+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 19, Issue 35, February 23, 2021. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 35 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: COLOR. 03: DRUPAL. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. 11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Automation Can Speed Your Digital Accessibility Journey - But Know The Limits By Dylan Barrell. "…there is no magic bullet for automating the entire accessibility testing and remediation process, or to ensure Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance. Companies relying on such a solution, which have faced legal claims, have found that courts rule against them, stating their efforts were insufficient. Don't let an "all or nothing" attitude on automation dissuade you. Use the available automation tools and other tools that improve the efficiency of manual testing where possible…" https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/02/17/automation-can-speed-your-digital-accessibility-journey--but-know-the-limits/ How Do I Implement An Accessibility Plan For My Association? By Richard Green. "With 1 in 4 U.S. adults - 61 million Americans - living with some type of disability it's no wonder the importance of accessibility and inclusion has reached an all-time high within today's society…" https://madgex.com/labs/knowledge-hub/blog/how-do-i-implement-an-accessibility-plan-for-my-association Screen Reader User Myth: Screen Reader Users Are Early Adopters- A Thread By Mike. "…Bottom line, never assume your users are rocking the latest and greatest, not even if it's free. Too many factors intersect; to many dependencies; too much ableism and exclusion and reality, says otherwise. /end" https://twitter.com/GeauxEnder/status/1363302864555110400 Designing Inclusive Content Models By Daniel Carter and Carra Martinez. "You may not realize it, but your site might be actively discouraging user engagement because your content models are shaped by bias. Daniel Carter and Carra Martinez are here to help you to understand this phenomena and the steps you can take to address it…" https://alistapart.com/article/designing-inclusive-content-models/ Implicit Cultural Norms and Accessible Social Media By Eric Bailey. "Implicit cultural norms and accessible social media have come up in conversation a few times with different groups in the past week, so I want to talk about it…" https://ericwbailey.design/writing/implicit-cultural-norms-and-accessible-social-media/ Monitoring Systems for Checking Websites on Accessibility By Andreas Burkard, Gottfried Zimmermann, and Bettina Schwarzer. "Web accessibility monitoring systems support users in checking entire websites for accessibility issues. Although these tools can only check the compliance with some of the many success criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they can assist quality assurance personnel, web administrators and web authors to discover hotspots of barriers and overlooked accessibility issues in a continuous manner…" https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2021.628770/full ACCESS at Home (Videos) By 3Play Media. Session recordings are now available from the online conference. https://www.3playmedia.com/access-recordings/ The A11y Challenge By A11y Space. "We know YOU are on board with accessibility, but how do you convince your clients, the CEO and other stakeholders? This quiz will help you think through some of the arguments, and build a solid case for accessibility. As each case is different, you'll need to take your own approach. That might be a presentation, a workshop or mentoring…" https://www.a11y.space/the-a11y-challenge What We Like About WCAG 3.0 By WeCo. "…This article doesn't list everything, but it will give you an idea about the renewed approach 3.0 is taking. This makes more sense to us, both as users with disabilities, and as digital experts who test for and teach accessibility every day…" https://theweco.com/wcag3_sme/ First Public Working Draft: EPUB Accessibility 1.1 By EPUB 3 Working Group. "The EPUB 3 Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of EPUB Accessibility 1.1. This document specifies content conformance requirements for verifying the accessibility of EPUB Publications…" https://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/8923 Clubhouse is a Club So Exclusive, It Excludes Disabled People By Design By Steven Aquino. "…In a nutshell, Clubhouse is exclusive in another way too: It's accessible only to those who can hear and see…" https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenaquino/2021/02/08/clubhouse-is-a-club-so-exclusive-it-excludes-disabled-people-by-design/ AccessiBe & the Fake WordPress Plug-In Reviews By Joe Dolson. "…I have little doubt that AccessiBe has hired a 'marketing' company that is generating these false reviews. But what that company is doing is horrific - not just artificially inflating the importance of clients, but helping suppress other services…" https://www.joedolson.com/2021/02/accessibe-the-fake-wordpress-plug-in-reviews/ WordPress.org Removes Fake Reviews for AccessiBe Plugin By Sarah Gooding. "After noticing suspicious review activity for the AccessiBe plugin, accessibility consultant Joe Dolson reported the fake reviews to WordPress.org's plugin team. The reviews were removed in under 48 hours, thanks to Dolson's detailed research…" https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-removes-fake-reviews-for-acessibe-plugin +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Prefers-contrast: forced is a Mistake By Kilian Valkhof. "CSS Media Queries Level 5 is coming and though it's still heavily in progress, there is a particular new option that feels like a mistake in the making to me: prefers-contrast: forced. I'll explain why I feel that way in this article…" https://kilianvalkhof.com/2021/css-html/prefers-contrast-forced-is-a-mistake/ Use the 'prefers-reduced-motion' Media Query to Toggle CSS and JavaScript Animations (Video) By Elijah Manor. "In this lesson we focus on toggling animations on and off using the prefers-reduced-motion media query. The sample web app has 3 types of animations (CSS, SVG SMIL, and JavaScript) and we will toggle these animations using different techniques such as @media, matchMedia, and a custom hook…" https://egghead.io/lessons/react-use-the-prefers-reduced-motion-media-query-to-toggle-css-and-javascript-animations Improve The Readability of The Content on Your Website By Piccalilli. "Learning how to make long-form content, like blog posts, read well is a valuable and transferable design skill to learn. In this tutorial, we're looking at how CSS gives us all the tools we need to achieve this, as a compliment to semantic HTML…" https://piccalil.li/tutorial/improve-the-readability-of-the-content-on-your-website Understanding Z-Index in CSS By Ahmad Shadeed. "A visual guide on how z-index and stacking contexts work in CSS…" https://ishadeed.com/article/understanding-z-index/ Barebones CSS for Fluid Images By Zach Leatherman. "…I want to test width: 100% versus max-width: 100% and how those interact with [width][height] and srcset attributes.…" https://www.zachleat.com/web/fluid-images/ +03: COLOR. Testing Color Contrast in Mobile Apps By Jennifer Dailey. "…In this blog post, I'll cover, general color contrast standards, mobile-specific concerns when testing color contrast, and how to ensure your mobile application meets these color contrast standards…" https://www.deque.com/blog/testing-color-contrast-in-mobile-apps/ +03: DRUPAL. Avoiding Drupal Disillusionment: Drupal for the Long-Term By Matt Robison. "…Your CMS investment can last a long time. And now, with Drupal's new major releases not requiring migrations, your investment should last a long time. You don't need to be subject to the waves of disillusionment and destruction. Your investment won't last forever. But it should last long enough for you to retire it on your own terms, long after you have seen an ROI…" https://www.lullabot.com/articles/avoiding-drupal-disillusionment-drupal-long-term +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Triangulation: Get Better Research Results by Using Multiple UX Methods By Kathryn Whitenton. "Diversifying user research methods ensures more reliable, valid results by considering multiple ways of collecting and interpreting data." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/triangulation-better-research-results-using-multiple-ux-methods/ How to Handle Dominating Participants in UX Workshops: 3 Tactics By Kate Kaplan. "Facilitators can use 3 ascending levels of intervention tactics to maintain positive momentum in groups with participants who monopolize activities and limit diversity of perspectives." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dominating-workshop-participants/ How to Choose the Scope of Your Personas (Video) By Kim Salazar. "Personas are not 'one size fits all' in the UX design process. Broad-scope personas work for high-level divisions but are too shallow for detailed design decisions." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/personas-scope/ How to Interpret User Time Spent and Page Views (Video) By Kara Pernice. "Users' 'productivity' tasks differ from 'engagement' tasks, in whether more or less is better for metrics like time on tasks, interactions, and page views. Such KPIs are important, but they must be evaluated relative to users' tasks." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/interpret-time-spent-page-views/ State of User Research 2021 Report By User Interviews. "We surveyed 525 user researchers in 44 countries to bring you the third annual State of User Research report…" https://www.userinterviews.com/blog/state-of-user-research-2021-report Getting Started with Statistics for UX By Hossein Raspberry. "…in this article, we will go through two frequently used and easy-to-understand statistical methods employed by UX practitioners and researchers and their use case scenarios in UX…" https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/getting-started-with-statistics-for-ux/ Evaluating NPS Significance Tests with Real-World Data By Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro. "The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is widely used by organizations. It's often used to make high-stakes decisions on whether a brand, product, or service has improved or declined…" https://measuringu.com/nps-three-significance-tests/ +05: EVENTS. ADA Digital Accessibility Legal Trends in 2021 February 23, 2021. Online https://accessibility.deque.com/ada-digital-accessibility-legal-trends Surveys that Work: An Introduction to the Survey Octopus and Total Survey Error, with Caroline Jarrett February 24, 2021. Online https://uxpa.org/upcoming-webinars/ The 2020 State of Automatic Speech Recognition March 11, 2021. Online https://go.3playmedia.com/wbnr-03-11-2021-asr Axe-hackathon March 12, 2021. Online https://www.deque.com/axe-con/axe-hackathon/ Video Accessibility March 17, 2021. Online https://www.csun.edu/universal-design-center/events/video-accessibility-0 Open Debate on the Merits of Overlays March 17, 2021. Online https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TSEsmn18QP2bK4bt70q1xA What is Drupal? An Intro to Drupal March 24, 2021. Online https://groups.drupal.org/node/536309 WAS Series: Visual Design and Colors March 25, 2021. Online https://www.meetup.com/A11YPrinceton/events/275686093/ +06: HTML. Why Headings Aren't Simply Style Elements By Bureau of Internet Accessibility. "Heading and subheading tags play a critical role in accessibility, but many web designers overlook their functionality when building their sites…" https://www.boia.org/blog/why-headings-arent-simply-style-elements +07: JAVASCRIPT. Web Frameworks: Why You Don't Always Need Them By Richard MacManus. "Web development in 2021 is dominated by frameworks - JavaScript frameworks like Next.js and Angular, CSS frameworks like Tailwind and Materialize, JAMstack frameworks like Next.js and Gatsby, and many others. But one new company, Yax.com, is advocating for a 'no-framework' web standards approach to web development…" https://thenewstack.io/case-against-web-frameworks/ React-Autosuggestions By Amy Shackles. "An accessible React component to take the pain out of creating auto-suggestion components…" https://github.com/AmyShackles/react-autosuggestions Vanilla JS for Better Developer Ergonomics By Chris Ferdinandi. "…Today, I want to show you how you can use destructuring with function parameters for a better developer experience…" https://gomakethings.com/destructuring-function-parameters-with-vanilla-js-for-better-developer-ergonomics/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Front-of-the-Front-End and Back-of-the-Front-End Web Development By Brad Frost. "…A front-of-the-front-end developer is a web developer who specializes in writing HTML, CSS, and presentational JavaScript code…A back-of-the-front-end developer is a web developer who specializes in writing JavaScript code necessary to make a web application function properly…" https://bradfrost.com/blog/post/front-of-the-front-end-and-back-of-the-front-end-web-development/ 12 Common Words and Phrases You May Not Realize Are Ableist By Erica Mones. "…Here, you'll find a list of of words and phrases that have ableist connotations. Please note that this isn't a comprehensive list, meaning there are other ableist words and phrases out there, but it's a start…" https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/common-phrases-that-are-ableist-48080654 It's Time To Stop Even Casually Misusing Disability Words By Andrew Pulrang. "…First, don't use the small handful of terms that disabled people themselves consistently tell us are entirely off limits… Second, try not to use disability-related words to describe any person, thing, idea, or situation as in any way bad…" https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2021/02/20/its-time-to-stop-even-casually-misusing-disability-words/ +09: TOOLS. Overview on How to Use the W3C Link Checker By John F Croston III. "I thought I would write up how I'm checking broken or redirected links on my website…" http://www.jfciii.com/blog/2021/02/16/overview-on-how-to-use-the-w3c-link-checker/ How We Created A Reporting Tool to Improve the Accessibility of GOV.UK By Avision Ho and GDS and Kelvin Gan. "…Here's how our work helped make GOV.UK more accessible…" https://dataingovernment.blog.gov.uk/2021/02/16/how-we-created-a-reporting-tool-to-improve-the-accessibility-of-gov-uk/ +10: USABILITY. Citibank Just Got a $500 Million Lesson in the Importance of UI Design By Timothy B. Lee. "Citibank was trying to make $7.8M in interest payments. It sent $900M instead…" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/citibank-just-got-a-500-million-lesson-in-the-importance-of-ui-design/ Always Persist Users' Search Queries (37% Don't) By Mark Crowley. "'Hey! Argh, okay, I have to retype this. I expected I would be able to continue the sentence', a test user explained when seeing that her query had disappeared from the search field on the results page…" https://baymard.com/blog/persist-search-queries How to Put Faith in UX Design By Scott Berkun. "Anglerfish are famous for the glowing lure they dangle from their heads that they use to catch small fish…" https://scottberkun.com/2021/put-faith-in-ux-design/ +11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. Moving Beyond the Cult of Volume (Part 1) By Gerry McGovern. "…Planned obsolescence is the driving philosophy and we even have to fight for the right to repair the stuff we bought with our hard-earned money. Think about that. Digital brands go out of their way to create products that are difficult to repair by using glues and special screws, they try to force you to use only their parts, they use threats of voiding warranties…digital culture is waste production culture, because hardly anyone thinks or cares about what happens to the thing once it's produced. We must change this stunted mindset because this is the culture that is the polluting engine of global warming." https://gerrymcgovern.com/moving-beyond-the-cult-of-volume-part-1/ [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 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.]