kinda/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. An Intro To Screen Reader Testing for Sighted Developers By Jessica Jordan. "…In the end, the stark difference between our interests in AI bias and accessibility bias reminds us that only the most visible and economically impactful biases have any hope of being addressed in today's monetized Web." http://uncaughtreferenceerror.com/a-crash-course-to-screenreaders-for-sighted-developers/ Dot Voting: A Simple Decision-Making and Prioritizing Technique in UX By Sarah Gibbons. "By placing colored dots, participants in UX workshops, activities, or collaborative sessions individually vote on the importance of design ideas, features, usability findings, and anything else that requires prioritization." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dot-voting/ Assumptions: How to Track Them in the UX Design Process (Video) By Therese Fessenden. "The best user experiences are backed by research, but sometimes we move more quickly than our research does. How can we best use and track assumptions as we go through design iterations?" https://www.nngroup.com/videos/tracking-assumptions/ +04: EVENTS. Accessibility Testing Tools and When to Use Them July 11, 2019. Online https://zoom.us/webinar/register/8815620115508/WN_JJlVE93tQVWe5p_dq8UtHA The Future of Accessibility Powered by AI July 18, 2019. Chicago, Illinois U.S.A. https://www.meetup.com/a11ychi/events/262878198/ Live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmXQchGyibY Live captions: http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=CDA How to Create and Test Accessible PDFs July 30, 2019. Online https://www.accessibilityonline.org/cioc-508/session/?id=110735 Intro to Audio Description August 15, 2019. Online https://go.3playmedia.com/wbn-08-15-2019-intro-ad Quick Start to Captioning August 29, 2019. Online https://go.3playmedia.com/wbn-08-29-2019-qsc Applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Principles to Online Courses to Increase Accessibility and Engagement September 23-29, 2019. Online https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/learn/olc-new-institute-schedule/institute-offerings/?id=413&cohort=617 2019 UPDATE: Integrating Accessibility into IT Procurement October 17, 2019. Online https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/content.asp?admin=Y&contentid=598 +05: HTML. Short Note on the Portal Element By Steve Faulkner. "There is a potential new HTML element on the scene and its name is …" https://codepen.io/stevef/post/short-note-on-the-portals-element A Toast to an Accessible Toast… By Scott O'Hara. "…I’ve commented on this a bit in the GitHub issues, but it got me thinking of how I might outline the functionality for a toast / messaging component. Here are some quick-ish thoughts on that…" https://www.scottohara.me/blog/2019/07/08/a-toast-to-a11y-toasts.html A Short Note on HTML5 article, section and hgroup By Bruce Lawson. "…don't use
. its only use is in the HTML Document Outline Algorithm, which isn't implemented anywhere, and seemingly never will be. For the same reason, don't worry about the
element…" https://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2019/html5-article-section-hgroup/ When Should You be Using Web Workers? By Surma. "You should always use Web Workers. And in our current landscape of frameworks it's virtually impossible…" https://dassur.ma/things/when-workers/ +06: NAVIGATION. As the Web Matures, Search Behavior Changes By Gerry McGovern. "As the Web matures, we search less for our top tasks, and we search more for our tiny tasks…" http://gerrymcgovern.com/as-the-web-matures-search-behavior-changes/ It's Time to Kill the Infinite Scroll By Kate Lucey. "When the infinite scroll was first brought into media publishing companies, prosecco bottles popped on every office floor as the new UX was rolled out company-wide…" https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/kill-infinite-scroll/ +07: USABILITY. Popups: 10 Problematic Trends and Alternatives By Anna Kaley. "Whether modal or not, most overlays appear at the wrong time, interrupt users during critical tasks, use poor language, and contribute to user disorientation." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/popups/ The Attention Economy By Lexie Martin. "Digital products are competing for users' limited attention. The modern economy increasingly revolves around the human attention span and how products capture that attention." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/attention-economy/ Why Confidence Intervals Matter for UX (Video) By Kate Moran. "To make valid design decisions from quantitative user research data, you should be familiar with the concept of a confidence interval." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/confidence-intervals-ux/ Why MVP Is the Antithesis of Good UX (Video) By Kara Pernice. "Pursuing a "minimum viable product" (MVP) as a design strategy may work for startups, but usually leads to poorly integrated user experience for established design team working in traditional product categories." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/mvp-antithesis-good-ux/ Over 1,000 Shopping Sites, from J.Crew to Walmart, are Deceiving Users, Study Shows By Katharine Schwab. "Researchers at Princeton expose just how many shopping websites use dark patterns to convince you to buy more or give up more data…" https://www.fastcompany.com/90370454/over-1000-shopping-sites-from-j-crew-to-walmart-are-deceiving-users-study-shows [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +08: 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.]