+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 18, Issue 23, December 5, 2019. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 23 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? https://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: HTML. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TOOLS. 11: TYPOGRAPHY. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Why AI Will Never Replace Human Picture Descriptions By Marco Zehe. "…Sorry, not sorry, to all the web developers out there who will still have to come up with good alternative text for their images. It'll be part of your jobs for years to come…" https://marcozehe.de/2019/12/02/why-ai-will-never-replace-human-picture-descriptions/ AI Is Not Similar To Human Intelligence. Thinking So Could Be Dangerous By Elizabeth Fernandez. "…When the stakes are high, we want those making decisions - whether they be machines or human, to be correct, trustworthy, and responsible…" https://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandezelizabeth/2019/11/30/ai-is-not-similar-to-human-intelligence-thinking-so-could-be-dangerous/ Accessibility Drives Aesthetics By Alex Chen. "…There's an article circulating that claims accessibility and aesthetics are at odds with each other, creating a paradox that forces us to compromise. Here's why I find that belief completely and utterly false…" https://medium.com/@thetuttingtutor/accessibility-drives-aesthetics-5aef77b5d2aa 8 Weird Tips Accessibility Specialists Don't Want You to Know! By Erik Kroes. "…1. Using abbreviations improves your readability score… 2. Pages that use WAI-ARIA are less accessible… 3. Automated tests cover only 20% of WCAG… 4. You can offer an accessible alternative… 5. Write extensive aria-labels for blind people… 6. Only a small number of our customers have disabilities… 7. The default focus indicator is safe… 8. Distinguish elements on your page by using a catchy font… " https://www.24a11y.com/2019/7-weird-tips-accessibility-specialists-dont-want-you-to-know/ Wouldn't it be better to use the prefers-reduced-motion MQ in a reversed/negated fashion? By Christian Schaefer "…That way we'd make sure not to serve animations to users that have vestibular disorder but cannot signal it via their old browser…" https://twitter.com/derSchepp/status/1202223608719908865 Understanding SC 4.1.1 Parsing By Raghavendra Satish Peri. "Parsing is all about writing a clean code 'HTML, CSS OR JavaScript' in a manner that is understood by browsers & assistive technologies…" https://www.digitala11y.com/understanding-sc-4-1-1-parsing/ Are Automatic Transcriptions Good Enough for Accessibility? (Video) By EDEN Network. In this November 27, 2019 webinar Dr. Tharindu Liyanagunawardena talked about her research, a case study from built environment education, which was awarded the Best Research Paper Award at the 28th EDEN annual conference, Bruges, Belgium. https://eden-online.adobeconnect.com/ptk2wn9p80vr/ My Thoughts on Gutenberg Accessibility By Maro Zehe. "…Treating accessibility as a bolt-on step at the end of any given cycle never works, will never pay off, and never lead to good inclusive results. The work to get this done is much harder than implementing and thinking about accessibility from the start of the project or sprint…" https://marcozehe.de/2019/11/27/my-thoughts-on-gutenberg-accessibility/ National Association of the Deaf Announces Landmark Settlement with Harvard to Improve Online Accessibility By Amy F. Robertson. "Settlement includes requirements beyond Harvard's new accessibility policies, including captions for live events, third-party platforms and department-sponsored student groups. Harvard agrees to enter consent decree, ensuring court enforcement of settlement…" https://creeclaw.org/national-association-of-the-deaf-announces-landmark-settlement-with-harvard-to-improve-online-accessibility/ Harvard Consent Decree (PDF) By Katherine A. Robertson, U.S. Magistrate Judge. "…in the case of video files, to overlay or externally embed synchronized visual text for speech and, consistent with WCAG 2.1 AA…" https://creeclaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NAD-v-Harvard-Consent-Decree.pdf Four Years Later, Harvard Must Provide Closed Captions By Elisa Edelberg. "…this was the first lawsuit of its kind to address the accuracy and quality of the captions being provided, noting that 'Much of Harvard's online content is either not captioned or is inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned, making it inaccessible for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing…'" https://www.3playmedia.com/2019/12/03/four-years-later-harvard-must-provide-closed-captions/ Accessibility, the Future, and Why Domino's Matters By Daily Stock Dish. "…Coelho said he was sure the Domino's case would be winnable, but he admitted, 'It is a fight. And it's major from the disability point of view. It's our access to the real world, like everybody else has, and we don't.'…" https://dailystockdish.com/accessibility-the-future-and-why-dominos-matters/ +02: BOOKS. Gilbert, Regine M. "Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind (Design Thinking)", Apress, 2019. +03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Having a Little Fun With Custom Focus Styles By Lari Maza. "Every front-end developer has dealt or will deal with this scenario: your boss, client or designer thinks the outline applied by browsers on focused elements does not match the UI, and asks you to remove it. Or you might even be looking to remove it yourself. So you do a little research and find out that this is strongly discouraged…" https://css-tricks.com/having-a-little-fun-with-custom-focus-styles/ The Thought Process Behind a Flexbox Layout By Chris Coyier. "I just need to put two boxes side-by-side and I hear flexbox is good at stuff like that…" https://css-tricks.com/the-thought-process-behind-a-flexbox-layout/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Twelve Days of Front End Testing By Amy Kapernick. "…We already knew that testing was important, and your project can't be run unless all your unit and integration tests are written (and pass), but often we forget about testing the front end. There are so many different tests we need to be running on the front end, it's hard to work out what your need to test for and where to start…" https://24ways.org/2019/twelve-days-of-front-end-testing/ Usability Task Scenarios: The Beating Heart of a Usability Test By David Travis. "Usability tests are unique. We ask people to do real tasks with the system and watch. As the person completes the task, we watch their behaviour and listen to their stream-of-consciousness narrative. But what makes a good usability task scenario?" https://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/writing-usability-task-scenarios.html The State of UX Research By Carol Barnum. "…My reflections in this essay focus on the state of UX research. I am thinking specifically of usability testing, but also more generally of other common forms of UX research, such as contextual inquiry, heuristic evaluation, and in-depth interviews…" http://uxpajournal.org/state-ux-research/ The Definitive Guide to Asking Follow-up Questions By Dan Brown. "…Being great at interviews - whether talking to project stakeholders or product users - means being able to ask good follow-up questions. Follow-up questions bring deeper insights and buried connections to the light of day…" https://medium.com/eightshapes-llc/the-definitive-guide-to-asking-follow-up-questions-5bfcddfa8a2e Designing with Personas By Shazeeye Kirmani et al. "Understanding users is crucial to designing delightful experiences for them. This paper provides a case study on how we gained a better understanding of our users before we redesigned Quotient's (formerly Coupons Inc.) user experience…" http://uxpajournal.org/designing-personas/ Usability Testing 101 By Kate Moran. "UX researchers use this popular observational methodology to uncover problems and opportunities in designs." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/ +05: EVENTS. The State of Automatic Speech Recognition December 12, 2019. Online https://go.3playmedia.com/wbnr-12-12-2019-asr Introduction to Web Accessibility by W3C 4 week course starts January 28, 2020. Online https://www.edx.org/course/web-accessibility-introduction The Twentieth Annual Multiple Perspectives Conference April 6-7, 2020. Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. https://ada.osu.edu/multiple-perspectives-conference/20th-annual-conference Smashing Conference - Freiburg September 7-8, 2020. Freiburg, Germany  https://smashingconf.com/freiburg-2020/ An Event Apart Orlando October 5-7, 2020. Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. https://aneventapart.com/event/orlando-2020 +06: HTML. Web Components and the Accessibility Object model (AOM) By Léonie Watson. "HTML is often underestimated - it isn't complicated and it isn't strict, and you can start producing results with just a handful of elements…" https://www.24a11y.com/2019/web-components-and-the-aom/ What Are Inclusive Components? With Heydon Pickering (Podcast) By Drew McLellan. "In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we're talking about Inclusive Components. What does it mean to be inclusive, or a component? And what has that got to do with accessibility? Drew McLellan talks to Smashing author Heydon Pickering to find out." https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/12/smashing-podcast-episode-4/ Making a Better Custom Select Element By Julie Grundy. "In my work as an accessibility consultant, there are some frequent problems I find on people's websites. One that's come up a lot recently is that people are making custom select inputs for their forms…" https://24ways.org/2019/making-a-better-custom-select-element/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. What Is ARIA? By Ben Myers. "…what ARIA is, what it does, why you should use it, and when you shouldn't…" https://blog.benmyers.dev/aria/ Accessibility on The Session Revisited By Jeremey Keith. "…Just as the solution last time was to remove the aria-atomic attribute on the updated area, the solution this time was to remove the aria-controls attribute on the links that trigger the update. Maybe this time I'll learn my lesson: don't mess with ARIA attributes you don't understand." https://adactio.com/journal/16174 30 Seconds of Code By Angelos Chalaris et al. "Curated collection of useful JavaScript snippets that you can understand in 30 seconds or less…" https://github.com/30-seconds/30-seconds-of-code +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Web Creator Tim Berners-Lee Launches Plan to 'Fix' the Internet By Ryan Browne. "Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, is officially launching his plan to 'fix' the internet…" https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/25/tim-berners-lee-launches-contract-for-the-web-to-fix-the-internet.html I'm very concerned about the sale of .org to a private company. By Tim Berners-Lee. "If the Public Interest Registry ends up not being required to act in the public interest, it would be a travesty. We need an urgent explanation. #SaveDotOrg" https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/1199752059534413824 What Adding People with Disabilities to Your Team Brings to the Mix By Lucy Greco. "One of the biggest barriers to accessibility is awareness…" https://www.24a11y.com/2019/adding-people-with-disabilities-to-your-team/ +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Taking Accessibility Beyond Compliance By Dennis Deacon. "…What follows are just a few of the issues I often see where the existing WCAG guidance falls short or does not address and provide guidance on select issues…" https://www.24a11y.com/2019/taking-accessibility-beyond-compliance/ Future Accessibility Guidelines-for People Who Can't Wait to Read Them By Alan Dalton. "…Let's see how the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines of accessibility past, present, and yet-to-come can help us to follow that goal, and make sure that the websites-and everything else!-that we create can include as many potential users as possible…" https://24ways.org/2019/future-accessibility-guidelines/ Blue Beanie Day 2019 By Cute Calendar. "On 30. November 2019 Blue Beanie Day takes place. The day annually celebrates web standards and web accessibility…" https://www.cute-calendar.com/event/blue-beanie-day/35785.html +10: TOOLS. Auditing for Accessibility Problems With Firefox Developer Tools By Marco Zehe. "Since its debut in Firefox 61, the Accessibility Inspector in the Firefox Developer Tools has evolved from a low-level tool showing the accessibility structure of a page. In Firefox 70, the Inspector has become an auditing facility to help identify and fix many common mistakes and practices that reduce site accessibility. In this post, I will offer an overview of what is available in this latest release…" https://marcozehe.de/2019/11/29/auditing-for-accessibility-problems-with-firefox-developer-tools/ +11: TYPOGRAPHY. Simplified Fluid Typography By Chris Coyier. "Fluid typography is the idea that font-size (and perhaps other attributes of type, like line-height) change depending on the screen size (or perhaps container queries if we had them)…" https://css-tricks.com/simplified-fluid-typography/ An Introduction to Variable Fonts By Jason Pamental. "Jason Pamental forges a path through the freshly laid snowy landscape of variable fonts. Like a brave explorer in a strange new typography topology let Jason show you the route to some fantastic font feats. Everything you thought you knew has changed." https://24ways.org/2019/an-introduction-to-variable-fonts/ I appreciate that people want to fiddle with responsive typography. Adrian Roselli. "Sadly, many efforts mess with users who zoom. Maybe try this first: body { font-size: 100%; } (or do not set it at all). Set type size in following styles in ems, rems, or %. Ideally never a value below 1/100%." https://twitter.com/aardrian/status/1202248510973906944 [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html Association Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html Book Listings. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html Cascading Style Sheets Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html Color Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html Drupal Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/drupal.html Evaluation & Testing Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html Event Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html HTML Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/html.html Information Architecture Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html JavaScript Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html Miscellaneous Web Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html Navigation Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html PHP Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html Sites & Blogs Listing. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html Tool Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html Typography Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html Usability Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html XML Information. https://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: https://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.]