+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 20, Issue 08, August 19, 2021. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 08 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. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML. 07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: MISCELLANEOUS. 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. Sentence Forms (not Mad Libs) By Adrian Roselli. "Whether you call them sentence forms, narrative forms, fill-in-the-blank forms, or Mad Libs forms, you are probably describing a form where the fields are interspersed within words in a sentence. Unlike more traditional forms, laid out with simple pairings of labels and fields, these forms are meant to be read in a flow… Probably do not use this style of form. If you do, get a copywriter on board, make sure to address all the WCAG Success Criteria at Level AA, and then put it in front of users to test. If you plan to use the form across languages then you may need to customize it per language with a copywriter. If you know you will have users who may auto-translate the form, be prepared for them to be confused." https://adrianroselli.com/2021/08/sentence-forms-not-mad-libs.html Common Accessibility Issues and How to Assess Them By AccessComputing, University of Washington. "This page summarizes the accessibility issues demonstrated on the Accessible University (AU) home page. An inaccessible before fixes page and accessible after fixes page are provided to contrast the differences between the sites with explanations…" https://openassessittoolkit.github.io/accessible_u/issues.html How to Audit Your Library Website for WCAG 2.1 Compliance By Rachel Rayl. "The ever-evolving nature of library websites can lead to a mismatched collection of web pages that lack cohesion and, more importantly, lack key accessibility features for users. In Spring 2020, our library's user experience unit audited our library website-excluding third-party vendor sites and services-for WCAG 2.1 compliance. While we based our method around situation-specific barriers, we believe the process we followed will help library staff who may lack time or money to put toward such projects or who run into organizational barriers. We share our process with others in hopes that it helps reduce barriers to identifying website accessibility issues…" https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/weaveux/article/id/218/ Is there an imbalance in the supply and demand for universal accessibility knowledge? Twenty years of UAIS papers viewed through the lens of WCAG By Frode Eika Sandnes. "Some universal accessibility practitioners have voiced that they experience a mismatch in the research focus and the need for knowledge within specialized problem domains. This study thus set out to identify the balance of research into the main areas of accessibility, the impact of this research, and how the research profile varies over time and across geographical regions…" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10209-021-00834-y 10 Accessibility Best Practices By Ferenc Almasi. "Improve your site's accessibility score with these 10 practices…" https://medium.com/weekly-webtips/10-accessibility-best-practices-cb66b666fa0f Inclusive Design 24 Returns September 23, 2021 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "…If you're interested in inclusive design and want to learn how to improve the services and products you create, I encourage you to attend this year's Inclusive Design 24 event…" https://www.lireo.com/inclusive-design-24-september-23-2021/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. A Guide to Designing Accessible, WCAG-Compliant Focus Indicators By Sara Soueidan. "This post is a modified, text-only excerpt from my Practical Accessibility video course. I wanted to share this guide to designing accessible focus indicators because focus styles are a recurring discussion I have with designers I work with on most projects, so I thought it would be useful to provide this guide as a helpful reference. This guide is aimed at both designers who want to learn about accessibility considerations for designing focus indicators, as well as developers who want to implement them.…" https://www.sarasoueidan.com/blog/focus-indicators/ Print Style Sheets By Manuel Matuzović. "Improve user experience by providing a print style sheet for your website…" https://www.htmhell.dev/tips/print-style-sheets/ +03: COLOR. Accessible Contrast Ratios and A-Levels Explained By Team Stark. "All about those A's - your guide to understanding and making use of the ratios that determine your accessible contrast…" https://www.getstark.co/blog/accessible-contrast-ratios-and-a-levels-explained +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 10 Usability Heuristics Applied to Complex Applications By Kate Kaplan. "Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics can be used to analyze the UX of applications that support domain-specific, complex workflows." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-heuristics-complex-applications/ Inclusive Usability Testing: the Benefits of Inclusive Design By Ben Gilmore. "…While it's great to see inclusive design become more common, it often seems like the philosophy isn't completely embraced. This seems particularly true when designing for people with disabilities. More often than not, only a handful of participants with disabilities are included in user research and usability testing. This doesn't truly represent diversity and doesn't align with what is considered best practice…" https://www.visionaustralia.org/services/digital-access/blog/inclusive-usability-testing-the-benefits-of-inclusive-design How to Statistically Analyze Net Promoter Scores By Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro. "…In 2021 we tackled one of the big remaining NPS questions-how to conduct three fundamental statistical analyses with the NPS (confidence intervals, tests of statistical significance, and sample size estimation). In this article, we review this research and introduce a new version of our NPS Calculator…" https://measuringu.com/statistical-analysis-nps/ +05: EVENTS. Under the Hood of Sustainable IT + SICT2021 Online September 2, 2021. Online https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=P1ymAq2_Ik2LKl_T8QluqHgdw-tgVKhBgdvcCsoZiwJUMDBRVlJaQ01DRkk0MTlMWkJUVEhUOEFEQS4u Can Everybody See My Screen? September 22, 2021. Online https://www.tpgi.com/webinar-september-22-can-everybody-see-my-screen/ Online Together Fall Summit 2021 October 11-13, 2021. Online https://aneventapart.com/event/fall-summit-2021 Web Directions aaa 2021 October 29 & November 5, 2021. Online https://webdirections.org/aaa/ UX Conference October October 31-November 5, 2021. Online https://www.nngroup.com/training/november/ International Day of People with Disability December 3, 2021. Global https://www.idpwd.com.au/ An Event Apart San Francisco December 13-15, 2021. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. https://aneventapart.com/event/san-francisco-2021 +06: HTML. On the
By Ben Myers. "The
, or description list, element is underrated…" https://benmyers.dev/blog/on-the-dl/ HTML: A Good Basis for Accessibility By Mozilla. "A great deal of web content can be made accessible just by making sure the correct Hypertext Markup Language elements are used for the correct purpose at all times. This article looks in detail at how HTML can be used to ensure maximum accessibility…" https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/HTML HTML is Not a Programming Language? By Alvaro Montoro. "…HTML is the backbone of the Internet. It's a beautiful language with vast documentation and extensive syntax, yet so simple that it can be learned in an afternoon, and so complex that it takes years to master. Programming language or not, what really matters is that we have HTML in the first place." https://css-tricks.com/html-is-not-a-programming-language/ +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 3 Ways to Avoid Common Information Architecture Mistakes By Evolving Web Team. "…In this article, we'll look at three common foundational mistakes that lead us into trouble when organizing website content. Let's see how we can do better…" https://evolvingweb.ca/blog/3-ways-avoid-common-information-architecture-mistakes +08: JAVASCRIPT. A long time ago I made up a rule, which is still relevant today By Steve Faulkner. "First Rule of ARIA Use: If you can use a native HTML element [HTML] or attribute with the semantics and behavior you require already built in, instead of re-purposing an element and adding an ARIA role, state or property to make it accessible, then do so…" https://twitter.com/stevefaulkner/status/1392048493288738824 Why Not? By Steve Faulkner. "Why can't ARIA interactive roles be focusable by default like their HTML counterparts? https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2021/08/18/why-not/ +09: MISCELLANEOUS. Breaking the Web Forward By Peter Paul Koch. "…pick your poison. Shall we push the web forward until it's broken, or shall we break it by inaction…" http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_the_we.html +10: USABILITY. Using Fitts's Law to Make Links and Buttons Easier to Click (Video) By Kathryn Whitenton. "Fitts's Law describes how long time it takes to click a target, based on the distance to the target and its size. Use this information to make buttons and links faster to click." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/fittss-law-links-buttons/ UX-Maturity Stage 1: Absent By Sarah Gibbons. "A company at this stage is either oblivious to UX or believes it doesn't apply to what it does." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-stage-1/ Breaking Out of the Content Silo (Video) By Nielsen Norman Group. "Coming from a traditional content/writing background, Michelle Blake presents her case study of broadening her remit to a fuller range of user-experience issues and improved the design of her organization's website." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/breaking-out-content-silo/ +11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. The Tech Cult of Collecting and Hoarding Data By Gerry McGovern. "…There is a cult of collecting and hoarding data in the technology industry, particularly among social media companies. There is a belief that the more data they have on you, the more they can control you and sell stuff to you…Modern tech is an accelerant of the climate crisis. Data is the new oil and we're adding massive amounts of data oil to the fire. We must manage technology so that it genuinely supports sustainability. Right now, technology's core purpose seems to be to create more addicts for a mass-consumer, convenience-obsessed, waste-producing cult of surveillance capitalism." https://gerrymcgovern.com/the-tech-cult-of-collecting-and-hoarding-data/ [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.]