[webdev] Web Design Update: November 20, 2014

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 21, November 20, 2014.

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

++ISSUE 21 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: BOOKS.
03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: HTML5.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: TOOLS.
11: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Identifying Web Accessibility Issues
By National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE).
"While it takes a fairly technical background to detect all
accessibility issues and features, there are many accessibility
problems that can be quickly and easily identified without the need
for a highly technical background. This handout will suggest a few
free accessibility tools and offer 4 simple techniques to help you
identify some common web accessibility problems..."
http://www.ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/accessibility.php

Don't Use Tabindex Greater Than 0
By Adrian Roselli.
"...mis-use has effectively guaranteed that using tabindex values
greater than zero is a bad idea..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/11/dont-use-tabindex-greater-than-0.html

Considerations for Testing with Speech Recognition Software such as
Dragon Naturally Speaking
By Jonathan Avila.
"...While many technical solutions to accessibility challenges will
benefit users of multiple types of assistive technology there are
certain implementations that are more likely to cause issues for users
of speech recognition software. All organizations have limitations in
time available for testing and thus it is helpful to focus these
testing efforts to specific situations that are crucial to evaluate
the functional experience with Dragon and other speech recognition
software. Below is a list of implementations that may present
accessibility challenges..."
https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2014/11/14/considerations-for-testing-with-speech-recognition-software-such-as-dragon-naturally-speaking/

High Contrast Mode Primer
By Becky Gibson.
"...Often when I am explaining accessibility requirements for Web
pages, I find that people don't really understand the issues
concerning High Contrast. This post attempts to explain high contrast
mode and includes some pictures to demonstrate the potential
problems..."
http://www.weba11y.com/blog/2014/11/19/high-contrast-mode-primer-2/

Hiding or Disabling
By Aaron Cannon.
"...The takeaway from all this, in my view, is that when causing new
controls to appear on screen, that are far from where the screen
reader user is currently 'looking', can require some careful
consideration to ensure that the user knows that they have appeared,
and where to find them. I am not aware of any clear solution to this
problem, and I believe that it is best avoided if at all possible."
http://www.cannonaccess.com/2014/11/hiding-or-disabling/

How Ticketleap Made Online Ticketing More Accessible
By Paul Nuschke.
"When local hackathon #Hack4Access discovered that many of its
attendees who were visually impaired had difficulty using Ticketleap
with a screen reader, the company's UX head, Paul Nuschke, set out to
fix it..."
https://technical.ly/philly/2014/11/10/ticketleap-accessibility/

Justice Department Enters into a Settlement Agreement with Peapod to
Ensure that Peapod Grocery Delivery Website is Accessible to
Individuals with Disabilities
By The Department of Justice.
The Department of Justice announced that they have settled
accessibility issues with the online grocery ordering system PeaPod.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-enters-settlement-agreement-peapod-ensure-peapod-grocery-delivery-website

U.S. Department of Justice Continues Enforcement of Accessibility
Requirements for Websites and Mobile Apps - But Its Rulemaking Still
Awaits
By Kenneth J. Yerkes.
"...Through its enforcement activity, the DOJ has signaled a clear
intent to rely on WCAG 2.0 Level AA Success Criteria as defining
accessibility for websites and mobile applications under the ADA..."
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/us-department-justice-continues-enforcement-accessibility-requirements-websites-and-

A Picture is Worth a Thousand (Coherent) Words: Building a Natural
Description of Images
By Oriol Vinyals, Alexander Toshev, Samy Bengio, and Dumitru Erhan.
"People can summarize a complex scene in a few words without thinking
twice. It's much more difficult for computers. But we've just gotten a
bit closer..."
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-picture-is-worth-thousand-coherent.html

Google Automatic Alts?
WebAim Thread.
"Just saw this on another list. Very interesting concept to create
'automatic' alts... I wonder how it will work in practice?..."
http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?thread=6679


+02: BOOKS.

Hassell, Jonathan. "Including your missing 20% by embedding web and
mobile accessibility". BSI British Standards Institution, 2014.


+03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Fun Times with CSS Counters
By Will Boyd.
"CSS counters are one of those 'oh neat, didn't know CSS could do
that' features with a lot of interesting potential. In simple terms,
they let you keep a running tally of things in CSS - no JavaScript
needed..."
http://codersblock.com/blog/fun-times-with-css-counters/

CSS Specificity Graph Generator
By Jonas Ohlsson.
"Spikes are bad, and the general trend should be towards higher
specificity later in the stylesheet."
http://jonassebastianohlsson.com/specificity-graph/


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

5-Steps for Getting Started Measuring the Customer Experience
By Jeff Sauro.
"Most companies have more bug lists and requests for product features
than they can realistically address. In an earlier post, I present
ways to help you prioritize those features; now let's figure out where
to start. This post describes an approach that works in many
situations, beginning with a survey of your customers or prospects, or
a representative set thereof, with the following objectives..."
http://www.measuringu.com/blog/five-step-cux.php


+05: EVENTS.

Accessible Way-Finding Using Web Technologies
December 3, 2014.
Online Symposium.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2014/way-finding/

Accessibility Camp Ottawa
December 6, 2014.
Ottawa, Canada
http://a11yyow.ca/

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)
May 21, 2015.
Everywhere.
http://www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/
Announcing GAAD's New Date for 2015 and Beyond
http://www.webaxe.org/announcing-gaads-new-date-for-2015-and-beyond/


+06: HTML5.

HTML5 Accessibility Analysis
By Steve Faulkner.
"HTML5Accessibility.com was updated last week to include the latest
results for HTML5 accessibility support in Windows browsers. What do
these results mean?"
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/11/html5-accessibility-analysis/

Responsive Images Revisited-The Picture Element
By Steven Bradley.
"...As I mentioned above, when using srcset you provide browsers with
information they use to make an informed decision. With the picture
element you provide rules that the browser must follow. That means the
browser won't be able to optimize things quite as well, but sometimes
it's more important to serve a different image regardless of any
performance loss..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/responsive-images-picture-element/

5 Obsolete Features in HTML5
By Aurelio De Rosa.
"...during the evolution of the standard, some elements, attributes,
and APIs have been added and then changed or removed. Because it's
hard to keep up with all the news and updates in our field, some of
you may have missed features that have been deprecated or removed from
the specification. In this article we'll cover five of them..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/5-obsolete-features-html5/


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

The ARIA Combobox Module is Now Available
By Bryan Garaventa.
"The ARIA Combobox module for AccDC has been released, and supports
many powerful features."
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/ARIA-Combobox-module-is-now-4512178.S.5940640328133398529


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Stop Breaking the Web
By Nicolas Bevacqua.
"...What we should be doing instead is going back to basics. Let
content down the wire as quickly as possible, using server-side
rendering. Then add any extra functionality through JavaScript once
the page has already loaded, and the content is viewable and usable
for the human. If you want to include a feature older browsers don't
have access to, such as the history API, first think if it makes sense
to do it at all. Maybe your users are better off without it. In the
history API case, maybe it's best to let older browsers stick to the
request-response model, rather than trying to cram a history API mock
onto them by means of a hash router..."
http://ponyfoo.com/articles/stop-breaking-the-web

Are Meetings That Evil?
By Paul Boag.
"...running a good meeting is not that hard. It just needs some
discipline, a bit of thought and somebody to take control. Below are
some dos and don'ts for running effective meetings. If you stick with
these you will find meetings feel a lot less evil..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/meetings-evil/

The Responsive Images Community Group: What Comes Next
By Matt Marquis.
"The RICG's work is starting to wind down, but we're just getting
started at the same time..."
http://bocoup.com/weblog/after-the-ricg/

9 Basic Principles of Responsive Web Design
By Sandijs Ruluks.
"Responsive web design is a great solution to our multi-screen
problem, but getting into it from the print perspective is difficult.
No fixed page size, no millimetres or inches, no physical constraints
to fight against..."
http://blog.froont.com/9-basic-principles-of-responsive-web-design/

Mozilla Introduces the First Browser Built For Developers: Firefox
Developer Edition
By Dave Camp.
"...In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Firefox, we're excited
to unveil Firefox Developer Edition, the first browser created
specifically for developers..."
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/11/mozilla-introduces-the-first-browser-built-for-developers-firefox-developer-edition/


+09: NAVIGATION.

Video - Mobile Navigation, Conversion, Input, and More
By Luke Wroblewski.
"Conversions at Google published a complete video recording of my two and
a half hour seminar last month (September 2014 in Dublin) on
optimizing mobile experiences for conversion using design..."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1936


+10: TOOLS.

craptions.to.captions
By Michael Lockrey a.k.a. @TheDeafGuy.
"My name is Michael Lockrey and I'm a captioning evangelist. I'm also
profoundly Deaf and this means that I simply cannot watch YouTube
videos when only automatic craptioning* is provided. So I decided to
do something about it and nomorecraptions.com is the result."
http://nomorecraptions.com/
Related article:
https://medium.com/@mlockrey/nomorecraptions-dot-com-f3b3a7924fff


+11: USABILITY.

User Experience Impossible - The Line Between Accessibility and Usability
By Angela Hooker.
"The two are quite different by definition, but in practice, they're
still separate issues. Accessibility means that your audience can get
to the content and message you want them to receive. It's more than
just user experience. Without accessibility, the user experience-good
or bad-can't even happen. So, as the saying goes, 'usability depends
on accessibility.'"
https://www.digitalgov.gov/2014/11/17/user-experience-impossible-the-line-between-accessibility-and-usability/

The Future of Marketing is to be Useful
By Gerry McGovern.
"...The future is about being useful. Before the Web it was very hard
to measure the effectiveness of marketing and communications. The Web
and Big Data shine a brutal light on that which is not useful. Your
organization may not yet have installed the right measurement system
to allow that light to be shone. But pretty soon it will. Be ready. Be
useful."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/future-marketing-be-useful

Video Usability
By Amy Schade.
Video content is helpful only if users have control over it,
understand what's contained within it, and have an alternate way to
access it.
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/video-usability/

Use Specialized Language for Specialized Audiences
By Jakob Nielsen.
"B2B sites and other sites with specialized content that targets
professionals or enthusiasts should use their audiences' jargon to
communicate more precisely and professionally."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/specialized-words-specialized-audience/

Beyond the UX Tipping Point
By Jared M. Spool.
"...The UX Tipping Point is the moment when an organization no longer
compromises on well-designed user experiences. Before they hit the
tipping point, they might talk about great design, but they'll still
ship a mediocre experience. However, once they've passed it, design
has become an embedded part of their culture and DNA..."
http://www.uie.com/articles/beyond_ux_tipping_point/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+12: 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.


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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.]