Web Design Update: March 8, 2023

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 21, Issue 37, March 8, 2023.

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

++ISSUE 37 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: HTML.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: PHP.
09: TYPOGRAPHY.
10: USABILITY.
11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.
12: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

A Beginner's Guide to Manual Accessibility Testing
By Whitney Lewis.
"Manual and automated accessibility testing work together to find accessibility issues…"
https://blog.pope.tech/2023/03/01/a-beginners-guide-to-manual-accessibility-testing/

Automated Accessibility Part 3: Regression Tests
By Mark Steadman.
"…Did you know that there is more automated testing you can do to help ensure the accessible functionality of the web content you create is accessible? It's true! Lets dive in…"
https://dev.to/steady5063/automated-accessibility-part-3-regression-tests-53cc

Without Accessibility, There Is No Privacy or Security
By Corbb O'Connor.
"…In this blog, Director of Accessibility Advocacy Corbb O'Connor explains how accessibility is fundamental to ensuring individuals' rights to privacy and security and why it's a priority organizations can't afford to ignore…"
https://www.levelaccess.com/blog/without-accessibility-there-is-no-privacy-or-security/

Conformance and Accessibility
By Jens Oliver Meiert.
"The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 are going to obsolete Success Criterion 4.1.1, which had been WCAG's nod towards conformant HTML output…"
https://meiert.com/en/blog/conformance-and-accessibility/

Are You Making These Five Mistakes When Writing Alt Text?
By Daniel Sage.
"There are many benefits to writing alt text for images, especially from accessibility and legal standpoints. But most don't know how to write alt text well…"
https://www.a11yproject.com/posts/are-you-making-these-five-mistakes-when-writing-alt-text/

A Guide to Troublesome UI Components
By Martin Lexelius.
"…Accessibility is not expensive if you proactively plan for it. That's why you need to learn how to avoid some of the common pitfalls…"
https://www.a11yproject.com/posts/a-guide-to-troublesome-ui-components/

The WebAIM Strategic Accessibility Framework: Indicators and Benchmarks for Success
By WebAIM.
"Empower your teams to plan, implement, and maintain accessibility using a structured, proven approach."
https://webaim.org/articles/strategicframework/

The World Mourns the Passing of Judy Heumann, Disability Rights Activist
By Yoli Navas.
"Judith 'Judy' Heumann-widely regarded as 'the mother' of the disability rights movement-passed away in Washington, D.C. on the afternoon of March 4, 2023…"
https://judithheumann.com/the-world-mourns-the-passing-of-judy-heumann-disability-rights-activist/

On the Passing of Judy Heumann
By Ricky Onsman.
"It is with great sadness and deepest respect that we at TPGi offer our condolences to the family of Judith (Judy) Heumann, often referred to as 'the mother of the disability rights movement', who died on the 4th of March, 2023…"
https://www.tpgi.com/on-the-passing-of-judy-heumann/

Legal Update: February 2023
By Ken Nakata.
"Lexis was pretty quiet during the last few days of the month but it was busier earlier-- certainly, a lot more cases than during January…"
https://convergeaccessibility.com/2023/03/01/legal-update-february-2023/

Digital Accessibility Laws Around the Globe (Updated on March 6, 2023) 
By Lainey Feingold.
"This page contains information about laws and standards from around the globe that protect the disabled people's rights to participate in the digital world…"
https://www.lflegal.com/2013/05/gaad-legal-2/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Getting Started with Style Queries
By Una Kravets.
"The ability to query a parent's inline size, and container query unit values recently reached stable support in all modern browser engines…"
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/style-queries/

On Container Queries, Responsive Images, and JPEG-XL
By Jason Grigsby.
"With the news that CSS Container Queries have shipped in nearly all stable, modern browsers, it's time to revisit responsive images and ask how they fit in a container query world…"
https://cloudfour.com/thinks/on-container-queries-responsive-images-and-jpeg-xl/

The Web Needs a Native .visually-hidden
By Ben Myers.
"One of the strangest artifacts of web accessibility to me is the .visually-hidden utility class…"
https://benmyers.dev/blog/native-visually-hidden/


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Using the Funnel Technique in User Interviews (Video)
By Maria Rosala.
"Start with broad, open-ended questions in your interviews before introducing more specific questions to gather accurate, in-depth information."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/funnel-technique-interviews/

Does Thinking Aloud Affect Study Metrics?
By Jeff Sauro and Jim Lewis.
"…In this article, we'll review the same dataset of ten studies used in the task metrics and task-time analysis and examine the impact, if any, on UX metrics at the study level (SUPR-Q, NPS, UX-Lite)…"
https://measuringu.com/does-ta-affect-study-metrics/


+04: EVENTS.

Understand, Test, Solve: Color Contrast
March 9, 2023.
Online
https://www.tpgi.com/webinar-march-9-at-12pm-et-understand-test-solve-color-contrast/

UX Psychology - The Finesse of UX Online Testing
March 16, 2023.
Online
https://www.meetup.com/uxpsychology-the-intersection-of-humans-brains-and-tech/events/291633804/

Introduction to Web Accessibility (a11y)
March 17, 2023.
Online
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduction-to-web-accessibility-a11y-tickets-543156193797

Annotating Designs for Accessibility
March 23, 2023.
Online
https://www.meetup.com/a11ycollective/events/291984674/

Beyond the Alt Tag: Accessible Name
March 28, 2023.
Online
https://adasoutheast.org/events/beyond-the-alt-tag-accessible-name/

StrategicA11y - Virtual Strategic Web Accessibility Workshop
April 5-6 and 12-13, 2023.
Online
https://webaim.org/training/strategica11y/

Code
June 8-9, 2023.
Melbourne, Australia
https://webdirections.org/code/


+05: HTML.

A Tab Interface Before Its Time
By Aaron Gustafson.
"I finally got around to reading the CSS Tricks piece on 'Spicy Sections' and it's cool how closely what the OpenUI folks are talking about aligns with work I was doing in the mid-to-late oughts…"
https://www.aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/a-tab-interface-before-its-time/


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

The Great Gaslighting of the JavaScript Era
By Jared White.
"The age of frontend JavaScript frameworks eating the web world didn't happen simply because some well-meaning developers found great DX. It happened because we were fed a line…"
https://www.spicyweb.dev/the-great-gaslighting-of-the-js-age/

Clever Code Considered Harmful
By Josh W. Comeau.
"…In the context of a shared codebase, good code is simple code. Code that doesn't do anything fancy…"
https://www.joshwcomeau.com/career/clever-code-considered-harmful/

Building Accessible React Applications: Best Practices…
By Asim Zaidi.
"Accessibility is one of the most critical aspects of web development today. As developers, we have a responsibility to ensure that all users, regardless of their physical abilities, can access and use the web…"
https://asimzaidi.medium.com/building-accessible-react-applications-best-practices-for-senior-engineers-fec5ec207ec4


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Declarative Design (Video)
By Jeremy Keith.
"… In this talk, we'll take this concept of declarative programming and apply it to designing for the web. Instead of focusing on controlling the outputs of the design process, we'll look at creating the right inputs instead. Leave the final calculations for the outputs to the browser-that's what computers are good at. We'll look at CSS features, design systems, design principles, and more. Then you'll be ready to embrace the fluid, ever-changing, glorious messiness of the World Wide Web…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHfa5ks4q80

ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web
By Ted Chiang.
Even if it is possible to restrict large-language models from engaging in fabrication, should we use them to generate Web content? This would make sense only if our goal is to repackage information that's already available on the Web… the more the Web becomes a blurrier version of itself…
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web


+08: PHP.

How to Handle Exceptions in PHP
By Claudio Ribeiro.
"In this article, we'll discuss the basics of exceptions in PHP and how to use them effectively…"
https://www.sitepoint.com/php-handle-exceptions/


+09: TYPOGRAPHY.

An End to Typographic Widows on the Web
By Richard Rutter.
"…The text-wrap:balance declaration in CSS Text Module Level 4 says that line breaks should be chosen to balance out the line lengths in a block of text…"
https://clagnut.com/blog/2424/


+10: USABILITY.

The Anatomy of a Good Design: An Analysis of 4 Sites
By Sarah Gibbons and Kelley Gordon.
"Visually pleasing designs use consistent type styles and spacing, create a visual hierarchy, and utilize an underlying grid structure."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-does-a-design-look-good-part2/

Common Region: Gestalt Principle for User Interface Design (Video)
By Rachel Krause.
"Items within a boundary are perceived as a group and assumed to share some common characteristic or functionality."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/common-region-gestalt/

Consider Providing 'Intermediary Category Pages' (13% Don't)
By Edward Scott.
"…'Intermediary Category Pages' - essentially a category landing page where users are provided with thumbnails and descriptions of subcategories, guides, and other category-related content - can be a helpful starting point for a subgroup of users…"
https://baymard.com/blog/ecommerce-sub-category-pages


+11: WEBWASTE & SUSTAINABILITY.

Global North E-Waste Colonialism, Genocide, Ecocide
By Gerry McGovern.
"In the rich Global North, we like to boast about the dematerialization of our economies, about 'green growth' and how we're decoupling our material use from our energy and waste production. We're so clever and sustainable. And yet. And yet…"
https://gerrymcgovern.com/global-north-e-waste-colonialism-genocide-ecocide/


+12: XML.

I Doubled-Down on RSS
By Eric Bailey.
"…I'm not sure I'd recommend doing what I did, but I do think RSS is an incredibly powerful, under-appreciated, and under-utilized technology. As our communities continue to fracture, an open data format like RSS may be a way to bind them back together. The web just needs to double-down on it first."
https://ericwbailey.website/published/i-doubled-down-on-rss/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+13: 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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+ 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.]