Web Design Update: October 27, 2020

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 19, Issue 18, October 27, 2020.

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

++ISSUE 18 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: DRUPAL.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: HTML.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: TOOLS.
11: TYPOGRAPHY.
12: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Pronunciation Matters - Demo by Accessible Platform Architectures
Working Group for TPAC 2020 (Video)
By Janina Sajka and Mark Häkkinen.
"How content is pronounced has long been an accessibility concern, but
it's increasingly becoming a mainstream web concern as well with the
proliferation of personal assistants and voice interfaces to web
content. We propose approaches for controlling pronunciation in spans
of web content where uniform (SSML-based) markup can make the
difference…"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L89by65Mr40

What Is WCAG 2.1 and Why You Should Adopt It ASAP
By UsableNet.
"The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the de facto
industry standard for website accessibility. The WCAG details what
criteria you need to meet in order to make your site accessible to all
users…"
https://blog.usablenet.com/what-is-wcag-2.1-and-why-you-should-adopt-it-asap

Emoji Accessibility for Visually Impaired People (PDF)
By Garreth T. Tigwell, Benjamin M. Goreman, and Rachel Menzies.
"…Using our findings from both studies, we propose best practice when
using emoji and recommendations to improve the future accessibility of
emoji for visually impaired people…"
http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/33854/1/tigwell-gorman-menzies-CHI2020.pdf

Accessibility Support
Open source project founded by Michael Fairchild.
"Will your code work with assistive technologies?…"
https://a11ysupport.io

Accessible Interactions
By Jeremy Keith.
"Accessibility on the web is easy. Accessibility on the web is also hard…"
https://adactio.com/journal/17546

First Steps to an Accessible Website (Part 3)
By Jeff Singleton.
"…we are going to cover an often-overlooked item that will further
reduce legal risk exposure and help increase the overall accessibility
of your website. Language Attribute…"
https://convergeaccessibility.com/2020/10/20/first-steps-to-an-accessible-website-part-3/

Top 5 Resources To Help You Write Better Image Descriptions
By Ramya Venkitesh.
"80% of our learning comes from seeing and at 247 Accessible
Documents, we believe image description is a basic requirement of
making documents accessible. Without alternate text or image
descriptions people with disabilities would not have the same access
to images as you and me…"
https://247accessibledocuments.com/2020/10/21/top-5-resources-to-help-you-write-better-image-descriptions/

Web Accessibility with Wendy Fox (Podcast)
By Emma Bostian.
"…in today's episode, we're joined by Wendy Fox, the design systems
lead at LogMeIn to discuss nine common pitfalls of application
accessibility and what you can do to fix them…"
https://www.ladybug.dev/episodes/web-accessibilitiy

Free Webinar: 2020 Legal Update on Digital Accessibility Cases with
Lainey Feingold
By Deborah Edwards-Onoro.
"Whether you're a designer, developer, content specialist, digital
marketer, project manager, or business owner, you need to stay
informed on the latest legal aspects of digital accessibility…"
https://www.lireo.com/2020-legal-update-digital-accessibility-cases/

Teledoc Sued Over Website Allegedly Inaccessible to Blind
By Mary Anne Pazanowski.
"Teledoc Health Inc., a leading provider of telemedicine services, is
facing a proposed class action in federal court in New York over the
accessibility of its website to blind and visually impaired people…
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/teledoc-sued-over-website-allegedly-inaccessible-to-blind-people


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

a11yTO Conf: CSS Display Properties Versus HTML Semantics
By Adrian Roselli.
"If you attended my pre-recorded remote CSUN 2020 talk, then this talk
will be familiar. I updated with the latest browsers, since February
was six Chrome and nine Firefox versions ago…"
https://adrianroselli.com/2020/10/a11yto-conf-css-display-properties-versus-html-semantics.html

State of CSS Survey
By Raphaël Benitte and Sacha Greif.
"…after the success of our annual State Of JavaScript survey, we've
decided to take on the world of styles and selectors to help identify
the latests trends… and try to bridge the ever-growing 'great
front-end divide'…"
https://stateofcss.com/


+03: DRUPAL.

Web Development Strategy in a Drupal 9 World
By Matt Robison.
"The Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 upgrade path represents a big change for the
Drupal world. The big change is that…your organization's website won't
require a big change. The first iteration of Drupal 9 is just Drupal 8
with all of the deprecated code removed, mimicking Symfony's model of
major release upgrades…"
https://www.lullabot.com/articles/web-development-strategy-drupal-9-world


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Revisiting the Evidence for the Left-Side Bias in Rating Scales
By Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro.
"Are people more likely to select response options that are on the
left side of a rating scale…"
https://measuringu.com/revisiting-the-left-side-bias/


+05: EVENTS.

Live Panel Discussion to Celebrate National Disability Employment
Awareness Month
October 28, 2020.
Online
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/3216016661768/WN_MKMHa-PMQdWXvyuSIHlAVg

Accessibility-Flavored React Components Make Your Design System
Delicious with Kathleen McMahon
October 28, 2020.
Online
https://www.meetup.com/a11ychi/events/274092897/

Introduction to ePUB with Lisa Snider
November 12, 2020.
Online
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduction-to-epub-tickets-115768616047

ConveyUX
November 12-13, 2020.
Online
https://conveyux.com/

Creating accessible websites using the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS)
and the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA)
November 24, 2020
Online
https://www.accessibilityonline.org/cioc-508/session/?id=110879

Virtual Web Accessibility Training - WebAIM
December 2-3, 2020.
Online
https://webaim.org/training/virtual/

Building A Design System With CSS with Andy Bell
December 3-17, 2020
Online
https://smashingconf.com/online-workshops/workshops/andy-bell


+06: HTML.

Mostly HTML, Some CSS, and a Little JS
By Chris Ferdinandi.
"…Thinking about the future of the web, I want fewer new JS APIs and
more HTML features…"
https://gomakethings.com/mostly-html-some-css-and-a-little-js/

This Page is a Truly Naked, Brutalist HTML Quine
By Leon Bambrick.
"One of my favorite things is to misuse technology in creative ways.
Breaking the rules without breaking the rules…"
https://secretgeek.github.io/html_wysiwyg/html.html


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

How to Build a Progressively Enhanced Accordion Component With Vanilla JS
By Chris Ferdinandi.
"Today, I'm going to look how we can replace the need for a big plugin
altogether by progressively enhancing HTML to add a bit more
functionality to it…"
https://gomakethings.com/how-to-build-a-progressively-enhanced-accordion-component-with-vanilla-js/


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Web, We Have a Problem
By Gerry McGovern.
"…Our websites are obese, our code is obese, our content is obese.
We've gone wild on images, videos; we salivate when they promise 5G…"
https://gerrymcgovern.com/web-we-have-a-problem/

Removing Racist Terms in Tech
By Chris Ferdinandi.
"The other day, I was reviewing an open ticket in an issue tracking
system and saw the phrases 'master' and 'slave.' I cringed…"
https://gomakethings.com/removing-racist-terms-in-tech/


+09: NAVIGATION.

Findability vs. Discoverability (Video)
By Aurora Harley.
"Locating features or content on a website or in an app happen in two
different ways: finding (users look for the item) and discovering
(users come across the item). Both are important, but require
different user research techniques to evaluate."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/findability-vs-discoverability/

Landmarks
By Matthew Tylee Atkinson.
The story and slides for Matthew's Accessibility Toronto Conference
presentation are available.
http://matatk.agrip.org.uk/talks/2020/landmarks/


+10: TOOLS.

axe - Web Accessibility Testing for Edge Browser
By Deque Systems.
"Accessibility Checker for Developers in Edge Accessibility checker
for WCAG 2 and Section 508 accessibility. Find accessibility defects
on your website or web application by using the axe Edge extension.
Drop the axe on your accessibility defects…"
https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/axe-web-accessibility-t/kcenlimkmjjkdfcaleembgmldmnnlfkn

We4Authors Cluster
By A preparatory action funded by the European Commission.
"Based on a EU-funded pilot project called We4Authors, Funka and its
partners will make a joint effort to increase the level of
accessibility by default in web authoring tools…"
https://accessibilitycluster.com/

New Feature in Chrome Adds a New Focus Outline Layer
By Zoe Bijl.
"If you do any kind of accessibility testing check out this new
feature in Chrome that adds a new focus outline layer. It can help you
spot focus issues. Preferences → Advanced → Accessibility → Show a
quick highlight on the focused object…"
https://twitter.com/ZoeBijl/status/1318850687053275136


+11: TYPOGRAPHY.

A New Typeface - Greater Legibility And Readability For Low Vision Readers
By Braille Institute of America.
"Atkinson Hyperlegible font is named after Braille Institute founder,
J. Robert Atkinson. What makes it different from traditional
typography design is that it focuses on letterform distinction to
increase character recognition, ultimately improving readability…"
https://www.brailleinstitute.org/freefont


+12: USABILITY.

Readability Guidelines
By Content Design London.
"Imagine a collaboratively developed, universal content style guide,
based on usability evidence." Sarah Richards, project founder…"
https://readabilityguidelines.co.uk/

Plain Language Writing - An Essential Part of Accessibility
By Andrew Pulrang.
"…An important way to provide greater cognitive accessibility is to
use 'Plain Language' writing…"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2020/10/22/plain-language-writing---an-essential-part-of-accessibility/

Designing User-Friendly Data Tables
By Meredith Meller.
"Are you redesigning a data table for enterprise software? Suddenly
you're feeling overwhelmed. Possibly you're looking at it wondering
where to begin…"
https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/designing-user-friendly-data-tables/

Be Unique, Don't Build a Novelty
By Santiago Semino.
"Chances are, you've experienced the feeling of opening a new SaaS
application, engaging with its features, and realizing after a few
minutes that it feels like a total novelty. It might not be because
the product was actually empty of features or because it was poorly
designed, but really because it somehow didn't add any value to your
life - there was no utility."
https://uxmag.com/articles/be-unique-don't-build-a-novelty

Compensatory vs Noncompensatory: 2 Decision-Making Strategies
By Aurora Harley.
"Ease users' purchase decisions by designing interfaces that support
both compensatory and noncompensatory decision-making strategies."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/compensatory-noncompensatory-decisions/

Vocabulary Inflation in UX (Video)
By Jakob Nielsen.
"The user experience field is plagued by vocabulary inflation:
repeatedly replacing well-known terminology with new fancy words that
cause miscommunication."
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/ux-vocabulary-inflation/


[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

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.]