+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 18, Issue 06, August 6, 2019. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 06 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: BOOKS. 03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: TOOLS. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Online Accessibility Toolkit By South Australian Government. "…The toolkit provides guidelines, tips and advice on creating digital assets; ensuring all roles are supported in the creation of accessible products…" https://accessibility.sa.gov.au/ WCAG Confusion Around Audio Description By Vision Australia. "…1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded) is slightly stricter in that it doesn't allow the content author to simply include a text transcript with the video to pass the guideline. This means if there is visual content in the video that needs to be described and there are enough gaps in the dialogue of the video to squeeze in audio description, then audio description must be provided. Level AA has a quirk though. If you provide audio description for a video, then you don't need to also provide a text transcript…" https://www.visionaustralia.org/community/news/2019-07-30/wcag-confusion-around-audio-description Best Practices for Prototyping Keyboard Accessibility By Oliver Lindberg. "…we invited four accessibility and UX experts to provide a number of tips to help you implement the keyboard operation of UI widgets. With their advice, you'll be able to create more inclusive experiences for keyboard users…" https://theblog.adobe.com/best-practices-for-prototyping-keyboard-accessibility/ Getting to the Heart of Digital Accessibility By Carie Fisher. "You've heard it before: there is not enough diversity in tech. But Carie Fisher offers one solution you may not have heard: that focusing on accessibility may be key in making the tech world itself more accessible." https://alistapart.com/article/getting-to-the-heart-of-digital-accessibility/ PDF Accessibility By Jay Wyant. "Creating accessible PDFs as a team…" https://mn.gov/mnit/media/blog/#/detail/appId/1/id/394646 How to Create and Test Accessible PDFs By Nicshan Floyd. Nic's July 30th webinar and session materials. https://www.accessibilityonline.org/cioc-508/archives/110735 What Does the W3C's Upcoming ACT Standard Mean for Accessibility? By Wilco Fiers. "…The ACT rules by the W3C has us at Deque especially excited because they will act as a baseline for automated testing tools and manual testing methodologies that interpret WCAG for particular technologies. By aligning tools and test methodologies with this baseline, the consistency and quality will be improved…" https://www.deque.com/blog/what-does-the-w3cs-upcoming-act-standard-mean-for-accessibility/ I Feel Hopeless, Rejected, and a Burden on Society - One Week of Empathy Training By Terence Eden. "…Whether you work in tech or not - it is your duty to make sure that no one feels demoralised or rejected because of the systems you build." https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/07/i-feel-hopeless-rejected-and-a-burden-on-society-one-week-of-empathy-training/ Accessibility Strategies for Your Content Team By Caitlin Cashin. "Resources for putting accessibility into practice tend to focus on the people who design and build websites and applications, but a lot of your day-to-day updates and maintenance are performed by content creators…" https://www.deque.com/blog/accessibility-strategies-for-your-content-team/ Designing Accessible Experiences at Scale By Andi Galpern. "Accessibility is no longer an afterthought. It's a requirement and should be considered from the very start of your design process…" https://theblog.adobe.com/accessibility-design-at-scale/ Grassley, Senators Seek Updates & Further Action on Justice Department Efforts to Clarify Website Accessibility Under ADA By Chuck Grassley. "U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr seeking updates on the Justice Department's efforts to clarify whether and how the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to websites…" https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-senators-seek-updates-further-action-justice-department-efforts-clarify Domino's Pizza is Locked in a Legal Battle Over the Future of Web Design By Katharine Schwab. "The pizza company has petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a three-year-old case that deals with whether Domino's is legally required to make its websites and apps accessible to all users…" https://www.fastcompany.com/90385375/dominos-is-locked-in-a-legal-battle-over-the-future-of-web-design +02: BOOKS. Gay, Greg et al. Introduction to Web Accessibility, Ryerson University Pressbooks, 2019. https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/iwacc/ +03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Improve Keyboard Accessibility of Submenu Navigations using CSS (Video) By Lindsey Kopacz. "It's only 1 minute long and it's free for the next 6 days…In this lesson, we are going to use the :focus-within pseudo class as a CSS only way improve the accessibility of a navigation menu…" https://egghead.io/lessons/css-improve-keyboard-accessibility-of-submenu-navigations-using-css Intrinsically Responsive CSS Grid with minmax() and min() By Evan Minto. "…one of the most useful features of the specification doesn't quite work as advertised. Specifically, it's not possible to create an 'intrinsically responsive grid' - that is, a grid that is responsive based on the size of its container, without the use of media queries. But thanks to some standards that are now available in some browsers and on their way to others, we can fix that…" http://evanminto.com/blog/intrinsically-responsive-css-grid-minmax-min/ How Much Specificity do @rules have, Like @keyframes and @media? By Chris Coyier. "I got this question the other day. My first thought is: weird question! Specificity is about selectors, and at-rules are not selectors, so… irrelevant?…" https://css-tricks.com/how-much-specificity-do-rules-have-like-keyframes-and-media/ Can You Nest @media and @support queries? By Chris Coyier. "Yes, you can, and it doesn't really matter in what order. A CSS preprocessor is not required. It works in regular CSS…" https://css-tricks.com/can-you-nest-media-and-support-queries/ Writing Modes And CSS Layout By Rachel Andrew. "An understanding of CSS Writing Modes is useful if you want to work with vertical scripts, or change writing mode for creative reasons. However, they also underpin our new layout methods, and those ideas are increasingly being applied across all of CSS. In this article find out why Rachel Andrew believes understanding writing modes is so important…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/08/writing-modes-layout/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. The Future of UX Research is Automated, and That's a Problem By David Travis. If you compare the UX research methods we use today with the methods we used 16 years ago, something interesting emerges. We see that UX research is becoming increasingly remote and increasingly unmoderated. In other words, we're moving to a world where UX research is becoming automated. We can learn a lot from automated research. But it comes at the price of understanding our users." https://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/the-future-of-UX-research-is-automated.html Fallible Data By Gerry McGovern. "…Unless we approach it with a sense of humility and a willingness to acknowledge our opinions as hypotheses to be tested, we will end up using data to entrench the gut instinct behaviors we claim we want it to replace…" http://gerrymcgovern.com/fallible-data/ Picking the Right Dependent Variables for UX Research By Jeff Sauro. "…by starting with variables that address research questions, align with business needs, are psychometrically valid, and meaningful to the customer and business, you're taking an essential first step in measuring and managing the user experience." https://measuringu.com/dependent-variables/ How to Build a Simple UX Lab Anywhere By Michael Margolis. "…Having conducted over 200 UX research studies for GV companies, I've come to rely on a simple setup that's inexpensive, and flexible enough for testing mobile and desktop prototypes in-person and remotely…" https://library.gv.com/how-to-build-a-simple-ux-lab-anywhere-86e6c6b3fed4 +05: EVENTS. Technica11y with Rian Rietveld August 7, 2019. Online. https://www.technica11y.org/ Evaluating Websites for Accessibility Under the Section 508 Standards September 24, 2019. Online. https://www.accessibilityonline.org/cioc-508/session/?id=110747 Closing The Gap Conference October 2-4, 2019. Prior Lake, Minnesota, U.S.A. https://www.closingthegap.com/conference/ Government IT Symposium December 10-12, 2019. Saint Paul Minnesota, U.S.A. http://www.mngts.org/itsym/ +06: JAVASCRIPT. Why You Should Stop Talking About CSS-in-JS By Jessica Lazarus. "…Don't encourage people to use something they don't understand within something they may not understand either…" https://jessman5.com/2019/08/05/why-you-should-stop-talking-about-css-in-js/ +07: MISCELLANEOUS. The Web We Want By Aaron Gustafson, Project Founder. "…a collective effort by browser makers to understand where the dev community would like us to invest our energy. If you end up throwing a ton of code at a problem, perhaps there's a better way. Help us discover the cowpaths worth paving… " https://webwewant.fyi/about/ Remote Meetings By Jay Wyant. "Meetings are a great way to increase productivity by bringing people together to accomplish a shared goal…" https://mn.gov/mnit/media/blog/#/detail/appId/1/id/394650 Dark Mode Isn't the Answer to Our Screen Problems By Angela Lashbrook. "Research suggests the feature is overhyped as an accessibility tool" https://onezero.medium.com/dark-mode-isnt-the-answer-to-our-screen-problems-1b9db4ef06fb +08: TOOLS. SynCaps By William Hudson. Windows-based card sorting tool. https://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/cardsortdl.shtml +09: USABILITY. Steering Law for Cursor and Mouse Movements in a GUI Tunnel (Video) By Lexie Kane. "In a graphical user interface, having the user move a cursor within a narrow path (e.g., in a hierarchical menu or a slider) follows a strict law for how easy or difficult it is to do, depending on specifics of the GUI." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/steering-law/ How Priming Influences UX (Video) By Therese Fessenden. "Priming in a basic principle of psychology with big impact on user interface design: exposure to something makes a user more likely to think and react in related ways at later steps in the interaction." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/priming/ Readability Formulas: 7 Reasons to Avoid Them and What to Do Instead By Caroline Jarrett and Janice 'Ginny' Redish. "…Readability formulas are easy to use and give you a number. This combination makes them seductive. But a number isn't useful if it isn't reliable, valid, or helpful…" https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2019/07/readability-formulas-7-reasons-to-avoid-them-and-what-to-do-instead.php The 3 Laws of Locality: Put Controls Where Your Users Expect Them By Erik D. Kennedy. "…1/ Put the control where it affects change…2/ If a control affects change across an entire area, put it above that area…3/ The farther a control is from where it affects change, the more it should pop…" https://learnui.design/blog/the-3-laws-of-locality.html The Layer-Cake Pattern of Scanning Content on the Web By Kara Pernice. "When headings and subheadings visually stand out on the page and are descriptive, users engage in an efficient scanning pattern that allows them to quickly find the information that they need." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/layer-cake-pattern-scanning/ [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.]