+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 22, Issue 20, November 7, 2023.
An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development.
++ISSUE 20 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 & CONTRAST.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: HTML.
07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
08: JAVASCRIPT.
09: MISCELLANEOUS.
10: NAVIGATION.
11: TOOLS.
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.
To Hell with the Business Case
By Matt May.
"I've had a lot of positions on a lot of issues over my career, but there's one that I've been consistent on from the beginning. You do not sell product inclusion and equity, including accessibility, on business cases…"
https://buttondown.email/practicaltips/archive/to-hell-with-the-business-case/
How to Write Good Alt Text for Screen Readers
By Craig Abbott.
"In this post, I just want to talk through what alt text is, why it matters, and how to avoid some common mistakes…Anywhere an image adds any kind of value for sighted users, then alternative text should be provided…"
https://www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/how-to-write-good-alt-text-for-screen-readers/
Answers to Common (Web) Accessibility Questions
By Hidde de Vries.
"Inspired by Chris Coyier' Answers to common (web) design questions, which was inspired by Dan Mall's earlier post, here's list of common accessibility questions…"
https://hidde.blog/a11y-faq/
WCAG 2.2: Ask Us Anything (Video)
By Sarah Pulis and Sam Hobson.
"Sarah Pulis and Sam Hobson answered your questions about Version 2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG 2.2 in a webinar in October 2023 - two weeks after WCAG 2.2 became a recommendation from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzK4hXq8ZV8
Accessibility by Degrees
By Martin Underhill.
"…Accessibility is expensive if it's not considered from the outset, and a lot of companies are finding this out the hard way."
https://www.tempertemper.net/blog/accessibility-by-degrees
An Evolution in Microsoft Office Accessibility
By George Joeckel.
"In the early years of Microsoft Office, support for screen reader users was limited, and in most cases required third-party software and workarounds…"
https://webaim.org/blog/an-evolution-in-microsoft-office-accessibility/
Digital Accessibility and Civil Rights: The 2023 Legal Landscape
By Equal Entry.
"This article is based on an A11yNYC talk given by Lainey Feingold, a disability rights lawyer, public speaker, and author…"
https://equalentry.com/digital-accessibility-legal-landscape/
+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
The prefers-reduced-transparency Media Feature
By Manuel Matuzović.
"…In CSS, you can query that setting using the prefers-reduced-transparency media feature…"
https://www.matuzo.at/blog/2023/100daysof-day103
Totally Remdom, Or How Browsers Zoom Text
By Manuel Matuzović.
"Last week, I lied to my students. After I explained how the rem unit worked, I told them that they could compare px and rem by increasing the font size in their mobile browsers and see how it affects text zoom…"
https://www.matuzo.at/blog/2023/how-browsers-zoom-text
prefers-reduced-motion
By Mozilla Developer Network Contributors.
"The prefers-reduced-motion CSS media feature is used to detect if a user has enabled a setting on their device to minimize the amount of non-essential motion…"
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-reduced-motion
Why You Should Use px Units for margin, padding, & Other Spacing Techniques
By Ashlee M Boyer.
"The CSS margin and padding properties are often talked about together for two reasons…"
https://ashleemboyer.com/blog/why-you-should-use-px-units-for-margin-padding-and-other-spacing-techniques
+03: COLOR & CONTRAST.
November Accessibility Focus: Color Contrast
By Pope Tech.
This article was updated October 31, 2023. "Color contrast helps users with low visibility see what's on your web pages…"
https://blog.pope.tech/2022/11/08/november-monthly-focus-low-contrast/
+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
The Role of Prototyping in UX Design: From Wireframes to Interactive Mockups
By Atman Rathod.
"With more and more businesses investing in mobile-app design services, it is clear that any company needs to design and develop an app to reach its users. This requires experimenting with different design ideas to see what works best. What is the role of prototyping in UX design? Prototyping lets your UX team try out several design ideas…"
https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2023/11/the-role-of-prototyping-in-ux-design-from-wireframes-to-interactive-mockups.php
Focus Groups 101 (Video)
By Therese Fessenden.
"Focus groups are a polarizing research method. Within UX, they are best used in early discovery research to understand interest in a concept…"
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/focus-groups/
Automate Admin Tasks in the Research Process (Video)
By Kim Salazar.
Conducting user research includes a lot of overhead and busy work. Find ways to streamline the process by automating repetitive administrative tasks using webhooks.
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/automating-research/
The State of User Research 2023
By User Interviews.
"…This report unpacks the findings from our annual survey on the state of user research and the people who do it…"
https://www.userinterviews.com/state-of-user-research-2023-report
+05: EVENTS.
2023 Interagency Accessibility Forum
Beyond Compliance: Building a Culture of Digital Accessibility
November 7-9, 2023.
Online attendance is still open and available through November 9.
https://www.section508.gov/iaaf/
Virtual Strategic Web Accessibility Workshop
January 10-11 and 17-18, 2024.
Online
https://webaim.org/training/strategica11y/
UX Virtual Training
January 12-26, 2024.
Online
https://www.nngroup.com/training/january/
devopsdays Los Angeles
March 15, 2024.
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
https://devopsdays.org/events/2024-los-angeles/
CSUN Assistive Technology Conference
March 18-22, 2024.
Anaheim, California, U.S.A.
https://www.csun.edu/cod/conference/sessions/
+06: HTML.
Don't Turn a Table Into an ARIA Grid Just for a Clickable Row
By Adrian Roselli.
"Again, title says it all. However, there is an equally bad opposite approach you might be tempted to use, so let me clarify: Don't use ARIA grid roles simply to make rows clickable in a table, and Don't put click handlers on table rows (
s) to make them clickable…"
https://adrianroselli.com/2023/11/dont-turn-a-table-into-an-aria-grid-just-for-a-clickable-row.html
2023: 0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML
By Jens Oliver Meiert.
"Let's dive right in: Nothing changed compared to last year-none of the 100 most-visited websites globally uses HTML in full conformance with the HTML specification…"
https://meiert.com/en/blog/html-conformance-2023/
+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
The Role of Prototyping in UX Design: From Wireframes to Interactive Mockups
By Atman Rathod.
"With more and more businesses investing in mobile-app design services, it is clear that any company needs to design and develop an app to reach its users. This requires experimenting with different design ideas to see what works best. What is the role of prototyping in UX design? Prototyping lets your UX team try out several design ideas…"
https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2023/11/the-role-of-prototyping-in-ux-design-from-wireframes-to-interactive-mockups.php
+08: JAVASCRIPT.
Blinded By the Light DOM
By Eric A. Meyer.
"For a while now, Web Components (which I'm not going to capitalize again, you're welcome) have been one of those things that pop up in the general web conversation, seem intriguing, and then fade into the background again…"
https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2023/11/01/blinded-by-the-light-dom/
+09: MISCELLANEOUS.
Artificial Intelligence - A Blessing or a Curse for Sustainable Development?
By Daron Acemoglu.
"In recent years, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown rapidly, affecting many industries and areas of human life. But should we view AI as a blessing or curse? …"
https://www.un.org/development/desa/un-desa-voice/expert-voices/2023/11
Stay Human
By Matt May.
"…The AI/ML space is not being driven by humanists. Far from it. In fact, those who have documented actual harms with existing AI models have been fired from companies developing them…"
https://buttondown.email/practicaltips/archive/stay-human/
By Conference Report - Web Directions Summit 2023, Day Two
By Ricky Onsman.
"We're back on Day Two of the Web Directions Summit 2023 conference in Sydney, Australia, looking forward to another packed day of what's on the web technology horizon.…"
https://www.tpgi.com/conference-report-web-directions-summit-2023-day-two/
Internet Artifacts
By Neal Agarwal.
A timeline of internet firsts.
https://neal.fun/internet-artifacts/
+10: NAVIGATION.
navigation-api
By Web Incubator Community Group.
"The web's existing history API is problematic for a number of reasons, which makes it hard to use for web applications. This proposal introduces a new API encompassing navigation and history traversal, which is more directly usable by web application developers. Its scope is: initiating navigations, intercepting navigations, and history introspection and mutation…"
https://github.com/WICG/navigation-api
+11: TOOLS.
Autocomplete Accessibility Bookmarklet
By Rachele DiTullio.
"I created this bookmarklet for testing WCAG success criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (AA) which requires that if an input field requests personal information about the user, we must apply the appropriate autocomplete value to the field…"
https://racheleditullio.com/blog/2023/11/autocomplete-accessibility-bookmarklet/
An Accessibility Bookmarklet for Testing 200% Text Size
By Ashlee M Boyer.
"This bookmarklet can help you visually check how well a webpage handles text being resized to 200% of the base/default size. It can also help you test for loss of content when checking compliance for WCAG 2.2 Success Critierion 1.4.10 Reflow…"
https://ashleemboyer.com/blog/an-accessibility-bookmarklet-for-testing-200-percent-text-size
+12: USABILITY.
Minimalist Affordances: Making the Right Tradeoffs
By Lea Verou.
@leaverou@front-end.social
"Usability and aesthetics usually go hand in hand. In fact, there is even what we call the 'Aesthetic Usability Effect': users perceive beautiful interfaces as easier to use and cut them more slack when it comes to minor usabiity issues. Unfortunately, sometimes usability and aesthetics can be at odds, also known as 'form over function'…"
https://lea.verou.me/blog/2023/minimalist-affordances/
+13: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.
Update on the COP28 Website
By Michelle Barker.
@michelle@front-end.social
"Recently I wrote about the COP28 climate summit's website, which featured a low-carbon toggle that did precisely nothing…"
https://css-irl.info/update-on-the-cop28-website/
[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.
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+ 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.]