[webdev] Web Design Update: April 3, 2014

Thu Apr 3 06:19:13 CDT 2014

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 41, April 3, 2014.

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

++ISSUE 41 CONTENTS.

SECTION ONE: New references.
What's new at the Web Design Reference site?
http://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: HTML5.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: USABILITY.

SECTION TWO:
11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility in Practice - A Process-Driven Approach to Accessibility
By Sarah Horton and David Sloan.
"Attention to accessibility usually comes into play in the later
phases of product development. Accessibility audits are typically
performed during quality assurance and user acceptance testing phases.
Remediation for any issues identified in the audit usually happens in
code. However, the best fix for many complex accessibility issues may
be to revisit the overall design approach; yet reworking designs at
this late phase has a significant impact on timelines and processes.
Any recommendation involving alternative designs is therefore usually
unwelcome. Instead, the issues remain unresolved, or are resolved in a
fashion that achieves technical accessibility but offers a compromised
user experience. The best approach to accessible user experience is to
integrate accessibility into the design and development process..."
http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2014/03/accessibility-practice-process-driven-approach-accessibility/

Accessible Website Videos Remain a Work in Progress
By Chris Mikul.
"In the absence of fully accessible website video players, web
developers should look to international guidelines on accuracy and
synchronisation to improve video accessibility, Chris Mikul writes..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/2014/03/accessible-website-videos-remain-a-work-in-progress

NFB and H&R Block Announce Agreement Assuring Accessibility
By Global Accessibility News.
"The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and H&R Block, which
prepares approximately one in seven tax returns in America, announced
that they have reached an agreement to make H&R Block's Web site,
online tax preparation products, and mobile applications fully
accessible to taxpayers who are blind..."
http://globalaccessibilitynews.com/2014/03/26/nfb-and-hr-block-announce-agreement-assuring-accessibility/

Create a Logical Tabbing Order Through Links, Form Controls and Objects
By Denis Boudreau.
"Make sure the tabbing order manually created through active elements
remians logical..."
http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/80948821036/create-a-logical-tabbing-order-through-links-form

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Spring-Cleaning Unused CSS With Grunt, Gulp, Broccoli or Brunch
By Addy Osmani.
"Delivering a fast experience on the web usually involves reducing
server response time, minification of CSS/JS/HTML and an optimisation
of images and above-the-fold content. We can further minimize the
latency caused by stylesheet loading by removing unused CSS rules
delivered to the client..."
http://addyosmani.com/blog/removing-unused-css/

Confessions of a CSS Expert
By Heydon Pickering.
"I guess it all started pretty innocently enough. The UX(?) guys would
be asking for a new module or something. You know the sort of thing: a
search box or paginator. Whatever. So I'd give that block a class like
'search-widget' or 'paginator'; something to make my stylesheet more
readable and to help me contain styles within those blocks. It really
helped..."
http://www.heydonworks.com/article/confessions-of-a-css-expert

+03: COLOR.

Web Accessibility 101 Video Series: Effective Color Contrast
By SSB Bart Group.
"This week's featured video in our Web Accessibility 101 Series -
Effective Color Contrast - comes to us from Senior Accessibility
Consultant Thomas Logan.  Thomas explains and demonstrates the
importance proper color contrast when designing a web site or
application."
https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2014/03/07/web-accessibility-101-video-series-effective-color-contrast/

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Automated Lab Based Usability Testing (Note the date: April 1)
By Jeff Sauro.
"...In a unique cross-industry effort, Measuring Usability has
partnered with UserZoom, Usertesting.com, Optimal Workshop, and Loop11
to create Cindy (Consistent INterview Drone for usabilitY), the first
autonomous usability test facilitator..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/automated-lab-testing.php

+05: EVENTS.

Accessing Higher Ground
November 17-21, 2014.
Westminster, Colorado, U.S.A.
http://accessinghigherground.org/index2014.html

International Day of People with Disability
December 3, 2014.
Online
http://www.idpwd.com.au/

+06: HTML5.

Bringing Responsive Images to Browsers
By Mat Marquis.
"After almost three years in pursuit of a standardized solution to the
problem of responsive images, the Responsive Images Community Group is
excited to announce that the picture element is officially coming to a
browser near you. Once it lands, we'll see the trend toward massive,
bandwidth-heavy responsive websites begin to slow-and hopefully,
reverse-over time..."
http://alistapart.com/blog/post/bringing-responsive-images-to-browsers

The Elements of HTML
By Steve Faulkner.
"A list of all HTML and XHTML elements, past and present..."
http://rawgithub.com/w3c/elements-of-html/master/index.html

+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Announcing 'Understanding ECMAScript 6'
By Nicholas C Zakas.
"...the content available on GitHub. So that's what I'm doing, the
Understanding ECMAScript 6 repository is now live and you can see
exactly what I have, what I don't have, and what sort of content to
expect..."
http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2014/03/26/announcing-understanding-ecmascript-6/

+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

CSUN 2014 Videos
By Web Able TV.
"Videos from the 29th Annual International Technology and Persons with
Disabilities Conference."
http://www.webable.tv/Events/csun2014.aspx

Notes From the Edge
By Jeremy Keith.
"So Web Components make use of HTML, JavaScript, and (scoped) CSS. The
possibility space for the HTML is infinite: if you need an element
that doesn't exist, you just invent it. The possibility space for the
JavaScript is pretty close to infinite: it's a Turing-complete
language that can be wrangled to do just about anything. The
possibility space for CSS isn't infinite, but it's pretty darn big:
there's not much you can't do with it at this point. What's missing
from that bundle of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are hooks for assistive
technology. ..."
http://adactio.com/journal/6719/

+09: NAVIGATION.

Mobile Navigation - Image Grids or Text Lists?
By Aurora Bedford.
"For mobile navigation, image grids should be saved for deeper IA
levels where visual differentiation between menu items is critical, as
they increase page load times, create longer pages, and cause more
scrolling..."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/image-vs-list-mobile-navigation/

+10: USABILITY.

Really Break Grammar Rules on Websites
By Kara Pernice.
"Break away from some grammar rules when writing for the web.
Accommodate user scanning behavior and make content easy to
comprehend."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/really-break-grammar-rules/

Clean Up Your Web Content With These Handy Household Products
By Dey Alexander.
"Would you believe that washing machines can help you clean up your
content? They can. Not literally, of course. But metaphorically,
they're a great help. Washing machines come in two basic types:
top-loaders and front-loaders. This can present a dilemma for washing
machine buyers, who have to make a choice. But for web writers, it's a
bonus. We can-and should-use both to clean up our content. Let me
explain..."
http://www.4syllables.com.au/2014/03/clean-up-content/

Satisficing - Quickly Meet Users' Main Needs
By Kathryn Whitenton.
"Unless faced with life-changing information, most site visitors won't
read all of the content provided but settle for a 'good-enough'
answer. Better sorting and clearer writing satisfy users without
exhausting the limited time they're willing to spend on a website."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/satisficing/

Why Website Speed is Important
By Smriti Chawla.
"These studies impart upon us one important lesson: Website speed
should be a high priority if we want to build great websites...Based
on these reports, we have evidence suggesting that having a slow
website will have negative effects on revenue, conversion rates,
usability, and UX..."
http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/why-website-speed-is-important/

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

Accessibility Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html

Association Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html

Book Listings.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html

Cascading Style Sheets Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html

Color Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html

Dreamweaver Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.html

Evaluation & Testing Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html

Event Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html

Flash Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.html

Information Architecture Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html

JavaScript Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html

Miscellaneous Web Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html

Navigation Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html

PHP Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html

Sites & Blogs Listing.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html

Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html

Tool Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html

Typography Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html

Usability Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html

XML Information.
http://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 at d.umn.edu

[Issue ends.]