+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 19, Issue 25, December 16, 2020. 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? https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/ New links in these categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: DRUPAL. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: TOOLS. 11: TYPOGRAPHY. 12: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 14: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Representation Matters By Eric Bailey. "…While I'm happy to see progress being made on some fronts, we need to understand that doing technical work to make websites accessible is only part of the picture. We need to realize that usable products can be created in exclusionary spaces. Only by including disabled people in the product creation process can we truly improve as an industry." https://css-tricks.com/representation-matters/ Digital Accessibility Ethics (Video) By Lainey Feingold. Lainey's 2020 #a11yTO conference presentation is available. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ZImF5csfY Digital Accessibility and SEO Best Practices By Marissa Sapega. "…This guide will help you better understand the overlap between digital accessibility and SEO best practices…" https://www.paciellogroup.com/digital-accessibility-and-seo-tactics/ Making Websites Easier To Talk To By Frederick O'Brien. "Modern websites aren't inseparable from screens any more. Between phone assistants, home speakers, and screen readers, more and more people are using the web without even looking at it. Websites need to evolve in kind…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/12/making-websites-accessible/ Equal Entry Guidelines for Describing 360-Degree Video By Equal Entry. "In March 2015, YouTube launched support for publishing and viewing 360-degree videos. Five years later, there are still no means to make them accessible via audio description for people who cannot see the video…" https://equalentry.com/vr/equal-entry-guidelines-for-describing-360-degree-video/ Accessibility: What's So Hard About Making Things Simple? By Sarah Winters. "…It's not dumbing down. It's opening up." https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/making-things-simple/98534/ VoiceOver Preview for macOS Firefox By Asa Dotzler. "…If you're a part time or full time screen reader user on macOS, we’d love for you to update to Firefox 85 Beta and give it a spin with VoiceOver…" https://blog.mozilla.org/accessibility/voiceover-preview-for-macos-firefox/ Stitch in Time License to Fail (Video) By Karl Groves. "Buying an overlay? It always pays to read the fine print. You may be surprised at what you find…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cjEpUV1qjU Conair Website For CuisinArt Is Sued For Excluding Visual Impaired Settlement Mulled By Matthew Russell Lee. "Josue Paguada sued Conair Corporation for the alleged lack of accessibility to the blind of the cuisinart.com website.…" http://www.innercitypress.com/sdny36steincuisineartwebicp120920.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. The Rules of Margin Collapse By Josh W. Comeau. In CSS, adjacent margins can sometimes overlap. This is known as 'margin collapse', and it has a reputation for being quite dastardly…" https://www.joshwcomeau.com/css/rules-of-margin-collapse/ It's All Relative By Geoff Graham. "…My mind jumps to relative units in CSS when I hear the word 'relative.'…" https://css-tricks.com/its-all-relative/ Cascading Style Sheets By Jeremy Keith. "There are three ways-that I know of-to associate styles with markup…" https://adactio.com/journal/17692 +03: DRUPAL. 19+ Guides to Nail Your Drupal 9 Migration By Leigh Ryan. "....Whether you're in the middle of a Drupal upgrade or you're thinking about starting an upgrade next year, we've pulled together 19 resources-largely written by members of the Evolving Web team!-to help you succeed…" https://evolvingweb.ca/blog/19-guides-nail-your-drupal-9-migration +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. A Comprehensive Guide to Accessible User Research: Part 2 - Recruitment and Preparation By Brian Grellmann and Allison Corr. Researchers often want to include people with access needs in their studies but don't know where to begin. This three-part series covers the various considerations for adapting your practice to include people with disabilities. https://dscout.com/people-nerds/accessible-user-research-2 The Lawn Mower Eyetracking Pattern for Scanning Comparison Tables By Kate Moran. "Users are likely to methodically scan comparison tables row by row, from right to left and back again." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/lawn-mower-pattern/ Getting to Know The Wizard of Oz By Ola Claussen. "A story about trying to use the Wizard of OZ method adding new functionality to our client's product…" https://ux.christmas/2020/8 What a Randomization Test Is and How to Run One in R By Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro. "The two-sample t-test is one of the most widely used statistical tests, assessing whether mean differences between two samples are statistically significant. It can be used to compare two samples of many UX metrics, such as SUS scores, SEQ scores, and task times. The t-test, like most statistical tests, has certain requirements (assumptions) for its use…" https://measuringu.com/randomization-test/ +05: EVENTS. Making Social Media Accessible for People with Disabilities January 20, 2021. Online https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-social-media-accessible-for-people-with-disabilities-tickets-129538660621 Review of the Revised 508 Standards (Part 1): Requirements for Federal Websites and Electronic Content January 26, 2021. Online https://www.accessibilityonline.org/cioc-508/session/?id=110891 Risk Mitigation as A11y ROI With Karl Groves January 26, 2021. Online https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5xt2zclkRAmhiMd_8ESk5g WebAIM Virtual Training @webaim January 27-28, 2021. Online https://webaim.org/training/virtual/ UX Conference March March 15-26, 2021. Online https://www.nngroup.com/training/march/ Microsoft Ability Summit May 5-6, 2021. Online https://sway.office.com/Dbr2Uz14PIn31Dq8 Technical Communication Summit June 6-9, 2021. Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. (if possible) https://summit.stc.org/ +06: HTML. WebKit's Presentational List Heuristics for Accessibility By James Craig. "WebKit's presentational list heuristics for accessibility have come up as a topic recently. Starting a thread with some of the background…" https://twitter.com/cookiecrook/status/1337226933822603270 Lists By Jeremy Keith. "…Our most recent brown bag was truly excellent. I asked Léonie if she'd be up for it, and she very kindly agreed. As well as giving us a whirlwind tour of how assistive technology works on the web, she then invited us to observe her interacting with websites using a screen reader…" https://adactio.com/journal/17690 The Importance of HTML By Jerry Jones. "…HTML has clearly right and wrong ways to write it, and this is too often ignored. Here are several examples…The essential issue is using a non-semantic element when a semantic element should have been used…" https://jerryjones.dev/2020/04/20/the-importance-of-html/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. The Difference Between the Array.slice() and Array.splice() Methods in Vanilla JS By Chris Ferdinandi. "The vanilla JS Array.slice() and Array.splice() methods are both used manipulate items in an array. Because their names are so similar, and because they do similar things, a lot of my students get confused about how they're different, and when to choose one over the other…" https://gomakethings.com/the-difference-between-the-array.slice-and-array.splice-methods-in-vanilla-js/ Enhanced Strings with Tagged Template Literals By Ole Anders Stokker. "Have you ever wanted to add extra functionality to strings? With tagged template literals you can build useful templates, add logic, or write different languages inside strings. How can that be useful, and how does it even work? Dive into how tagged template literals let us build enhanced strings…" https://javascript.christmas/2020/11 Smooth Operators By Markus Rauhut. "Provided I didn't miscount (I am not the Count von Count, so it's quite possible), there are 46 operators in JavaScript which are available in all modern web browsers…" https://javascript.christmas/2020/12 The Delicious Event Loop By Henrietta Eide Bleness. "Have you ever wondered what the amazing Christmas dinner and the Event Loop in JavaScript have in common? Well, not much. But I will use the preparation of this delicious meal to make the event loop a bit more edible…" https://javascript.christmas/2020/13 Higher-order functions in JavaScript By Sander Sandøy. "…Since functions can be passed as parameters or returned as an output from another function, this has enabled higher-order functions to be built into the language…" https://javascript.christmas/2020/14 +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Web Almanac, HTTP Archive's Annual State of the Web Report By a Team of 116 Contributors. "…Our mission is to combine the raw stats and trends of the HTTP Archive with the expertise of the web community. The Web Almanac is a comprehensive report on the state of the web, backed by real data and trusted web experts. It is comprised of 22 chapters spanning aspects of page content, user experience, publishing, and distribution…" https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2020/ History of the Web (Video) By Chris Wilson. "From the Web's inception, an ancient to contemporary history of the Web…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEF5WgUEX_Q There is No Normal By Hugo 'Kitty' Giraudel. "This year I learned, or relearned maybe, that 'normal' is subjective at best, and pretty misleading otherwise…" https://css-tricks.com/there-is-no-normal/ A Brief Thread on Ableist Words in Writing… By Spider. "…one of the things I've realized since I started consciously rejecting ableist words in writing is that my writing has gotten immeasurably better and more precise…" https://twitter.com/vaspider/status/1338222795252137984 Navigating the Awkward: A Framework for Design Conversations By Ksenia Cheinman. "We've all been there: a client or coworker shows you something they've worked on for hours or weeks, and your brain screams because their idea sucks. Author Ksenia Cheinman shows how the right conversational framework can help you navigate these all-too-frequent design interactions…" https://alistapart.com/article/navigating-the-awkward/ Adobe for All: Q&A with Haben Girma and Sinéad Burke By Matt May. "In September, Adobe held its Adobe for All conference, bringing in speakers from around the world and across a spectrum of identities to bring out the values of diversity, equity and inclusion. We asked two of those speakers - disability rights lawyer and best-selling author Haben Girma and lecturer and accessible fashion icon Sinéad Burke - to talk with our head of inclusive design, Matt May, about their advocacy work, and their hopes for the future…" https://blog.adobe.com/en/2020/12/03/adobe-for-all-qa-with-haben-girma-and-sinead-burke.html +09: NAVIGATION. Are Your Hashtag Links Accessible? By Amber Wilson. "One day I decided I wanted to add hashtag links (also known as "anchor links") to each of the sections in my blog posts…" https://amberwilson.co.uk/blog/are-your-hashtag-links-accessible/ +10: TOOLS. HTML De-Crapulator By Ian Lloyd. "This is not 100% a11y related, but it is something that anyone who audits, provides remediation can benefit from (it's precisely why I created it)…Basically, a tool to remove all the crap from markup snippets, making it easier to see the bones of it…" https://lloydi.com/a11y-tools/markup-de-crapulator/index.html +11: TYPOGRAPHY. Digital Typography and Accessibility By Ragnhild Finsveen Liven. "Have you ever realized how important text is in the digital sphere? It's impossible to avoid text, whether you are to read an article, search for information, watch a video, or complete a task. In fact, it is estimated that about 95 % of the internet is text (1). This vast ocean of text states the need to welcome everyone to read, interpret, and understand - regardless of their abilities or disabilities. If you design or develop digital content, you have a responsibility to do so. And I'm here to help…" https://ux.christmas/2020/7 +12: USABILITY. Help and Documentation: The 10th Usability Heuristic By Alita Joyce. "Interface help comes in two forms: proactive and reactive. Proactive help is intended to get users familiar with an interface while reactive help is meant for troubleshooting and gaining system proficiency." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/help-and-documentation/ Data Visualizations for Dashboards (Video) By Page Laubheimer. "To enable fast and reliable understanding of data shown on dashboard overviews, use visualization styles that work with human preattentive visual processing." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/data-visualizations-dashboards/ The Importance of Asking Awkward Questions By Niel Turner. "…Like an inquisitive toddler, it's important that UXers are comfortable asking awkward questions. Of course, it's also important that UXers are equally comfortable answering awkward questions. Embrace the awkwardness, because if you're not asking (and answering) lots of awkward question you're probably not doing your job properly, and that really is awkward!" http://www.uxforthemasses.com/asking-awkward-questions/ UX Patterns Optimized for Core Web Vitals (Video) By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "…Creating a good user experience is crucial to users who will return to your website again and again. By following Mimani’s recommendations to optimize UX without affecting Core Web Vitals—avoiding long times for page display, lack of response from user interactions, and shifting page layouts— you can provide a good user experience and better impression of your site." https://www.lireo.com/ux-patterns-optimized-core-web-vitals/ UX Win: Workforce Software Event Page By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "…With their VISION 2020 LATAM Roadshow event, Workforce Software and their Hopin event page, demonstrate online event information and registration doesn't have to be a scavenger hunt…" https://www.lireo.com/ux-win-workforce-software-event-page/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +14: 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 WebWaste & Sustainability Information. https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webwaste.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.]