+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. 
- Volume 17, Issue 32, February 1, 2019. 

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

++ISSUE 32 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 
04: EVENTS. 
05: HTML. 
06: JAVASCRIPT. 
07: MISCELLANEOUS. 
08: NAVIGATION. 
09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 
10: USABILITY. 

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

[Contents ends.] 


++ SECTION ONE: New references. 

+01: ACCESSIBILITY. 

Time Traveler's Guide to Accessibility Mechanics (Video) 
By Léonie Watson. 
"…As we move towards a future of Web Components, the time has come to 
invent another solution that will let us encapsulate accessibility in 
the shadow DOM - and its called the Accessibility Object Model (AOM)…" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q31V1zeEgoA 

Announcing 'Access,' a Short Film About Accessibility (Video) 
By Chris Higgins. 
"Today I released Access, my short documentary about accessibility. It 
follows Cory Joseph through a typical day, showing how he uses his 
smartphone, Braille display, tactile watch, and guide dog (named Vine) 
to navigate the world. I hope you watch it, and I hope it inspires you 
to make your work more accessible to more people…" 
https://medium.com/@chrishiggins/announcing-access-a-short-film-about-accessibility-2812ef64a13b 

Digital Accessibility Concerns in Design Affordances (Hat Tip to Jim Allan) 
By Sheri Byrne-Haber. 
"A design affordance is a clue about how an object should be used, 
typically provided by the object itself or its context…" 
https://medium.com/@sheribyrnehaber/digital-accessibility-concerns-in-design-affordances-34c38f5d6779 

How to Learn About Accessibility Best Practices in WordPress 
By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. 
"Learn how to make your WordPress site accessible to everyone." 
https://www.lireo.com/learn-about-wordpress-accessibility-best-practices/ 

Switch Access on Mobile 
By Rakesh Paladugula. 
"Switch Access allows the users with dexterity impairments to use 
their mobile device without touching the screen…" 
https://www.maxability.co.in/2019/01/switch-access-mobile/ 

Word and PowerPoint Accessibility Evaluation Checklist 
By WebAIM. 
"This new resource can help you through the process of evaluating 
Office documents and presentations for accessibility." 
https://webaim.org/resources/evaloffice/ 

Real Facts about the Elderly and the World Wide Web 
By Joel Holmberg. 
"There are lots of stereotypes about the elderly and tech or the world 
wide web…" 
https://axesslab.com/real-facts-about-the-elderly-and-the-world-wide-web/ 

More Than 75 New York Galleries Are Slammed With Lawsuits for 
Allegedly Violating the Americans With Disabilities Act 
By Eileen Kinsella. 
"Galleries are the latest industry to be targeted by a wave of 
lawsuits over the accessibility of their websites…" 
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dozens-of-new-york-galleries-slammed-with-lawsuits-for-ada-compliance-on-websites-1450276 

Digital Accessibility - Developments in 2018 
By Teresa L. Jakubowski. 
"In 2018, the field of digital accessibility witnessed a number of 
developments, including increasing litigation, demand letters, and the 
release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1)…" 
https://library.educause.edu/resources/2019/1/digital-accessibility-developments-in-2018 

Digital Accessibility Law and Regulation: Current Status and What to Do About It 
By Jarret Cummings. 
"To help members navigate the often confusing compliance environment 
for digital accessibility, EDUCAUSE asked a legal expert to review 
last year's major developments, explain what they mean, and identify 
key steps that institutions should consider in response…" 
https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2019/1/digital-accessibility-law-and-regulation-current-status-and-what-to-do-about-it 

The Legal Picture for Web Accessibility in 2019 
By Joseph C. Dolson. 
"…Even though the DoJ has not established guidelines for accessible 
websites, businesses (including ecommerce sites) are well advised to 
follow W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.1, at 
level AA. There are several reasons…" 
https://www.practicalecommerce.com/the-legal-picture-for-web-accessibility-in-2019 



+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 

Putting the Flexbox Albatross to Real Use 
By Chris Coyier. 
"If you hadn't seen it, Heydon posted a rather clever flexbox layout 
pattern that, in a sense, mimics what you could do with a container 
query by forcing an element to stack at a certain container width. I 
was particularly interested, as I was fighting a little layout 
situation at the time I saw this and thought it could be a solution. 
Let's take a peak…" 
https://css-tricks.com/putting-the-flexbox-albatross-to-real-use/ 

HTML, CSS and our Vanishing Industry Entry Points 
By Rachel Andrew. 
"Everyone is angry about CSS again. I'm not even going to try to 
summarize the arguments. However it always seems to boil down to the 
fact that CSS is simultaneously too easy to bother with, yet so hard 
it needs to be wrapped up in a ball of JavaScript in case it scares 
the horses…" 
https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2019/01/30/html-css-and-our-vanishing-industry-entry-points/ 


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING. 

User Test Content Before You Start Design 
By Amy Grace Wells. 
"…Adding this step can save time, money, and effort in every stage of 
the design process by informing wireframes and design, providing 
strong guidelines for writers, and helping to settle debates with 
stakeholders…" 
https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/user-test-content-before-you-start-design/ 

What Motivates People to Take Free Surveys? 
By Jeff Sauro. 
"…To better understand the reasons people take unpaid surveys and to 
see whether their attitudes were more systemically positive or 
negative, we conducted our own research across two online studies…" 
https://measuringu.com/free-surveys/ 

How to Assess the Quality of a Measure 
By Jeff Sauro. 
"It seems like each year introduces a new measure or questionnaire…" 
https://measuringu.com/measure-quality/ 

Interpreting Contradictory UX Research Findings 
By Kate Moran. 
"If your product looks good from one perspective and bad from another, 
you have to check the methodology and try to interpret the findings." 
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/interpreting-research-findings/ 


+04: EVENTS. 

Digital Accessibility Support - A Guide to Trustworthy Free Online Resources 
February 5, 2019. 
Online. 
https://www.paciellogroup.com/events/2019/01/webinar-february-5-digital-accessibility-support-a-guide-to-trustworthy-free-online-resources/ 

Moving Forward with Digital Accessibility in Higher Education 
February 22, 2019. 
Sussex, England, United Kingdom 
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/tel/seminar/digitalaccessibility 

Information Architecture Conference (IAC) 
March 12-17, 2019. 
Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. 
http://www.theiaconference.com/ 

Axe-Hackathon 2019 
March 16, 2019. 
Anaheim, Califorina, U.S.A. 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/axe-hackathon-2019-tickets-54988465982 

Midwest Drupal Camp 
March 20-23, 2019. 
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 
https://www.midcamp.org/ 

Web Accessibility Techniques for ReactJS and AngularJS 
March 28, 2019. 
Online 
https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/content.asp?admin=Y&contentid=558 

London UX Conference 
March 30-April 5, 2019. 
London, England, United Kingdom 
https://www.nngroup.com/training/london/ 


+05: HTML. 

HTML is and Always was a Compilation Target - Can We Deal With That? 
By Christian Heilmann. 
"…We need to help with the template code source, the framework 
renderers. We need to ensure that the conversion stage results in good 
HTML - not easy HTML. And we need to work with tool developers to make 
sure that people learn about the value of semantics…" 
https://christianheilmann.com/2019/01/28/html-is-and-always-was-a-compilation-target-can-we-deal-with-that/ 

Designing for the Web Ought to Mean Making HTML and CSS 
By David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH). 
"…Designing for the modern web in a way that pleases users with great, 
fast designs needn't be this maze of impenetrable complexity. We're 
making it that! It's possible not to." 
https://m.signalvnoise.com/designing-for-the-web-ought-to-mean-making-html-and-css/ 


+06: JAVASCRIPT. 

a11y and JS - A Seemingly Unconventional Romance 
By Lindsey Kopacz. 
"… I want you to know that JavaScript isn't the enemy of 
accessibility. Instead, lack of empathy is. With some empathy and your 
awesome JavaScript skills, you CAN make your sites accessible!" 
https://www.a11ywithlindsey.com/blog/a11y-js-seemingly-unconventional-romance/ 


+07: MISCELLANEOUS. 

WebExtensions v3 Considered Harmful 
By Daniel Glazman. 
"The Open Web Platform is alive and vibrant. The Browser Extension 
ecosystem is in jail, subject to unpredictable harmful changes decided 
by one single actor. This must change, it's not viable any more…" 
http://www.glazman.org/weblog/dotclear/index.php?post/2019/01/23/WebExtensions-v3-considered-harmful 

The Great Divide 
By Chris Coyier. 
"Two front-end developers are sitting at a bar. They have nothing to 
talk about…" 
https://css-tricks.com/the-great-divide/ 

Openness and Longevity 
By Garrett Dimon. 
"…The web is the quintessential definition of together. Web standards 
evolve slowly because they're collaborative. They last because they're 
scrutinized. New front-end frameworks and technologies try to 
circumvent or route around that process in the name of moving faster. 
Sometimes, they surface great ideas that make their way into browsers. 
But more often than not, they fade away." 
https://garrettdimon.com/2019/openness-and-longevity/ 


+08: NAVIGATION. 

Underlines Are Beautiful 
By Adrian Roselli. 
"Underlines, the standard, built-in signifier of hyperlinks, the core 
feature of the web, are beautiful…" 
http://adrianroselli.com/2019/01/underlines-are-beautiful.html 

Added Underlines to Links in Toots (Pull Request) 
By Adrian Roselli. 
"Link text color is #f1ebff, surrounding text is #ffffff. They have a 
contrast ratio of 1.2:1. Not only is hard to see links that are so 
close in color to the text, they also require a pointing device 
(mouse) to quickly scan for links. Instead of having to meet a 4.5:1 
contrast ratio, adding the underline will allow this to pass a WCAG 
check…" 
https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/9898 


+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 

Table Design Patterns On The Web 
By Chen Hui Jing. 
"Tables are a design pattern for displaying large amounts of data in 
rows and columns, and have not yet seemed to fall out of favor, so 
let's take a look at how we can create tables on the web in 2019…" 
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/01/table-design-patterns-web/ 


+10: USABILITY. 

Tooltip Guidelines 
By Alita Joyce. 
"Tooltips are user-triggered messages that provide additional 
information about a page element or feature. Although tooltips aren't 
new to the web, they are often incorrectly implemented." 
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/tooltip-guidelines/ 

Web Page Usability Matters 
By Addy Osmani. 
"Users appreciate pages being usable and interactive soon after 
they're visually ready. UI interactions (scrolls, taps, clicks) can be 
delayed by script and other browser work so minimizing their impact 
can really help your users." 
https://dev.to/addyosmani/web-page-usability-matters-3aok 


[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:lcar...@d.umn.edu 


[Issue ends.]