[webdev] Web Design Update: April 24, 2015

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Fri Apr 24 06:15:03 CDT 2015


+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 44, April 23, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 44 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
03: HTML5.
04: JAVASCRIPT.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
07: TOOLS.
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.

Forms and Error Handling for Accessibility
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"...In this article I will provide the major points to consider while
handling the error validations..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/04/forms-and-error-handling-for-accessibility/

Stop Making Excuses and Start Captioning Your Videos
By Lydia L. Callis.
"In the year 2015, audism still dictates who is granted access to
information and culture. Audism is the belief that those who have the
sense of hearing are superior to those who do not, and it can cause
oppression in even the most subtle ways..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lydia-l-callis/stop-making-excuses-and-start-captioning-your-videos_b_7108396.html

Website Accessibility - The Untapped Global Income Stream
By Ben Newton.
"...I know of a relatively untapped market that, in the USA alone,
accounts for over 12% of the entire population.... This market is, of
course, people with disabilities (PWD), which has an estimated
world-wide population of 1.3 billion people..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/04/website-accessibility-the-untapped-global-income-stream.php

Do Accessibility Checkers have a Place in QA?
By Wilco Fiers.
"...Accessibility checker tools are great! They provide a quick and
relatively inexpensive way to find accessibility barriers on your
website. They are useful during the development to encourage a style
of coding that avoids accessibility barriers. They also provide a good
starting point for anyone who wants to build accessibility into their
quality assurance process, though they don't give you the whole
picture. Accessibility checkers have limitations. Being aware of those
means you can make better decisions about the tools you can use. The
field of web accessibility has long been focused on manual audits, but
there is a clear precedence for the use of tools. As long as we
understand their limitations, we can manage them and get better and
more efficient because of them."
https://www.w3.org/community/auto-wcag/2015/04/23/accessibility-checkers-in-qa/

Alt Text Bot Image Descriptions FTW
By Adrian Roselli.
"This weekend I saw a tweet in Marcy Sutton's timeline that appeared
to be an image description generated by a piece of software..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/04/alt-text-bot-image-descriptions-ftw.html


+02: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Do Users Notice Your Design Elements? 3 Ways to Find Out
By Jeff Sauro.
"...Understanding whether participants notice things, then, requires
multiple approaches. Here are three approaches we use; each has its
strengths and weaknesses..."
http://www.measuringu.com/blog/notice-designs-three.php

Improve Your Emails for Better Usability Test Responses
By Daniel G.
"Here are a few tips for improving your usability test request emails,
getting you a better response rate and more accurate, actionable
results..."
http://www.loop11.com/improve-your-emails-for-better-usability-test-responses/

Get the Usability Test Results You Need
By Daniel G.
"...In order to get the information you're after, you need to
determine: 1.) What you want to know. 2.) What questions to ask to get
the right answers..."
http://www.loop11.com/get-the-usability-test-results-you-need/


+03: HTML5.

What the Canvas Element Means for Accessibility
By Mark Sadecki.
"Mark Sadecki discusses two features of HTML5's canvas element that
help make it accessible to users with disabilities. "
http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/canvas-element-accessibility-41514740

Web Components, Accessibility and the Priority of Constituencies
By Bruce Lawson.
"...Today, Apple sent their consolidated feedback on Web Components to
the webapps Working Group..."
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2015/web-components-accessibility-and-the-priority-of-constituencies/

Accessible Custom Interfaces with HTML5, ARIA & JavaScript
By Leonie Watson.
Leonie's presentation slides from Fluent conference.
http://tink.uk/fluent-conf-accessible-custom-interfaces-with-html5-aria-javascript/


+04: JAVASCRIPT.

jQuery Considered Harmful
By Lea Verou.
"Before I start, let me say that I think jQuery has helped
tremendously to move the Web forward..."
http://lea.verou.me/2015/04/jquery-considered-harmful/


+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

On the Mis-Named Mobilegeddon
By Adrian Roselli.
If you are a web pro then it is likely that you heard that Google's
search results were going to change based on how mobile-friendly a
site is (you probably heard a couple months ago even). This change
took effect yesterday.
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/04/on-mis-named-mobilegeddon.html

Tips for Surviving Google's 'Mobilegeddon'
By Aaron Gustafson.
"Today is the day Google updates it algorithm to take into account
mobile-friendliness. Here are a few tips that will help you embrace
mobile without tearing your hair out..."
http://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/tips-for-surviving-googles-mobilegeddon/

What Does the Future Hold for the Web?
By creativebloq.
"As John Allsopp's 'A Dao of Web Design' celebrates its fifteenth
anniversary, we meet the man behind the ground breaking essay..."
http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/what-does-future-hold-web-41514665

Accessible Apple - An Interview with Laura Legendary About the
Intersection of Fashion and Accessibility
By Alex Jurgensen.
"Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to speak with Laura Legendary,
cofounder of Fashionability and owner of Elegant Insights Braille
Creations, about her opinion of the Apple Watch and its implications
in the fashion industry. She is a speaker, author, and educator
specializing in disability awareness, advocacy, accessibility, and
assistive technology..."
http://www.appleworld.today/blog/2015/4/19/accessible-apple-an-interview-with-laura-legendary-about-the-intersection-of-fashion-and-accessibility


+06: NAVIGATION.

Ultimate Guide to Link Types for Hyperlinks
By Jacob Gube.
"Link  types help describe the relationship between two or more web
pages. They can also express the reason why particular hyperlinks are
present in the web page."
http://sixrevisions.com/html/link-types-hyperlinks/


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Standardization and the Open Web
By Jory Burson.
"How do web standards become, well, standard? Although they're often
formalized through official standards-making organizations, they can
also emerge through popular practice among the developer community. If
both sides don't work together, we risk delaying implementation,
stifling creativity, and losing ground to politics and paralysis. Jory
Burson sheds light on the historical underpinnings of web
standardization processes-and what that means for the future of the
open web."
http://alistapart.com/article/standardization-and-the-open-web


+08: TOOLS.

aViewer - Accessibility Inspection Tool on Github
By Steve Faulkner.
"The Paciello Group are pleased to announce that, with the support of
Google, the aViewer accessibility object inspection tool source code
is now available on Github under an open source licence..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/04/aviewer-accessibility-inspection-tool-on-github/


+09: USABILITY.

Mobile User Experience - Limitations and Strengths
By Raluca Budiu.
"Mobile smartphones come with inherent constraints: small screen,
short sessions, single window visible at one time, and variable
connectivity. But some of their features also present unique
opportunities. Mobile-design principles reflect these limitations and
strengths."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-ux/

What Really Matters: Focusing on Top Tasks
By Gerry McGovern.
"Every piece of web content is important-or so every stakeholder
insists. But what happens when dozens, even hundreds, of different
tasks battle for space on your homepage and in your navigation? It's
time to make some hard choices about what does and doesn't belong.
Gerry McGovern demonstrates how to zero in on the tasks that matter
most to your users."
http://alistapart.com/article/what-really-matters-focusing-on-top-tasks


+10: XML.

How To Structure Your SVG Code - The <g>, <title>, and <desc> Elements
By Steven Bradley.
"What's the best way to organize your SVG code? If all you want to
draw is a line or simple shape there's not much to organize, but what
about SVGs with multiple shapes and lines that combine to form a more
complex whole?..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-structure/


[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.


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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.]


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