+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 21, Issue 13, September 20, 2022.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. 

++ISSUE 13 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: NAVIGATION.
11: PHP.
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.

Better Accessible Names
By Hidde de Vries.
"OK, you've added an accessible name to your control. Maybe you've used aria-label, <label> or some other way to name a control. Now you wonder: what makes a name good, effective or useful…"
https://hidde.blog/better-accessible-names/

How to Fix Common iOS Accessibility Issues
By Jennifer Korth.
"iOS provides a lot of accessibility behavior for free, so it's a great start to making a mobile application accessible. Unfortunately, accessibility is more complicated than the iOS behavior can address, and using only default behavior can actually cause the app to have additional issues…"
https://www.deque.com/blog/how-to-fix-common-ios-accessibility-issues/

How to Become a Video Accessibility Expert
By Kelly Mahoney.
"We can't wait to share - our Video Accessibility Course has officially relaunched…"
https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/how-become-video-accessibility-expert/

Justin Yarbrough Talks About Alt Text
By Nic Steenhout.
"Justin asks us to think outside of our use case, and that not everyone uses the web the way we do…"
https://a11yrules.com/podcast/justin-yarbrough-talks-about-alt-text/

Mac VoiceOver Testing the Simple Way
By Scott Vandehey.
"Learning VoiceOver can feel overwhelming, so I'm here to give you a simple, repeatable process you can follow to make testing with VO as easy as possible…"
https://cloudfour.com/thinks/mac-voiceover-testing-the-simple-way/

Survey: Why America is Obsessed with Subtitles
By Matt Zajechowski.
"…Based on our survey results, subtitles usage is quite popular in America, maybe even more popular than you think. If entertainment trends of dim lighting, loud background music, and muddled audio continue, it’s likely that the use of subtitles will only increase in popularity. While subtitles have benefits and drawbacks, they primarily serve as communication tools to further comprehension for those who are hearing impaired and those who do not speak English as a first language."
https://preply.com/en/blog/americas-subtitles-use/

Courses on Digital Accessibility
By Shawn Lawton Henry.
"W3C WAI has published the first iteration of: 'Course List - Digital Accessibility Education, Training, and Certification'…"
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wai-announce/2022JulSep/0006.html

Five Things You Can Do to Be More Inclusive (September 2022 Edition)
By Denis Boudreau.
"…With today's post, I'd like to share 5 simple ideas you can start implementing today, to make your content and the experience you create for your audience from the platform that much more inclusive of everyone, especially those who have disabilities or can easily be left out…"
https://inklusiv.ca/five-things-you-can-do-to-be-more-inclusive-september-2022-edition/

Overlay Comments
By Alastair Campbell.
"There was a W3C session called 'Accessibility at the Edge', essentially trying to tackle the technical aspects of accessibility overlays. I'll add links to the session and video if & when that is published. I just wanted to capture my main point…"
https://alastairc.uk/2022/09/overlay-comments/

FTC, Commercial Surveillance, and Overlays
By Adrian Roselli.
Adrian updated this post September 11, 2022. "…FTC's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) is now open for public comment on the harms stemming from commercial surveillance and whether new rules are needed to protect people's privacy and information…"
https://adrianroselli.com/2022/08/ftc-commercial-surveillance-and-overlays.html

'Accessibility at the Edge' W3C CG Is an Overlay Smoke Screen
By Adrian Roselli.
Adrian updated this post September 14, 2022 with meeting minutes from the TPAC breakout session.
https://adrianroselli.com/2022/09/accessibility-at-the-edge-w3c-cg-is-an-overlay-smoke-screen.html#Update01 


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

On Better Browsers: Arbitrary Media Queries and Browser UIs
By Kilian Valkhof.
"This morning Kitty Giraudel tweeted about an imaginary media query that would indicate right- or left-handedness and it made me imagine a future where sites can register support for one or more media features through a browser API, and the browser would offer these options in the UI…"
https://kilianvalkhof.com/2022/css-html/on-better-browsers-arbitrary-media-queries-and-browser-uis/

CSS line-height
By Marko Denic.
"The line-height CSS property sets the height of a line. You can use it to set the space between the lines of text…"
https://markodenic.com/css-line-height/

A Long-Term Plan for Logical Properties?
By Miriam Suzanne.
"The CSS Working Group is discussing 'logical properties' today with the Internationalization Working Group - and there's a great new article on the topic this week from Jeremy Keith…"
https://www.miriamsuzanne.com/2022/09/16/tpac-logical/


+03: COLOR.

Busy Background Breaks Bulletin
By Andrew Somers.
"This is a brief article on how to work with text on high contrast image backgrounds, with lots of examples of why it's a bad idea to use images behind text…"
https://tangledweb.xyz/busy-background-breaks-bulletin-f4ff4bf67e5a

Derailed Analysis of APCA
By Andrew Somers.
"Rebuttle to xi's analysis…"
https://github.com/Myndex/apca-introduction/blob/main/analysis.md


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Evaluation of Three SEQ Variants
By Jeff Sauro and Jim Lewis.
"The Single Ease Question (SEQ®) is a single seven-point item that measures the perceived ease of task completion…"
https://measuringu.com/evaluation-of-three-seq-variants/

Generating Powerful Insights Through Contextual Inquiry
By Aarti Bhatnagar.
"Sometimes, quiet observation surpasses extended interviews."
https://www.simple.org/blog/generating-powerful-insights-through-contextual-inquiry/

How Rapid Usability Testing is Changing UX Research
By Owen Fay.
"…I'll cover what rapid usability testing is, why it can be a valuable tool, the costs of slow usability testing, and how rapid usability testing can eliminate research bottlenecks…"
https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2022/09/how-rapid-usability-testing-is-changing-ux-research.php

Case Studies on Website A/B Testing
By Victor Ortiz.
"…In this blog, we discuss what A/B testing is, how it can be used by Web Designers, and real-life case studies of A/B testing"
https://www.loop11.com/case-studies-on-website-a-b-testing/

Dot Coding: An Activity to Elicit Perspectives in UX Workshops
By Kate Kaplan.
"By placing colored dots on items, participants in UX workshops or group sessions can manage the collaborative discussion of research findings, design ideas, goals, or anything else."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dot-coding/

The Number One Reason for Not Doing UX Research (Video)
By Kara Pernice.
"Barriers from all angles can make doing user research seem impossible. But recognizing the challenges, and knowing you are not alone in having them, makes them easier to overcome so that you can get user data after all."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/number-one-reason-for-not-doing-ux-research/


+05: EVENTS.

World Interaction Design Day 2022
September 27, 2022.
Online
https://www.interactiondesignday.org/

The Americans with Disabilities Act, The U.S. Department of Justice, and The Future of Disability Rights
September 28, 2022.
Online
https://lmula.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_uvuapF5IQbGs9q5HfogBaA

Cognative Overlords with Alex Tait
October 5, 2022.
https://a11ytalks.com/posts/2022-OCT

#a11yTO Conf
October 17-18, 2022.
Online and Toronto, Canada
https://conf.a11yto.com/

ASSETS 2022 Virtual Workshop - Including Accessibility in Computer Science Education
October 23, 2022.
Online
https://accessibilityeducation.github.io/workshop.html

AbilityNet TechShare Pro
November 15-17, 2022.
Online
https://hopin.com/events/techshare-pro-2022/registration

Designing The Perfect Web Forms
November 17-18, 2022.
Online
https://smashingconf.com/online-workshops/workshops/web-forms-vitaly-friedman

ASSETS '22 
24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility 
November 23-26, 2022.
Athens, Greece
https://assets22.sigaccess.org/


+06: HTML.

Brief Note on Super- and Subscript Text
By Adrian Roselli.
"Thanks to a conversation on the A11y Slack, I ran desktop browsers and screen readers through a test to see how they announce content marked up as superscript and subscript…"
https://adrianroselli.com/2022/09/brief-note-on-super-and-subscript-text.html

0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML (in 2022)
By Jens Oliver Meiert.
"…We're at the absolute low point with HTML, where not a single Top 100 website uses valid HTML. For CSS, things improved, and there's an increasing number of websites that use valid CSS…"
https://meiert.com/en/blog/valid-html-2022/


+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Information Architecture is Much More Than Navigation 
By Jess Jenkins.
"Information architecture is so much more than finding your way around a website or app. IA should be considered the foundation of a great user experience…"
https://blog.optimalworkshop.com/information-architecture-is-much-more-than-navigation/


+08: JAVASCRIPT.

The Myth of JavaScript Accessibility
By Iain Furstenwerth.
"…a11y is much more effectively approached from a holistic standpoint. Go top-down: learn the concepts, learn the needs of people who rely on a11y practices. Then, no matter what language you're using, or what app you're building, you understand what needs to happen in order for your software to be accessible…"
https://knowbility.org/blog/2022/the-myth-of-javascript-accessibility

Making Sense Of WAI-ARIA: A Comprehensive Guide
By Kate Kalcevich.
"In this article, Kate Kalcevich explains when to use ARIA and how to use it properly so that you can use ARIA in a way that's helpful to the many disabled people who use assistive technology to navigate the Internet…"
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/09/wai-aria-guide/

a11y CodePen Collection
By Manuel Matuzović.
"A collection of examples I'm using in accessibility focused workshops. It includes simple demos of ARIA attributes as well as more complex patterns…"
https://codepen.io/collection/GokgqR?grid_type=list

aria-description Crash Course
By Darin Senneff.
"I decided to do a mini dive and test of support for aria-description to fill in my knowledge gap and be prepared to use it when the time comes. A sort of crash-course, if you will. I'm sharing my findings here in case it's valuable for anyone else…"
https://www.darins.page/articles/aria-description-crash-course

How to Build a JavaScript App or Project From Scratch
By Chris Ferdinandi.
"Truthfully, knowing specific JavaScript methods and browser APIs isn't really that important…"
https://gomakethings.com/how-to-build-a-javascript-app-or-project-from-scratch/


+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles (Slides)
By Theresa O'Connor.
"Hi, I'm Tess. I'm from the TAG. I'm here to tell you about the W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles document…"
https://tess.oconnor.cx/2022/09/ethical-web-principles
Transcript:
https://tess.oconnor.cx/2022/09/ewp-transcript


+10: NAVIGATION.

Building the Main Navigation for a Website
By Manuel Matuzović.
"This tutorial describes how to build an accessible main navigation of a website. You learn about semantic HTML, accessibility, and how using ARIA attributes can sometimes do more harm than good…"
https://web.dev/website-navigation/


+11: PHP.

What's New in PHP 8.2 - New Features, Deprecations, Changes, and More 
By Salman Ravoof.
"PHP 8.2 builds upon the renewed base set forth by PHP 8.0 and PHP 8.1. It's planned to release on November 24, 2022…"
https://kinsta.com/blog/php-8-2/


+12: USABILITY.

How to Design Better Buttons (Video)
By Nick Babich.
"Buttons are an essential element of interaction design. They have a primary role in the conversation between a user and the system. Although buttons are relatively simple objects, they directly impact product performance and require careful attention. This video covers the top 7 rules to help you design better buttons…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ05rJ6NxWE

"Why" Beats "What" in UX (UX Slogan #6) (Video)
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Data about what users do is valuable, but not nearly as valuable as information about why people did something. Such 'why' insight should drive UX design decisions."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/why-beats-what-ux-slogan-6/

FTC Report Shows Rise in Sophisticated Dark Patterns Designed to Trick and Trap Consumers
By Federal Trade Commission.
"Tactics include disguised ads, difficult-to-cancel subscriptions, buried terms, and tricks to obtain data…"
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/ftc-report-shows-rise-sophisticated-dark-patterns-designed-trick-trap-consumers

Accidental Dismissal of Overlays: A Common Mobile Usability Problem
By Raluca Budiu, Sana Behnam and Kate Moran.
"Overlays often need to be dismissed in a manner that goes against users' expectations."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/accidental-overlay-dismissal/

UX Leaders' Getting a Seat at the Top Table
By Rima Campbell and Kuldeep Kelkar.
"One of the top challenges that User Experience faces in business is executive buy-in…"
https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2022/09/ux-leaders-getting-a-seat-at-the-top-table.php

UX Win: Otter Basic Plan Updates
By Deborah Edwards-Oñoro.
"…Otter recognizes people's time is valuable. They've created a product update message that provides details with a clean layout, good formatting, and readability…"
https://www.lireo.com/ux-win-otter-basic-plan-updates/


+13: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

Web Sustainability and the Ethical Dilemma
By Michelle Barker.
"…Faster websites are nearly always better than the alternative. But we shouldn't be afraid to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions about whose needs we're servicing…"
https://css-irl.info/web-sustainability-and-the-ethical-dilemma/

Sustainable Web Design Community Group
"A community group dedicated to creating sustainable websites. This group will not publish specifications.""
https://www.w3.org/community/sustyweb/

Smartphones and Laptops Are Chemical Reactors
By Gerry McGovern.
"…It is hard to think that our smartphones and laptops are chemical warehouses and that when they become e-waste (as most of them will), they can act like chemical factories, producing new forms of dangerous chemicals and, like mini decaying nuclear reactors, emitting all sorts of toxins…"
https://gerrymcgovern.com/smartphones-and-laptops-are-chemical-reactors/


[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.]