+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 20, Issue 17, October 20, 2021. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 17 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: TOOLS. 11: USABILITY. 12: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. 13: XML. SECTION TWO: 14: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Why Accessibility Should Be A Priority (And How to Start Prioritizing) Bureau of Internet Accessibility. "Digital accessibility is a set of principles and practices that aims to make the web more useful to people with disabilities. It needs to remain a priority throughout the development of a website or app…" https://www.boia.org/blog/why-accessibility-should-be-a-priority-and-how-to-start-prioritizing Blaming Screen Readers Red Flag × 5 By Adrian Roselli. "…Screen Readers Are Not…to blame for your inaccessible content…" https://adrianroselli.com/2021/10/blaming-screen-readers-red-flag.html Accessibility of Remote Meetings (First Public Working Draft) Scott Hollier, Judy Brewer, Jason White, Janina Sajka, Joshue O'Connor,and Stephen Noble, Editors. "This document summarizes considerations of accessibility that arise in the conduct of remote and hybrid meetings…" https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/WD-remote-meetings-20211014/ Fix Web Accessibility Systematically By Eric Eggert. "…If we want the web to be 'for everyone', its tools must be for everyone, too. And that begins with accessible core ingredients like HTML." https://yatil.net/blog/fix-web-accessibility-systematically What's the Difference Between Difficulty and Accessibility? By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "When it comes to games, do you know the difference between difficulty and accessibility? The two words are used when talking about games, but they mean different things…" https://www.lireo.com/whats-the-difference-between-difficulty-and-accessibility/ What is a Screen Reader, and Why Are They Important? By Marissa Sapega. "…Screen readers are sophisticated technology. Unlike a 'text-to-speech' function on a computer, they have the ability to do more than just read the text out loud from top to bottom…" https://www.tpgi.com/what-is-a-screen-reader-and-why-are-they-important/ Accessibility Statement Generator's Roundup By Raghavendra Satish Peri. "If you are in the process of building accessibility statement for your digital applications, then these accessibility statement generating tools might come in handy…" https://www.digitala11y.com/accessibility-statement-generators- Updates to Captions and Audio Features on YouTube By Google. "…Multi-audio tracks and descriptive audio feeds: We're testing, with a small group of creators, the ability to add multiple audio tracks on their videos which will help provide multi-language audio for international audiences as well as descriptive audio for people who are blind or low-vision. We hope to roll this feature out more widely in the coming quarters…" https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/129769858/updates-to-captions-and-audio-features-on-youtube The Ultimate Guide to Caption and Description Formats for Popular Video Players By Kelly Mahoney. "…we'll break down the most popular video players and the formats they require to make video accessible…" https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/guide-caption-description-formats-video-player/ International Day of Older Persons 2021: Digital Equity for All Ages By Andrew Arch. "…Ensuring we meet WCAG is a good starting point for helping address digital equity for all ages, meaning that our older relatives, and our future selves, can use the web and mobile apps more easily. We also need to be sure we write in plain, age-agnostic language, avoid idioms and colloquialisms that can be age-specific, and write in the active voice. We should also use design patterns that are commonly experienced and make sure the steps to complete any task are clear and obvious." https://intopia.digital/articles/international-day-of-older-persons-2021-digital-equity-for-all-ages/ ADA Lawsuit Settlement Involving an Accessibility Overlay By Sheri Byrne-Haber. "What the settlement agreement included, and what does it mean for the industry…" https://sheribyrnehaber.medium.com/important-settlement-in-an-ada-lawsuit-involving-an-accessibility-overlay-748a82850249 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Expandable Sections Within a CSS Grid By Kev Bonett. "…In this article, I'll combine three one-line CSS Grid 'tricks' to solve this. No JavaScript needed at all…" https://css-tricks.com/expandable-sections-within-a-css-grid/ Adrian Roselli's comments on 'Expandable Sections Within a CSS Grid' to improve accessibility: https://css-tricks.com/expandable-sections-within-a-css-grid/#comment-1783813 CSS is Going Gosh-Darned Hog Wild, I Tell Ya What By Chris Coyier. "As someone just sittin' back watching CSS evolve, it feels like we're at one of the hottest moments of innovation in CSS history…" https://css-tricks.com/css-is-going-gosh-darned-hog-wild-i-tell-ya-what/ How to Understand CSS By Rachel Andrew. Rachele's slides, resources, and code from her October 11, 2021 An Event Apart presentation. https://noti.st/rachelandrew/TImzFL/how-to-understand-css W3C TPAC 2021: CSS WG Updates By Bramus Van Damme. "At (the ongoing) TPAC 2021 - the W3C Annual Conference - the CSS Working Group provided two video updates that summarize some of the ongoing work they've been doing. Perfect way to get up to speed in less than 10 minutes…" https://www.bram.us/2021/10/13/w3c-tpac-2021-css-wg-updates/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Prioritize Quantitative Data with the Pareto Principle By Evan Sunwall. "Prioritize the 20% of your website or app responsible for 80% of a critical metric to generate substantial improvements for less effort." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/pareto-principle/ When User Testing for Accessibility, Involve People with Disabilities By Bureau of Internet Accessibility. "User testing is an essential process when introducing a new product or service - and it's a crucial consideration when implementing a digital accessibility initiative. Web content needs to follow standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the world's most frequently cited framework for digital accessibility…" https://www.boia.org/blog/when-user-testing-for-accessibility-involve-people-with-disabilities What Constitutes a Digital Accessibility Audit By Glenda Sims. "Digital accessibility refers to the process of designing and developing digital products like websites, mobile apps and digital content so that it is accessible to all audiences, including people with disabilities…" http://www.rmmagazine.com/articles/article/2021/10/12/what-constitutes-a-digital-accessibility-audit +04: EVENTS. Wells Fargo's Guide to Social Media Accessibility October 21, 2021. Online https://go.3playmedia.com/wbnr-10-21-2021-wells-fargo Applying EU regulation to Native Mobile apps October 27, 2021. Online https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/webinar-details?id=a0A3p000017nBaKEAU Accessibility in the EU vs US November 4, 2021. Online https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/webinar-details?id=a0A3p000017nNRYEA2 Persuasive UX Metrics November 8-10, 2021. Online https://puxm.uie.com/ A Smashing Hour with Sara Soueidan November 10, 2021. Online https://smashingmagazine.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIodOiqpjMuEtfh-KxQOzLVU_RvxfdsNL7v How to Improve Digital Accessibility While Reducing Legal Risk November 10, 2021. Online https://go.3playmedia.com/wbnr-11-11-2021-legal-risk Lowering the Threshold of User Involvement November 10, 2021. Online https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/webinar-details?id=a0A3p000017nNUhEAM Paradigm Shifts in Interacting With Virtual Environments: A Focus on Deaf People November 11, 2021. Online https://www.meetup.com/a11yvr/events/281355381/ +05: HTML. The Button Cheat Sheet By Manuel Matuzović. "Do you need a button for your next project but you're not sure about the right markup? Don't worry, The Button Cheat Sheet has got you covered…" https://www.buttoncheatsheet.com/ HTML with Superpowers By Dave Rupert. "Earlier this year I spoke at An Event Apart's Spring Summit and today I'm happy to share with you that talk called HTML with Superpowers, which is all about Web Components.…" https://daverupert.com/2021/10/html-with-superpowers/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. How to Handle Category Outliers in Your IA By Page Laubheimer. "Users' mental models of concept categories are far less strict than you might expect. Consider keeping small numbers of outlier pages within their larger parent category, rather than creating unnecessary subcategories." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ia-category-outliers/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. Boolean Shorthands and Truthiness By Chris Ferdinandi. "…In JavaScript, a value of 0 is considered false for truthy evaluation purposes, and a number higher than that is considered true…" https://gomakethings.com/boolean-shorthands-and-truthiness/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Design Thinking Learner's Journey (Video) By Sarah Gibbons. "Research with people who are learning Design Thinking shows that they progress in a nonlinear manner through 4 phases of increasing competency and confidence. Understanding these phases helps both learners and educators/managers." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/design-thinking-learners-journey/ +09: NAVIGATION. Landmarks By Manuel Matuzović. "HTML allows us to define so-called landmarks, important areas in a page. They can be really helpful, especially for screen reader users…" https://www.htmhell.dev/tips/landmarks/ First Steps to an Accessible Website (Part 5) By Jeff Singleton. "…In this post we are going to review how to describe the purpose of a link using its link text and its surrounding context…" https://convergeaccessibility.com/2021/10/18/first-steps-to-an-accessible-website-part-5/ +10: TOOLS. Tommy's Inclusive Datepicker By Tommy Feldt. "A human-friendly datepicker. Supports natural language manual input through Chrono.js. Fully accessible with keyboard and screen reader…" https://fymmot.github.io/inclusive-dates/ +11: USABILITY. Enterprise User Experience (Video) By Jakob Nielsen. "Trends for improving the user experience for enterprise software and other internal design projects." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/enterprise-user-experience/ Easy Read is Hard to Get Right By John Newto. "…We prototyped content for the PCR 'book a test' journey and had users with cognitive disabilities and lower levels of literacy test the content.…" https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2021/10/11/easy-read-is-hard-to-get-right/ Baymard Update: 13 New Case Studies and 3 New 2021 Benchmarks (Checkout, Product Page, and On-Site Search UX) By Mark Crowley. "We're expanding our UX benchmark database significantly with in-depth UX case studies of 13 new sites that we've manually benchmarked across 500+ guidelines…" https://baymard.com/blog/benchmark-update-october21 Checkout Optimization: 5 Ways to Minimize Form Fields in Checkout By Christian Holst. "The length of checkout in steps has less of an impact on overall checkout performance compared to the total number of form fields users must contend with…" https://baymard.com/blog/checkout-flow-average-form-fields +12: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. E-waste and the Scandinavian Lifestyle By Gerry McGovern. "…We must learn to live well with less technology. We treat technology like plastic and fashion, something transient, something disposable. A certain amount of technology is essential to living a more comfortable life. However, our embrace of planned obsolescence and our obsession with having new things are a climate-destroying recipe…" https://gerrymcgovern.com/e-waste-and-the-scandinavian-lifestyle/ +13: XML. CurrentColor SVG in Forced Colors Modes By Melanie Richards. "If you've been optimizing your web content for various color modes for some time, you may be familiar with using currentColor as an efficient way to manage single-color SVGs. Traditionally, setting currentColor to the strokes and fills of SVG parts…" https://melanie-richards.com/blog/currentcolor-svg-hcm/ [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.]