+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 19, Issue 48, May 26, 2021. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 48 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 04: EVENTS. 05: HTML. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TOOLS. 11: TYPOGRAPHY. 12: USABILITY. 13: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. SECTION TWO: 14: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Don't Bury the Headline By Kendall Johnson and Jennie Delisi. "Plain language tips and tricks for technical writing…" https://mn.gov/mnit/media/blog/?id=38-482174 Accessibility Checklist By Webflow. "Your website should be inclusive of, and accessible to, as many people as possible. This essential tool for Webflow users contains guidelines derived from WCAG, including how to implement them with no and low-code solutions…" https://webflow.com/accessibility/checklist Developer Techniques for Screen Reader Accessibility By Emily Lewis. "During Knowbility's Implementing Accessible Solutions: Screen Readers webinar, there were attendee questions we didn't have time to answer. Our team of experts answered these overflow questions and we're sharing them with everyone…" https://knowbility.org/blog/2021/developer-techniques-for-screen-reader-accessibility Quick Accessibility Tests (Videos) By TetraLogical. "…10 short videos demonstrating quick accessibility tests everyone can do…" * Keyboard support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahDuaWKSGZA * Content resizing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzV-BjoXjHo * High Contrast mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urRQNIowiEQ * Skip links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVXVeq6TMJk * Link text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_F7BcbBAUc * Visual presentation of links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMilJDiij7s * Page titles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DeZzPQgfXo * Content structure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZWb5DO-AiU * Typography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX3flsJpNQA * Captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih7DZk-9US8 Personalization and Inclusive Design By Ted Drake. "…Personalized design's goal is to give everyone a better experience. Incorporate significant user research and create a diverse team to work on personalization strategies. Don't sacrifice the experience of some customers by making assumptions based on limited data and interviews." https://medium.com/intuit-design/personalization-and-inclusive-design-481baf8b6039 Inclusive Design 24 Returns September 16, 2021: Call for Speakers By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "The organizers of Inclusive Design 24 (ID24), the free virtual event about inclusive design and accessibility, are looking for speakers for their annual event…" https://www.lireo.com/inclusive-design-24-returns-september-16-call-for-speakers/ Don't include too many emojis in your tweets! By Royal National Institute of Blind People. "Text-to-speech software used by blind and partially sighted people reads out a description for every single one. Listen below…" https://twitter.com/RNIB/status/1395294739088519170 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Don't Use Custom CSS Mouse Cursors By Eric W Bailey. "I believe that letting CSS load a custom cursor was a mistake. This might seem like a niche complaint, and you know what? It is. But it's also an important one…While a custom CSS cursor may seem flashy and fun, consider that it may present a significant, unnecessary barrier to access." https://ericwbailey.design/writing/dont-use-custom-css-mouse-cursors/ 82% of Developers Get This 3 Line CSS Quiz Wrong By Lea Verou. "While putting my ideas into slides for my Dynamic CSS workshop for next week, I was working on a slide explaining how the CSS wide keywords work with custom properties. inherit, initial, unset I had used numerous times and knew well. But what about revert? How did that work? I had an idea, but quickly coded up a demo to try it out…" https://lea.verou.me/2021/05/82-of-developers-get-this-3-line-css-quiz-wrong/ Let's Talk About Units By Stefánia Péter. There is a life beyond pixels and percentages. Using px units is fine in certain cases, the real mistake is using absolute instead of relative units. https://csshell.dev/posts/lets-talk-about-units/ 5 Steps to Faster Web Fonts By Iain Bean. "…Each of these steps can have a benefit on its own, but used together can lead to big improvements…" https://iainbean.com/posts/2021/5-steps-to-faster-web-fonts/ aspect-ratio By Peter Paul Koch. "This week we'll take a look at the new aspect-ratio declaration and its use. Una Kravets wrote the introductory article, but there are some additional technical points to be made. I also wrote a little fallback that you might use if you need aspect-ratio right now…" http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/05/aspectratio.html +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Why You Cannot Trust Numbers from Qualitative Usability Studies By Raluca Budiu. "Qualitative usability studies have few users and variable protocol; numbers obtained from such studies are likely to poorly reflect the true behavior of your population due to large measurement errors." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/true-score/ Statistical Hypothesis Testing: What Can Go Wrong? By Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro. "…what can go wrong? Fortunately, there are only two core errors, Type I and Type II, which we cover in this article…" https://measuringu.com/hypothesis-testing-what-can-go-wrong/ +04: EVENTS. CSS Day 2021 June 10-11, 2021. Compagnietheater, Amsterdam https://cssday.nl/2021 PDF Pitfalls and How to Meet PDF/UA June 17, 2021. Online https://groups.drupal.org/node/536410 The Seven Golden Rules of Text Alternatives June 24, 2021 Online https://equalentry.com/golden-rules-for-writing-text-alternatives-webinar/ UX Bristol July 16, 2021. Bristol, England, United Kingdom and Online https://www.uxbristol.org.uk/2021/ Digital Accessibility Legal Summit October 7-8, 2021. Online https://accessibility.legal/ Adobe MAX 2021 October 26–28, 2021. Online https://www.adobe.com/max.html VPAT Part 1: Quality Accessibility Conformance Reports using the VPAT November 9, 2021. Online https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/content.asp?admin=Y&contentid=757 +05: HTML. 150 Days of HTML By Schalk Neethling. "Deep Dive Series ~ Subscribe today and start your journey through the elements of the core, semantic language of the web…" https://150daysofhtml.substack.com/ +06: JAVASCRIPT. Creating Accessible React Native Apps By Scott Vinkle. "…This post includes details on how I tested COVID Shield for accessibility, closely reviewing a few key issues, and the related solutions to those issues. Hopefully, this advice will help you test your own apps to ensure you're creating an accessible experience for all your users…" https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/react-native-accessibility Classes vs. Prototypal Inheritance in Vanilla JS By Chris Ferdinandi. "One of the more common questions I get from students is how JavaScript classes are different from prototypal inhertiance in vanilla JS. Today, that's what we're going to look at. Let's dig in…" https://gomakethings.com/classes-vs.-prototypal-inheritance-in-vanilla-js/ +07: MISCELLANEOUS. Principles of User Privacy (PUP) Robin Berjon, Editor. "…This document is a draft of a potential specification…The goal of this document is to define all the terms that may prove useful in developing technology and policy that relate to privacy and personal data. It additionally provides a toolbox to support the common need that is privacy threat modelling, the frequent debate over consent, and the under-developed set of issues in privacy that are of a collective, relational nature…" https://darobin.github.io/pup/ How the Cookie Poisoned the Web By Doc Searls. "Have you ever wondered why you have to consent to terms required by the websites of the world, rather than the other way around? Or why you have no record of what you have accepted or agreed to? Blame the cookie…a poison disabled personal agency. That poison was the cookie…" https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2021/05/14/poison/ Google AMP is Dead! By Marko Saric. "AMP pages no longer get preferential treatment in Google search…" https://plausible.io/blog/google-amp +08: NAVIGATION. Frustrating Design Patterns: Mega-Dropdown Hover Menus By Vitaly Friedman. "Do we need mega-dropdown hover menus in 2021? Probably not. Let's explore things to keep in mind when designing and building a mega-dropdown, alternatives to hover menus and fine details for designing a better UX…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/05/frustrating-design-patterns-mega-dropdown-hover-menus/ The Perfect Link By Rian Rietveld. "…Let's dive into the world of creating the perfect link, without making a pig's breakfast of it…" https://a11y-collective.com/blog/the-perfect-link/ +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 2% of the Top 100 U.S. Websites Use Valid HTML (in 2021) By Jens Oliver Meiert. "…Validation is fundamental stuff. It's simple. It's useful. It's important. We need to get this right-and our act together as frontend developers." https://meiert.com/en/blog/valid-html-2021/ +10: TOOLS. A11y Tools By Ian Lloyd. "A random collection of accessibility-focused tools that you might find at least partially useful…" https://a11y-tools.com/bookmarklets/ Accessibility Visualisation with Tota11y 2 By Bruce Lawson. "I've forked the splendid but dated Tota11y accessibility visualisation toolkit, added some extra stuff and corrected a bug, and my employer has let me release it for Global Accessibility Awareness Day…" https://brucelawson.co.uk/2021/accessibility-visualisation-with-tota11y-2/ +11: TYPOGRAPHY. A Guide to Understanding What Makes a Typeface Accessible By Gareth Ford Williams. "And how to make more informed font choices…" https://medium.com/the-readability-group/a-guide-to-understanding-what-makes-a-typeface-accessible-and-how-to-make-informed-decisions-9e5c0b9040a0 +12: USABILITY. The Scarcity Principle in UX: Don't Miss Out! (Video) By Alita Joyce. "When people think that something is rare or only available for a limited time, they will tend to act fast to secure that scarce item. This behavioral principle can be used in user experience design, but beware of overuse." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/scarcity-principle-ux/ UX-Roadmapping Workshops: Agenda + Activities By Sarah Gibbons. "Collaboratively create a UX roadmap in a workshop setting by guiding participants through activities that familiarize them with the project goals, context, and inputs and that identify key roadmap themes and priorities." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/roadmapping-workshop/ Remote UX Workshop Challenges (Video) By Participants in the Virtual UX Conference. "Participants in the Virtual UX Conference share tips for running UX workshops remotely to overcome challenges of participant fatigue and engagement and getting clients to use collaborative design tools." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/remote-ux-workshop-challenges/ +13: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. Digital: The Great Accelerator of the Climate Emergency By Gerry McGovern. "…digital is the great secret accelerator of the climate crisis. That it has fed and nurtured a culture of wanton disposability and waste, convenience at any cost. Digital culture, founded on speed and transience, is the engine of the climate crisis. If we don't break our addiction to the easy fixes that digital delivers, we cannot solve the climate crisis." https://gerrymcgovern.com/digital-the-great-accelerator-of-the-climate-emergency/ [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 + 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.]