+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 21, Issue 12, September 13, 2022. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 12 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: BOOKS. 03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 04: COLOR. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: HTML. 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. The Pandemic's Influence on Accessibility (Video) By Meryl K. Evans. "While no one wanted a pandemic to happen, Meryl Evans points out that history has shown events like this can lead to changes for the better. For her, the rise of automatic captions on video calls provided a new way to communicate, socialize, and most importantly, connect…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx8gGP79QTY Should I Use a Button or a Link? By Ashlee M Boyer. "One of the most seemingly contentious questions in web accessibility is whether or a button or link should be used when creating certain kinds of interactive elements…" https://ashleemboyer.com/blog/should-i-use-a-button-or-a-link Plain English By Content Design London. "Make content clear and understandable, to open the web up for users with different literacy levels and access challenges…" https://readabilityguidelines.co.uk/clear-language/plain-english/ Human Voice Audio Description By Abby Alepa. "…There are two approaches to the vocal aspects of audio description-synthesized voice and human voice- each of which may better suit certain types of projects and user needs. In this blog, we'll take a closer look at the positives of human voice audio description…" https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/human-voice-audio-description/ What is a TextDS File? By Abby Alepa. "…TextDS files are essentially an audio description file, but in text form. When you want to marry the description voiceover of content with the dialogue into a single form that can be used for screen readers, a textDS file is the best candidate for the job…" https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/what-is-a-text-ds-file-audio-description-alternative/ W3C Accessibility Maturity Model By Ruoxi Ran. "…Maturity models have been around since the 80s. They generally contain a number of levels with increasing levels of maturity. Each level contains a definition, controls, a list of processes, and proof points that can be produced for an organization to legitimately claim that they are at a particular level of maturity. This proposed W3C Accessibility Maturity Model describes an overall framework for establishing a robust, repeatable ICT accessibility program and identifying areas for organizational improvement. …" https://www.w3.org/blog/2022/09/w3c-accessibility-maturity-model/ Let's Keep the 'Content' in WCAG By Kaitlyn Nielsen. "Content is a critical part of your accessibility strategy because it improves the web experience for all users, not just people with disabilities. Learn some best practices for writing accessible content, using page elements, and adding accessibility to media content." https://sparkbox.com/foundry/how_to_write_accessible_content_that_is_meaningful_and_useful_for_everyone WCAG 2.2 Moving To CR By Rachael Bradley Montgomery. "WCAG 2.2 has become a W3C candidate recommendation (CR). We have marked one new success criteria, Focus Appearance, at risk due to concerns about its complexity…" https://whollyaccessible.org/2022/09/06/wcag-2-2-moving-to-cr/ What's New in WCAG 2.2? By Hidde de Vries. "WCAG 2.2 is now pretty close to becoming an official standard. It includes all of WCAG 2.1, plus nine new criteria…" https://hidde.blog/new-in-wcag22/ WCAG 2.2 Hits Candidate Recommendation - but What Does It Mean? By Chris Pycroft. "We've been talking about the next iteration of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for a while now, and now we've hit one of the final key milestones, also known as 'Candidate Recommendation'. Awesome! But what does that actually mean?…" https://intopia.digital/articles/wcag-2-2-hits-candidate-recommendation-but-what-does-it-mean/ What WCAG 2.2 Means for Native Mobile Accessibility By Rachael Yomtoob. "… we'll cover if and how each of them can be applied to native mobile applications…" https://www.deque.com/blog/what-wcag-2-2-means-for-native-mobile-accessibility/ Accessibility Acceptance Criteria By MagentaA11y. "Automatically generate test cases for Web, iOS and Android components." https://www.magentaa11y.com/ Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meetup Groups By Deborah Edwards-Oñoro. "Whether I’m on Twitter or attending an online event, every week someone asks me about accessibility and inclusive design meetup groups…" https://www.lireo.com/accessibility-inclusive-design-in-person-groups/ +02: BOOKS. Ladau, Emily. "Plain Language Summary and Translation of Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally", Ten Speed Press, 2021. Plain Language Summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nb0-Mc-SH3NmLRTBYR4GpqNFVJDAyIX7/ +03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. A Guide to Designing Accessible, WCAG-Compliant Focus Indicators By Sara Soueidan. "The Guide to designing accessible, WCAG-compliant focus indicators is now up-to-date with the latest WCAG 2.2 criteria." https://www.sarasoueidan.com/blog/focus-indicators/ Critical CSS? Not So Fast! By Harry Roberts. "…in practice, in the real world, it often falls short as a fragile and expensive technique to implement, which seldom provides the benefits that many developers expect…" https://csswizardry.com/2022/09/critical-css-not-so-fast/ +04: COLOR. The Realities And Myths Of Contrast And Color By Andrew Somers. "In this article, Andrew Somers, a 35-year veteran of the Hollywood film and television industry, shares his experience about the hard-fought battles and lessons learned designing for illuminated presentations…" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/09/realities-myths-contrast-color/ +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. The Context CUEs Framework in Field Studies By Mayya Azarova. "Distributed cognition theory explains how thinking involves not only one's mind but also other people and external artifacts. A framework rooted in this theory can guide consistent and in-depth observations of users' physical and social settings, processes, habits, and workflows." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/context-cues-framework-field-studies/ How Many Users Should You Visit for Contextual Inquiry? (Video) By Mayya Azarova. "The question of "how many users" has 3 answers when doing contextual inquiry: users per visit, visits per day, and the total number of visits in a study (which again varies depending on the type of design project)." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/how-many-users-contextual-inquiry/ Antipersonas: What, How, Who, and Why? By Sara Ramaswamy. "Antipersonas help anticipate how products can be misused in ways that can harm users and the business." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/antipersonas-what-how/ A Taxonomy of Common UX Research Methods By Jeff Sauro and Jim Lewis. "…In this article, we'll discuss how we've grouped a set of common UX methods into a taxonomy…" https://measuringu.com/32-ux-research-methods/ +06: EVENTS. Be A Digital Ally: Your Website's Toolbox - Content Management Systems and What You Need to Know September 15, 2022. Online https://events.humanitix.com/be-a-digital-ally-your-website-s-toolbox-content-management-systems-and-what-you-need-to-know What's New in WCAG 2.2 September 21, 2022. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. https://www.meetup.com/a11yatx/events/288207239/ Accessible Content for All: Introduction to Accessible Educational Materials from SETC September 21, 2022. Online https://specialedtechcenter.com/09-21-2022-accessible-content-for-all-introduction-to-accessible-educational-materials-aem/ Web Accessibility Virtual Training October 19-20, 2022 Online https://webaim.org/training/virtual/ Accessibility in Technology Procurement and Use November 1, 2022 Online https://webaim.org/training/procurement/ +07: HTML. The Details and Summary Elements, Again By Scott O'Hara. "…
and elements are complicated. Saying don't use them isn't really practical and there's a lot of good things about them. But they do have bugs. I filed some. It'd be great if other people would file some too! It really just all comes down to what sort of experience you want to provide to people, and how OK you might be knowing that the native elements are going to be exposed differently, have different gaps but also different features to them. Or, you can roll your own disclosure widgets…" https://www.scottohara.me/blog/2022/09/12/detials-summary.html HTML Is All You Need to Make a Website By Salma Alam-Naylor. "…what I am sure about, is that websites don't need to be complicated to be effective. Add less. Ship less. Worry about less. And remember - HTML is where it all started. And it's all you ever need to get started…" https://whitep4nth3r.com/blog/html-is-all-you-need-to-make-a-website/ +08: JAVASCRIPT. Don't Overwrite Visual Labels With aria-label By Ashlee M Boyer. "The aria-label property can be extremely useful when used correctly. When used incorrectly, it can wreak havoc on speech-input user experiences…" https://ashleemboyer.com/blog/don-t-overwrite-visual-labels-with-aria-label Why Your Website Should Work Without Javascript By Nathaniel. "Recently I started a site of tools for boardgames players. Simple tools like dice and spinners…" https://endtimes.dev/why-your-website-should-work-without-javascript/ A Quick Primer on Testing JavaScript By Chris Ferdinandi. "For years, one of the most frequent requests I’ve gotten from students is for resources about testing JavaScript.…" https://gomakethings.com/a-quick-primer-on-testing-javascript/ Unit Testing with Vanilla JS By Chris Ferdinandi. "…Today, we're going to deep-dive into one: unit testing…" https://gomakethings.com/unit-testing-with-vanilla-js/ +09: MISCELLANEOUS. Ancient Web Browsers By Edmund Tweedy Flanigan. "This is an archive of the very earliest Web browsers -- the true pioneers, the Old Gods, the Ancients…" http://9p.sdf.org/who/tweedy/ancient_browsers/ +10: USABILITY. More Choices More Trouble (UX Slogan 12) (Video) By Sarah Gibbons. "The more choices a user has to make, the bigger the risk of getting into trouble. More features can easily reduce usability." https://www.nngroup.com/videos/more-choices-more-trouble-ux-slogan/ +11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY. Climate Champions By Climate Champions. "We're in a Race. A race against time and against ourselves. Against the dangerous idea that we can't do this, that there is no way…" https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/ Take Real Climate Action Today By Offset Alliance. "Measured, verified CO2 reductions for small business and everyday people…" https://www.offsetalliance.co/ [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.]