Web Design Update: February 7, 2024

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 22, Issue 33, February 7, 2024.

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

++ISSUE 33 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: COLOR.
04: DRUPAL.
05: EVALUATION & TESTING.
06: EVENTS.
07: HTML.
08: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
09: JAVASCRIPT.
10: MISCELLANEOUS.
11: NAVIGATION.
12: TOOLS.
13: USABILITY.
14: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Redesigning for Cognitive Ease (Video)
By Alyssa Panetta.
"…Alyssa's presentation will cover her personal story and how it influences her approach to website creation. She will cover questions such as: After all the WCAG standards are met, how accessible is your site for users with cognitive disabilities? How can you tell? What does that mean? And where would you start?…"
https://mediaspace.umn.edu/media/t/1_5lkbujva

Be Purposeful About Your Content
By Accessible Community.
"Ensure your content clearly presents its purpose…"
https://mailchi.mp/5016d968c972/accessibility-tip-of-the-week

Doing What's Required: Indicating Mandatory Fields in an Accessible Way
By David Swallow.
"…what is the best and most accessible way to indicate required fields? This article aims to explain exactly what's required…"
https://www.tpgi.com/doing-whats-required-indicating-mandatory-fields-in-an-accessible-way/

The Accessibility Conversations You Want to Be Having
By Martin Underhill.
"…I was heartened when two separate conversations about two separate products were around the experience of screen reader users, rather than if a screen reader user would actually be able to use the product…"
https://www.tempertemper.net/blog/the-accessibility-conversations-you-want-to-be-having

Measure and Quantify Success, Like These Accessibility Leaders
By Fable.
"How successful accessibility leaders measure progress…"
https://makeitfable.com/article/measure-and-quantify-accessibility-progress-like-successful-accessibility-leaders/

5 Hidden Risks of Your Inaccessible Website
By Phil Daquila.
"…If you decide to ignore web accessibility requirements, you should be prepared to accept these hidden risks as well…"
https://www.deque.com/blog/5-hidden-risks-inaccessible-website/

Understanding The PDF Tags Tree (Video)
By Dax Castro.
"…Our topic today… Understanding the PDF Tags Tree. We are going to break this down into three basic sections. Container or structural tags, Heading tags, and Nested tags for things like lists and tables. By the end of this video you should have a basic grasp of what tags are and how they are used…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTtBopeCHOE

Making VPATs and ACRs More Effective in Procurement
By WebAIM.
"The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT, is a standard template for documenting conformance with WCAG and other accessibility standards. Accessibility Conformance Reports are product-specific reports derived from a VPAT…"
https://webaim.org/articles/procurement/vpat/

It's the Hope That Kills You
By Eric Eggert.
"…I hoped that we could be more agile, provide developers with better, more frequently updated information. I hoped to have an impact that made it more effective. And while I think I did a little, at the end that hope burned me out. Expecting a single person to fix an organization or company will eventually lead to disappointment…"
https://yatil.net/blog/hope-kills-you

Testifying Before Colorado OIT
By Ken Nakata.
"Laura and I had the honor of testifying last week in Colorado's Office of Information Technology (OIT) public hearing for its Proposed Technology Accessibility Rules…"
https://convergeaccessibility.com/2024/02/05/testifying-before-colorado-oit/

ADA Digital accessibility Law Suits in 2023: Trend and Our Takeaways
By Sathish Kumar.
"…ADA Digital Accessibility Law Suits are increasing year over year. Though the trend shows the declining law suits against enterprises, they are still in focus…"
https://www.digitala11y.com/ada-digital-accessibility-law-suits-in-2023-trend-and-our-takeaways/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Better Form UX With the CSS Property 'field-sizing'
By Stephanie Stimac.
"One of the more painful experiences I've encountered on the web is filling out a form input that is fixed width. Whatever I've typed becomes cutoff and I can't actually see what I've typed or am typing.…"
https://blog.stephaniestimac.com/posts/2024/01/css-field-sizing/

Utopia WCAG Warnings
By Trys Mudford.
"Another day, another Utopia update. This time, we're addressing some accessibility concerns that relate to fluid typography. Adrian Roselli has been warning about the dangers of untested fluid typography for many years. The issue derives from the interplay of vw/vi units and browser zoom…"
https://www.trysmudford.com/blog/utopia-wcag-warnings/


+03: COLOR.

Designing Accessible Color Palettes in Figma: A Guide for Web Accessibility
By Thea Eaton.
"…In this article, we'll explore how to use accessible colors and create an accessible color palette in Figma, a powerful design tool favored by many designers…"
https://knowbility.org/blog/2024/designing-accessible-color-palettes-in-figma-2024


+04: DRUPAL.

Creating Accessible Content in Drupal 10 (Video)
By Suzanne Dergacheva.
"…In this session, we'll explore what that responsibility entails, what a content editor needs to know about ensuring their content is accessible, what tools Drupal provides to make this easier, some additional tools to help, and some additional resources. We'll reinforce the knowledge with real-world examples, and have time for questions…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZX0o1VU7AU

How Can We Incubate a Healthy, Collaborative Accessibility Community in LocalGov Drupal?
By Mike Gifford, Nova Constable, and Ryan Falcon-Hay.
"A panel of accessibility specialists from the open source, Drupal and LocalGov Drupal communities, discussing what we can do to support, champion and grow the accessibility community within LocalGov Drupal…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPuyJG_fIvk

Drupal Creator: Websites Needed More Than Ever in the AI Era
By Richard MacManus.
"Generative AI is an existential threat to websites. Which begs the question: are websites still relevant? Drupal's Dries Buytaert says yes…"
https://thenewstack.io/drupal-creator-websites-needed-more-than-ever-in-the-ai-era/


+05: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Power Law of Learning: How to Launch New Designs Successfully (Video)
By Raluca Budiu.
"Time on task decreases with the number of times the task has been performed in the past. As a result, a new version of an app translates into a temporary productivity loss for its users."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/power-law-of-learning/

What AI Can and Cannot Do for UX
By Jakob Nielsen.
"AI can already perform many UX tasks, ranging from design and research ideation to analyzing qualitative user data at scale. It's the perfect assistant that quickly produces the first drafts of any UX method plan or deliverable. It will do more in the future, including possibly complete UI designs. But AI will not eliminate the need to watch human users…"
https://jakobnielsenphd.substack.com/p/ai-can-cannot-do-ux


+06: EVENTS.

If Memory Serves: Creating Unforgettable User Experiences with David Swallow
February 8, 2024.
Online
https://www.tpgi.com/webinar-february-8-at-12pm-et-if-memory-serves-creating-unforgettable-user-experiences/

What's on the Horizon in Legal Space with Digital Accessibility and WCAG 2.2?
February 13, 2024.
Online and  New York,  New York, U.S.A
https://www.meetup.com/a11ynyc/events/298740903/

A Review of Various Notable ADA-Related Settlement Agreements and Conciliations by Federal Enforcement Agencies
March 20, 2024.
Online
https://accessibilityonline.org/ADA-Audio/session/?id=111098

What's New with WCAG 2.2?
March 21, 2024.
Online
https://accessibilityonline.org/ada-tech/schedule/

Web Con
April 4-5, 2024.
Online
https://webcon.illinois.edu/

cssday 2024
April 5, 2024.
Online and Faenza, Italy
https://2024.cssday.it/

Front-End Design Conference
April 25-26, 2024.
St Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A
https://frontenddesignconference.com/


+07: HTML.

Why Not HTMX?
By Chris Ferdinandi.
"One of the most frequent questions I've been asked over the last year is… Have you heard of HTMX? What do you think about it…"
https://gomakethings.com/why-not-htmx/


+08: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Card Sorting: Uncover Users' Mental Models for Better Information Architecture
By Samhita Tankala and Katie Sherwin.
"In a card-sorting study, users organize topics into groups. Use this research method to create an information architecture that suits your users' expectations…"
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/card-sorting-definition/

Comparing ChatGPT to Card Sorting Results
By Jeff Sauro, Will Schiavone, and Jim Lewis.
"In this article, we describe an experiment conducted with ChatGPT-4 to see whether it might be a useful tool to help researchers in their analysis of results from open card sorts…"
https://measuringu.com/comparing-chatgpt-to-card-sorting-results/


+09: JAVASCRIPT.

In Praise of the switch Statement
By Chip Cullen.
"A tool that I find myself reaching for quite a bit is the switch statement. It's a great way to tackle complex logic in a straightforward way. In complicated situations, it helps me really focus in on what is actually changing…"
https://chipcullen.com/in-praise-of-the-switch-statement/

A Look at the New WAI-ARIA 1.3 Draft
By Craig Abbott.
"…With the new draft of 1.3, we can get a bit of an idea as to what is coming, and how we can prepare for implementing and testing these features…"
https://www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/a-look-at-the-new-wai-aria-1-3-draft/

You Won't Scale
By Chris Ferdinandi.
"One of the more common myths I try to debunk around vanilla JavaScript and simpler approaches to web development is that they don't scale (they do, actually)…"
https://gomakethings.com/you-wont-scale/


+10: MISCELLANEOUS.

Over the Edge: The Use of Design Tactics to Undermine Browser Choice
By Harry Brignull and Cennydd Bowles.
"In order to be able to choose their own browser, people must be free to download it, easily set it to default and to continue using it - all without interference from the operating system. Windows users do not currently enjoy this freedom of choice…"
https://research.mozilla.org/browser-competition/over-the-edge-the-use-of-design-tactics-to-undermine-browser-choice/

Website Optimization Measures, Part XXII
By Jens Oliver Meiert.
"Web design is a process, running our own websites is awesome, and together it means there's always something to tweak and improve and optimize. Here are select things I've done over the last few months (please share what you did on our mutual socials)…"
https://meiert.com/en/blog/optimization-measures-22/


+11: NAVIGATION.

How to Set Up an Accessible Page Structure and Navigation
By Whitney Lewis.
"…An accessible webpage structure and navigation include using regions, a page title, a page language, navigation skip links, and labeling navigations when there's more than one…"
https://blog.pope.tech/2023/01/31/how-to-set-up-an-accessible-page-structure-and-navigation/

How to Create Accessible Navigations and Sub-Menus
By Whitney Lewis.
"…In this article, we'll go through these best practices and the necessary HTML for top-level navigations and sub-menus so all types of users can navigate your website…"
https://blog.pope.tech/2024/01/30/how-to-create-accessible-navigations-and-sub-menus/


+12: TOOLS.

Bookmarklet: Load All GitHub Comments
By Eric A. Meyer.
"…if you too wish GitHub had an easy way to load all the comments without you having to search for the 'Load more…' button yourself, now there's a bookmarklet made just for you…"
https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2024/02/05/bookmarklet-load-all-github-comments/


+13: USABILITY.

Visual Hierarchy: Making User Experiences Easier to Understand
By Karla Hogan.
"Visual hierarchy is…instrumental in making user experiences as easy to learn and use as people expect them to be…"
https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2024/02/visual-hierarchy-making-user-experiences-easier-to-understand.php

A Guide To Designing For Older Adults
By Vitaly Friedman.
"With one billion people aged 60 or older worldwide, inclusivity is more important than ever. Learn how to create digital experiences that empower independence and competence for older adults while enhancing usability for all…"
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2024/02/guide-designing-older-adults/


+14: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

Should We Abolish Busyness?
By Tom Greenwood.
"In my explorations of 'sustainable business', I'm often wondering what these two words really mean…"
https://tomgreenwood.substack.com/p/should-we-abolish-busyness


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+15: 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

WebWaste & Sustainability Information.
https://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webwaste.html

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

[Section two ends.]


++END NOTES.


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+ TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN).

As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines.  Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN guideline information please visit:
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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.]