[webdev] Web Design Update: August 27, 2014

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Wed Aug 27 06:55:45 CDT 2014 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 09, August 27, 2014.

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

++ISSUE 09 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: DREAMWEAVER.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: HTML5.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: USABILITY.
10: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Can CAPTCHAs Be Made Accessible?
By Crista Earl.
"No, we have a solution. If you comment on this blog post, you'll see
an accessible CAPTCHA in action."
http://www.afb.org/blog/afb-blog/can-captchas-be-made-accessible/12

3 Types of Relationships and What They Mean for Accessibility
By Derek Featherstone.
"There are 3 types of relationships in a web page: explicit, implicit,
and content-based relationships. Read this to see what they are and
why they're critical to ensure accessibility for everyone."
http://simplyaccessible.com/article/3-relationships/

No More Excuses - Subtitle Your YouTube Videos
By Christian Heilmann.
"I was just very pleasantly surprised that the subtitling interface in
YouTube has gone leaps and bounds since I last looked at it."
http://christianheilmann.com/2014/08/20/no-more-excuses-subtitle-your-youtube-videos/

Developing a Manifesto for Accessible UX
By David Sloan.
"Last month, a few TPG folks attended the UXPA 2014 conference in an
astonishingly hot and sunny London. As well as meeting with friends
and colleagues old and new, and having some great discussions about
our future work plans, Sarah Horton, Leonie Watson and I also ran a
conference workshop on Developing a Manifesto for Accessible User
Experience..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/08/developing-a-manifesto-for-accessible-ux/

Accessibility - The Missing Essential in Cloud Services
By Media Access Australia.
"Independent access expert Media Access Australia has released a
research paper on the need for commercial services and governments to
incorporate accessibility for people with disabilities into their
cloud services..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2014/08/accessibility-the-missing-essential-in-cloud-services

30 Days With Android
By Marco Zehe.
"...But for my personal use, this experiment once again concludes with
a thumbs down, but for different reasons..."
http://30dayswithandroid.blogspot.de/2014/08/day-18-part-3-i-quit.html

National Federation of the Blind Supports Blind Mother's Suit Against
Seattle Public Schools
By National Federation of the Blind.
"The suit alleges discrimination against Ms. Nightingale under the
Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation
Act of 1973, because the Seattle Public Schools website and ST Math, a
software program that students are required to use to complete math
assignments, are not accessible to her..."
https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-supports-blind-mother%E2%80%99s-suit-against-seattle-public-schools

Longdesc - Where Are the Alternatives?
By Karl Groves
"...Today, I created a new Polymer-based Web Component called
image-longdesc. It is basically just a different approach to my
image-caption component. It places a link to the long description
under the image..."
http://www.karlgroves.com/2014/08/26/longdesc-where-are-the-alternatives/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Flexbox IE11 Bugs
By Alastair Campbell.
"I recently started experimenting with flexbox. On this blog. Without
enough testing. Or at least, without the kind of testing I would do
for a work project. It's a live experiment! Here are the bugs I ran
into..."
http://alastairc.ac/2014/08/flexbox-ie11-bugs/

Learn to Code HTML and CSS - Opening the Box Model
By Shay Howe.
"In this chapter from Learn to Code HTML and CSS: Develop and Style
Websites, Shay Howe discusses the box model and how it works with HTML
and CSS, and also looks at a few new CSS properties."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2210511&WT

CSS Tip - Adjacent Sibling Selector vs nth-child
By Frank Stepanski.
"With CSS, if you need to style a specific child sibling you can use
the nth-child selector..."
http://www.javascriptworkshop.com/css-tip-adjacent-sibling-selector-vs-nth-child/

Responsive Components Using Context Queries
By Ed Merritt.
"Media queries make a website respond to the viewport. But what if we
could make site components respond to their container?..."
http://boagworld.com/design/context-queries/


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Is Dreamweaver Still Relevant in Web Design?
By Stefan Mischook.
"...There is nothing wrong with Dreamweaver if you largely ignore the
point and click tools, and stick to the code editor. But if you do
that, why bother forking out the big money for Dreamweaver, when you
can find more effectively code editors like Sublime Text or Notepadd++
for free or for much much cheaper than Dreamweaver?"
http://www.killersites.com/blog/2014/is-dreamweaver-still-relevant-in-web-design/


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Steve Krug Explains Several True Things about Usability Testing
By Steve Krug.
"In this excerpt from Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense
Approach to Web Usability, 3rd Edition, Steve Krug share three true
things about usability tests."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2209313&WT


+05: EVENTS.

UX Week 2014
September 9-12, 2014, 2014.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://uxweek.com/

Sass Conf 2014
October 2-4, 2014.
New York, New York, U.S.A.
http://sassconf.com/

Build Right. Build Responsively
October 3, 2014.
Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.
http://buildright.io/build-responsively

CSS Dev Conf 2014
October 13-15, 2014.
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
http://2014.cssdevconf.com/

Paris Web
October 16-18, 2014.
Paris, France
http://paris-web.fr/

ZendCon
October 27-30, 2014.
Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.
http://www.zendcon.com/


+06: HTML5.

HTML and Specifying Language
By Jens O. Meiert.
"I question the importance and ways of marking up language in HTML
documents, in particular changes in language..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20140825/html-and-language/


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

JavaScript for Accessible Web Applications (Video)
By Ian Pouncey.
"How JavaScript can be used to make sites and applications more
accessible and usable, and example implementations showing how to
manage interactivity within applications.
Ian Pouncey is a Senior Accessibility Specialist and Web Developer at
the BBC, writing standards, guidelines, and training material, and
advising developers and designers on creating accessible websites and
applications. He has been working on the Web for over fourteen years,
building a wide range of websites, from small sites for local
businesses to the 'Metro' version of the Yahoo! home page and the
framework on which all BBC web pages are built. He is the author of
Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design, 3rd Edition, a
W3C HTML Accessibility Task Force member, and web accessibility
advocate."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5igUX_5uF0


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

10 Ways to Improve Your Mobile Experience
By Paul Boag.
"This week on the Boagworld web show we discuss 10 ways to improve
your users mobile experience..."
http://boagworld.com/season/10/episode/1005/

Why People Love And Hate Responsive Design
By Steven Bradley.
"The phrase responsive design generates a lot of passion. Web
designers seem to either love it or hate it. Why is that? Why is the
phase so charged with emotion?"
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/responsive-design-passion/


+09: USABILITY.

Steve Krug on Creating Effective Visual Hierarchies
By Steve Krug.
"In this excerpt from Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense
Approach to Web Usability, 3rd Edition, Steve Krug explains that the
appearance of the things on the page should accurately portray the
relationships between the things on the page."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2209310&WT

Steve Krug on Things that Make Us Think
By Steve Krug.
"Don't make people puzzle over stuff on your website! In this excerpt
from Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web
Usability, 3rd Edition, Steve Krug shares some examples of things that
make us think, so you'll begin to notice all the things that make you
think in the sites and apps you use. And eventually you'll learn to
recognize and avoid them in the things you're building."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2209309&WT

Steve Krug on Why Nothing Beats a Good Tagline!
By Steve Krug.
"Taglines are a very efficient way to get your message across, because
they're the one place on the web page where users most expect to find
a concise statement of the site's purpose. In this excerpt from Don't
Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability,
3rd Edition, Steve Krug shares some attributes to look for when
choosing a tagline."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2209312&WT

Five Interaction Design Tips for Your Mobile App
By Cameron Banga and Josh Weinhold.
"Apps for mobile platforms might seem simple, but they're far from it.
Programs that run on smartphones and tablets have their own style and
rules, which are far different from the protocols and techniques
established on their desktop computer ancestors. Cameron Banga and
Josh Weinhold share five tips for perfecting your app designs in ways
that will help you meet or exceed your users' expectations."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2204015&WT

Designing an Effective Donate Form
By Brad Frost.
"I reached out to the Pittsburgh Food Bank last year about helping
them redesign their website largely because I was having a hard time
figuring out how to give them money..."
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/designing-an-effective-donate-form/


+10: XML.

Understanding the SVG Fill-Rule Property
By Joni Trythall.
"The SVG fill property paints the interior of a graphic with a solid
color, gradient, or pattern. Using SVG inline enables full control of
such properties on elements throughout the SVG document fragment
within HTML..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/understanding-svg-fill-rule-property/


[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

Drupal Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/drupal.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

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


+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how
to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit:
http://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 at d.umn.edu


[Issue ends.]

More information about the Webdev mailing list