Web Design Update: May 13, 2020

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 18, Issue 46, May 13, 2020.

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

++ISSUE 46 CONTENTS.

SECTION ONE: New references.
What's new at the Web Design Reference site?
https://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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: TOOLS.
09: TYPOGRAPHY.
10: USABILITY.
11: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Bolt-on Accessibility – 5 Gears in Reverse
By Steve Faulkner.
"…these add-on solutions not only fail to help, they can increase the
very risk (and cost) an organization is trying to avoid…"
https://developer.paciellogroup.com/blog/2020/05/bolt-on-accessibility-5-gears-in-reverse/

Automated Accessibility Checking is Great, But…
By Steve Faulkner.
"it needs to be clearly understood that you can only auto-check about
30% of #a11y issues…"
https://twitter.com/stevefaulkner/status/863157742005047296

Automated Testing's Strength Comes From Efficiency
By Karl Groves.
"…A robust and effective accessibility program is one that takes into
consideration the results of multiple types of testing, each deployed
at the right time and by the right people with a focus on what each
testing type is best at finding. Automation should be used early and
often to exploit its high level of efficiency so that our humans can
be faster and more accurate."
https://blog.tenon.io/automated-testings-strength-comes-from-efficiency

Reduced Motion 'In The Wild'
By Val Head.
"…Here's how the reduced motion mode works on the Animal Crossing
site: There's a custom toggle present when you first visit the site,
and it remembers your selection on your next visit. If you've changed
your mind, you can toggle the selection again to see the higher motion
version, but it starts out with the selection you made on your
previous visit. On top of that, it also respects the
prefers-reduced-motion query, so if you've selected reduce motion in
your OS settings you'll automatically see reduced motion when you pull
up the site…"
https://valhead.com/2020/05/09/reduced-motion-in-the-wild/

Accessibility 101 for Content Creators
By Jerry Jones.
"A perfectly coded website will still break down if the content isn't
written and built accessibly. This article is intended to give a
no-coding-required breakdown of how to make accessible content.…"
https://jerryjones.dev/2020/05/04/accessibility-101-for-content-creators/

1.2.8 – Media Alternative (Pre-recorded)
By Luke McGrath.
"Provide a text alternative to pre-recorded videos…"
https://wuhcag.substack.com/p/128-media-alternative-pre-recorded

Accessibility Checklist
By Jorrit van Hertum.
This tool filters by guidelines and roles.
https://romeo.elsevier.com/accessibility_checklist/

Accessibility Win: Hope Video About Detroit
By Deborah Edwards-Onoro.
"…if you notice videos with missing captions, start a conversation
with the producer…"
https://www.lireo.com/hope-video-detroit/

Accessibility and IoT / Smart and Connected Communities.
By John Rochford.
"The Internet of things (IoT) has unlimited potential to empower the
lives of everyone. IoT devices increasingly appear in homes and power
smart and connected communities. Related user experience design
efforts must involve and consider people with disabilities, including
the world's rapidly aging population of seniors. They must be able to
use IoT device and app interfaces. While secure and private IoT device
data collection and communication are important for everyone, people
with disabilities have unique related needs. Many current resources
and developing efforts that can benefit UX designers to address these
needs exist…"
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/publications/35/

The Complete Guide to Accessibility for WordPress Websites
By Ross Johnson.
"With WordPress powering over 35% of all websites, it's hard to
pinpoint another piece of software that has had a greater impact on
the state of web accessibility…"
https://www.deque.com/blog/wordpress-accessibility/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Exciting Things on the Horizon For CSS Layout
By Michelle Barker.
"This past week has brought a few announcements from browser vendors
of some exciting things that might have a big impact on CSS layout in
the very near future…"
https://css-irl.info/exciting-things-on-the-horizon-for-css-layout/

Everything I Learned About min(), max(), clamp() In CSS
By Ahmad Shadeed.
"CSS Comparison Functions (min(), max(), clamp()) become supported in
Firefox on 8 April 2020, which means that they are now supported in
all major browsers. Those CSS functions will provide us with ways to
have dynamic layouts and more flexible design components. They can be
used for container sizes, font-size, padding. and a lot more. Even
more, web designers might need to think differently while designing
layouts because of these exciting CSS functions…"
https://ishadeed.com/article/css-min-max-clamp/

min(), max(), and clamp() are CSS magic! (Video)
By Kevin Powell.
"CSS has come a long way, but min(), max(), and clamp() make a lot of
things a lot easier than they used to be, and really open up the world
of responsive typography like we never had before! Clamp() is the
ingredient that we've needed for a long time to really be able to make
type fully responsive in our CSS, and to be able to do it on one line
is absolute magic…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9VF-4euyRo


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Making Cutting-Edge Technology Approachable: A Case Study of
Facial-Recognition Payment in China
By Kara Pernice and Feifei Liu.
"Facial-recognition payment is convenient, but users were concerned
and confused after using it for the first time. Better onboarding
experiences can help relieve concerns and form factual mental models."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/face-recognition-pay/

COVID-19 Content on Your Intranet
By Kara Pernice.
"Interviews with intranet designers show that intranets are responding
to COVID-19 with frequent updates, information about staying healthy,
and tools to aid virtual work."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/covid19-intranet-content/


+04: EVENTS.

Expand Your Test Coverage: Manual and Accessibility Testing Unite
May 19, 2020.
Online
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/smashing-tv/test-coverage-manual-accessibility-testing-unite/

COVID-19 and Access to Information
May 19, 2020.
Online
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtceGgqDsuGtL6NOZz7Jc6xBtvS6OafD9O

GAAD 2020: Digital Accessibility Legal Update
Online
May 20, 2020.
https://accessibility.deque.com/gaad-2020-digital-a11y-legal-update

Accessibility in the Age of COVID-19
May 21, 2020.
Online
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gaad-2020-accessibility-in-the-age-of-covid-19-tickets-98036847851

Digital Access: From Personal Journey to W3C Developments and Beyond
May 21, 2020.
Online
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/lunch-and-learn-for-global-accessibility-awareness-day-gaad-2020-tickets-103886936624

Fix Your Content Day Challenge 2020
May 21, 2020.
Online
https://go.blackboard.com/gaad-fix-your-content

HelloA11y Celebrates GAAD 2020
Online
May 21, 2020.
https://www.digitala11y.com/a11ytalks-org-celebrates-gaad-2020/

Invisible Disabilities: A Panel Discussion with Fen, Keidra, and Santina
May 21, 2020.
Online
https://www.meetup.com/a11ychi/events/270591883/

Mobile Assistive Technology Review
May 21, 2020.
Online
https://www.levelaccess.com/mobile-assistive-technology-overview/

The State of Accessibility Report Findings
May 21, 2020.
Online
https://pages.diamond.la/en/webinars/diamond-webinars-registration-1


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Information Architecture Conference 2020 (Videos)
By an Array of Information Architecture Experts.
Library of information architecture videos from the IA Conference #IAC20 talks.
https://vimeo.com/showcase/iac20

The Big Sort: Designing a Classification for COVID-19
By Gerry McGovern.
"Design with people. Not for people…"
https://gerrymcgovern.com/the-big-sort-designing-a-classification-for-covid-19/


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Second-Guessing the Modern Web
By Tom MacWright.
"I think there are a lot of problems that are better solved some other
way. There's no category winner like React as an alternative.
Ironically, backends are churning through technology even faster than
frontends, which have been loyal to one programming language for
decades…"
https://macwright.org/2020/05/10/spa-fatigue.html


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Using the Accessibility Skills Hiring Toolkit to Build Capacity
By Sarah Horton.
"2020 is the year the web got real, and digital accessibility capacity
is needed now, more than ever…Teach Access is providing the position
descriptions for people to use, so if you are involved in the hiring
process, don't hesitate to copy and paste whatever language is helpful
to you…"
https://developer.paciellogroup.com/blog/2020/05/using-the-accessibility-skills-hiring-toolkit-to-build-capacity/


+08: TOOLS.

WAVE Webinar: What's New and What's Coming? (Video)
By Jared Smith.
"Archive of a WAVE webinar held May 6, 2020…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJBdE0nZfko


+09: TYPOGRAPHY.

Micro-Typography: How To Space And Kern Punctuation Marks And Other Symbols
By Thomas Bohm.
"For hundreds of years, we have been using white space in typography.
Today, in 2020, how do we add spacing to punctuation marks and other
symbols, and how do we adjust the space on the left and right side in
an easy and consistent way? It is actually not as easy and quick as it
should be…"
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/05/micro-typography-space-kern-punctuation-marks-symbols/


+10: USABILITY.

21st Century Design (Video)
By Don Norman.
"Traditional design education is too narrow. Don Norman advocates a
broader perspective for design and designers."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/21st-century-design/

Consistency in Design is the Wrong Approach
By Jared Spool.
"Current Knowledge is a much better way to think about the problem…"
https://articles.uie.com/consistency-in-design-is-the-wrong-approach/

Optimize Cumulative Layout Shift
By Addy Osmani.
"A post about avoiding sudden layout shifts, to prevent the problem
where someone is about to click something and it moves…"
https://web.dev/optimize-cls/

Why Consistency is Important to Accessible Design
By Bureau of Internet Accessibility.
"A consistent design and layout across the entire site results in the
predictability and usability that users appreciate.…"
https://www.boia.org/blog/why-consistency-is-important-to-accessible-design


+11: XML.

Progressively Enhancing Radio buttons with SVG Whilst Staying Accessible
By Christian Heilman.
"Sometimes it is fun to re-visit very basic HTML things and look what
we can do with them nowadays. This is what I will do now with a radio
button group. I will progressively enhance it to look great and still
work with keyboard and screen readers…"
https://christianheilmann.com/2020/05/05/progressively-enhancing-radio-buttons-with-svg-whilst-staying-accessible/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

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

Accessibility Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html

Association Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html

Book Listings.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html

Cascading Style Sheets Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html

Color Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html

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

Evaluation & Testing Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html

Event Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html

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

Information Architecture Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html

JavaScript Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html

Miscellaneous Web Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html

Navigation Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html

PHP Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html

Sites & Blogs Listing.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html

Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html

Tool Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html

Typography Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html

Usability Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html

XML Information.
https://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.]