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Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 06:16:31 -0600
From: Laura Carlson <[log in to unmask]>
To: webdev <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [webdev] Web Design Update: December 1, 2016



+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.



- Volume 15, Issue 23, December 1, 2016.



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



++ISSUE 23 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: USABILITY.




SECTION TWO:



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




[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.



+01: ACCESSIBILITY.




Something to Say About Accessibility Standards?

By Jeanne Spellman.

"Call for Stakeholders for a major update of WCAG (Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines): The W3C WCAG Working Group's Silver Task
Force invites submissions of names of people, groups, or organizations
(including yourself) for consideration as stakeholders for a future
guidelines version. You can submit as many names as you want. Please
use the following form to submit names before 9 December 2016..."

https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2016OctDec/0135.html



Assistive Technology Industry Must Address Challenges, Warns Expert

By Tristan Parker.

"...Website accessibility remains a significant problem for the AT sector..."

http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=1261



Accessibility Survey Reveals PDF Problems, Technology Types and Satisfied Users

By Tristan Parker.

"The UK Government online services portal, GOV.UK, is aiming to cut
down on PDFs after an accessibility survey revealed that many users
encounter problems with them..."

http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=1258



The Experts have Spoken! Our Favorite Accessibility Tools

By Deque Systems.

"...This week, we spoke with our accessibility experts to find out
their favorite current accessibility tools. These are the
accessibility checkers and tools that our experts use in their daily
work; the tools that make web accessibility possible..."

http://www.deque.com/blog/experts-spoken-favorite-accessibility-tools/



Department of Justice Employment and Employment-related Americans with

Disabilities Act Settlement Agreements

(Hat tip to Jennifer Sutton)

By Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT).
List of employment related agreements

http://www.peatworks.org/resources/policy/DOJSettlements/List




+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.




Should I Try to Use the IE Implementation of CSS Grid Layout?

By Rachel Andrew.

"This blog post started life as an answer to a question posted over at
my CSS Grid AMA..."

https://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2016/11/26/ 
should-i-try-to-use-the-ie-implementation-of-css-grid-layout/



Between the Braces

By Jeremey Keith.

"...I find it fascinating that most of the innovation in CSS from the
browser makers and standards bodies arrives in the form of new
properties and values-flexbox, grid, shapes, viewport units, and so
on. Meanwhile there's a whole other world of problems to be solved
outside the curly braces..."

https://adactio.com/journal/11541



When to Use Which CSS Methodology

By Simon Simurai.

"Over the years more and more CSS methodologies started to appear. In
this post we try to find the right CSS methodology for a certain
situation, because there just isn't the perfect one for every
situation, unfortunately..."

http://simurai.com/blog/2016/11/27/css-methodologies




+03: COLOR.




High Contrast, A PostCSS Plugin Story

By Eduard Pochtar.

"The following is a guest post by Eduard Pochtar from ShiwaForce.
Eduard is going to walk us through they why and how of a plugin he and
his team built to process existing CSS to make a high contrast version
of a web site. It involved a little thinking and a little strong
arming to make it happen."

https://css-tricks.com/high-contrast-postcss-plugin-story/




+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.




The Challenges and Opportunities of Measuring the User Experience

By Jeff Sauro.

"Not too long ago it seemed the biggest challenge facing companies was
justifying any investment in usability and the user experience..."

http://uxpajournal.org/challenges-opportunities-measuring-user-experience/



What Are Personas and Why Should I Care? (Video)

By Kim Flaherty.

"Kim Flaherty, UX Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, explains user
personas and why you should care."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khLWLtxmMGM



Reflecting on the One-Way Mirror

By Jeff Sauro.

"...Researchers once considered it essential, but in the last few
years I've seen companies moving away from the mirror. Here are some
advantages and disadvantages of the one-way mirror..."

http://www.measuringu.com/blog/one-way-mirror.php



The Beginner's guide to Usability Testing

By Cindy McCracken.

"You are not your users. But if you can find your users and learn from
them as you design, you'll be able to create a better product..."

http://uxmastery.com/beginners-guide-to-usability-testing/




+05: EVENTS.




An Event Apart Boston
May 15-17, 2017.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
https://aneventapart.com/event/boston-2017



John Slatin AccessU
May 17-19, 2017.
Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
http://www.knowbility.org/v/john-slatin-accessu/



Accessibility Conference
May 30-31, 2017.
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
http://accessconf.ca/




+06: HTML5.




What's New in HTML 5.1

By Pavels Jelisejevs.

"...here's an overview of some of the interesting new features and
improvements introduced in 5.1. Browser support is still lacking for
these features but we'll refer you to at least some browsers which can
be used to test each example..."

https://www.sitepoint.com/whats-new-in-html-5-1/



Random Interesting Facts on HTML/SVG Usage

By Catalin Rosu.

"...We're back again this time to showcase some random and hopefully
interesting facts on markup usage..."

https://css-tricks.com/random-interesting-facts-htmlsvg-usage/




+07: JAVASCRIPT.




WAI-ARIA Basics

By Chris David Mills.

"Following on from the previous article, sometimes making complex UI
controls that involve unsemantic HTML and dynamic JavaScript-updated
content can be difficult. WAI-ARIA is a technology that can help with
such problems by adding in further semantics that browsers and
assistive technologies can recognize and use to let users know what is
going on. Here we'll show how to use it at a basic level to improve
accessiblity."

https://developer.mozilla.org/ 
en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/WAI-ARIA_basics




+08: USABILITY.




Alternatives to Placeholder Text

By Andrew Coyle.

"Improve form usability by addressing the perils of placeholders..."

https://uxdesign.cc/alternatives-to-placeholder-text-13f430abc56f



5 Ways Whitespace Can Impact Your UX

By Robyn Collinge.

"...Instead of seeing whitespace as the leftovers of your design or
web page, you should see it as an autonomous design element..."

http://blog.usabilla.com/5-ways-whitespace-can-impact-ux/



Measuring the First Impression: Testing the Validity of the 5 Second Test

By Guillaume Gronier.

"This study aims at measuring the scientific validity of a method
often used, but little formalized, to evaluate user experience: the 5
Second Test..."

http://uxpajournal.org/measuring-testing-validity-5-second-test/



Cross-National Usability Study of a Housing Accessibility App:

Findings From the European InnovAge Project
By Oskar Jonsson, Maria Haak, Signe Tomsone, Susanne Iwarsson, Steven
M. Schmidt, Knut Mårtensson, Torbjörn Svensson, Björn Slaug.
"The present usability study concerns an evaluation of an Android
based mobile application (app) targeting housing accessibility issues,
in a prototype stage for a touch tablet..."

http://www.uxpajournal.org/ 
usability-housing-accessibility-european-innovage-project/



Usability Testing Accordion-Style Checkouts: 2 UX Pitfalls that 75% of

Sites Neglect

By Christian Holst.

"When benchmarking checkout flows for the first time back in 2012, we
found that 14% of the top 100 US e-commerce sites used an
accordion-style checkout. Accordion-style checkouts have been an ever
increasing trend since then, and in 2016 we've found that 32% of
checkout flows are accordion-style..."

http://baymard.com/blog/accordion-checkout-usability



The Top Enduring Intranet-Design Mistakes: 7 Deadly Sins

By Kara Pernice.

"Intranet tools and programs come and go, but bad UIs linger for
years, impact employee productivity and morale, and ultimately
increase organizational costs."

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-intranet-design-mistakes/





[Section one ends.]





++ SECTION TWO:




+09: 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:[log in to unmask]





[Issue ends.]




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