Inclusive design patterns : coding accessibility into web design

Best-selling author, designer, and web standards evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman has revisited his classic, industry-shaking guidebook. Updated in collaboration with co-author Ethan Marcotte, this third edition covers improvements and challenges in the changing environment of standards-based design. Written in the same engaging and witty style, making even the most complex information easy to digest, Designing with Web Standards remains your essential guide to creating sites that load faster, reach more users, and cost less to design and maintain. Substantially revised—packed with new ideas How will HTML5, CSS3, and web fonts change your work? Learn new strategies for selling standards Change what “IE6 support” means “Occasionally (very occasionally) you come across an author who makes you think, ‘This guy is smart! And he makes me feel smarter, because now I finally understand this concept.’” — Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy “A web designer without a copy of Designing with Web Standards is like a carpenter without a level. With this third edition, Zeldman continues to be the voice of clarity; explaining the complex in plain English for the rest of us.” — Dan Cederholm, author, Bulletproof Web Design and Handcrafted CSS “Jeffrey Zeldman sits somewhere between ‘guru’ and ‘god’ in this industry—and manages to fold wisdom and wit into a tale about WHAT web standards are, HOW standards-based coding works, and WHY we should care.” — Kelly Goto, author, Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works “Some books are meant to be read. Designing with Web Standards is even more: intended to be highlighted, dogeared, bookmarked, shared, passed around, and evangelized, it goes beyond reading to revolution.” — Liz Danzico, Chair, MFA Interaction Design, School of Visual Arts Best-selling author, designer, and web standards evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman has revisited his classic, industry-shaking guidebook. Updated in collaboration with co-author Ethan Marcotte, this third edition covers improvements and challenges in the changing environment of standards-based design. Written in the same engaging and witty style, making even the most complex information easy to digest, *Designing with Web Standards* remains your essential guide to creating sites that load faster, reach more users, and cost less to design and maintain. * Substantially revised—packed with new ideas * How will HTML5, CSS3, and web fonts change your work? * Learn new strategies for selling standards * Change what “IE6 support” means Dubbed King of Web Standards by Business Week, Jeffrey Zeldman (zeldman.com) was one of the web’s first designers and bloggers. He publishes *A List Apart* “for people who make websites;” runs Happy CogTM, a leading web design studio; and co-founded An Event Apart, The Deck, and The Web Standards Project. Versatile user experience designer/developer Ethan Marcotte served as a steering committee member of The Web Standards Project, and has worked with clients including *New York Magazine*, Harvard University, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Books to which he has contributed include *Handcrafted CSS*, *Web Standards Creativity*, and *Professional CSS*. Ethan writes and does technical editing at *A List Apart*, and is a popular educator and conference speaker. He would like to be an unstoppable robot ninja when he grows up (unstoppablerobotninja.com). “A web designer without a copy of *Designing with Web Standards* is like a carpenter without a level. With this third edition, Zeldman continues to be the voice of clarity; explaining the complex in plain English for the rest of us.” — Dan Cederholm, author, *Bulletproof Web Design* and *Handcrafted CSS* “Jeffrey Zeldman sits somewhere between ‘guru’ and ‘god’ in this industry—and manages to fold wisdom and wit into a tale about WHAT web standards are, HOW standards-based coding works, and WHY we should care.” — Kelly Goto, author, *Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works* “Some books are meant to be read. *Designing with Web Standards* is even more: intended to be highlighted, dogeared, bookmarked, shared, passed around, and evangelized, it goes beyond reading to revolution.” — Liz Danzico, Chair, MFA Interaction Design, School of Visual Arts “Occasionally (very occasionally) you come across an author who makes you think, ‘This guy is smart! And he makes me feel smarter, because now I finally understand this concept.’” — Steve Krug, author of *Don’t Make Me Think* and *Rocket Surgery Made Easy* "'For years now, I've been running around preaching to anyone who'll listen that UX is something that everybody (not just UX people) needs to be doing. Dave has done an excellent job of explaining what developers need to know about UX, in a complete but compact, easy-to-absorb, and implementable form. Developers, come and get it!' -Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Master User Experience and Interaction Design from the Developer's Perspective For modern developers, UX expertise is indispensable: Without outstanding user experience, your software will fail. Now, David Platt has written the first and only comprehensive developer's guide to achieving a world-class user experience. Quality user experience isn't hard, but it does require developers to think in new ways. The Joy of UX shows you how, with plenty of concrete examples. Firmly grounded in reality, this guide will help you optimize usability and engagement while also coping with difficult technical, schedule, and budget constraints. Platt's technology-agnostic approach illuminates all the principles, techniques, and best practices you need to build great user experiences for the web, mobile devices, and desktop environments. He covers the entire process, from user personas and stories through wireframes, layouts, and execution. He also addresses key issues-such as telemetry and security-that many other UX guides ignore. You'll find all the resources and artifacts you need: complete case studies, sample design documents, testing plans, and more. This guide shows you how to * Recognize and avoid pitfalls that lead to poor user experiences* Learn the crucial difference between design and mere decoration* Put yourself in your users' shoes-understand what they want (and where, when, and why)* Quickly sketch and prototype user interfaces for easy refinement* Test your sketches on real users or appropriate surrogates* Integrate telemetry to capture the best possible usage information* Use analytics to accurately interpret the data you've captured* Solve unique experience problems presented by mobile environments* Secure your app without compromising usability any more than necessary*'Polish' your UX to eliminate user effort everywhere."--Provided by publisher We make inaccessible and unusable websites and apps all the time, but it's not for lack of skill or talent. It's just a case of doing things the wrong way. We try to build the best experiences we can, but we only make them for ourselves and for people like us. This book looks at common interface patterns from the perspective of an inclusive designer - someone trained in building experiences that cater to the huge diversity of abilities, preferences and circumstances out there. There's no such thing as an 'average' user, but there is such a thing as an average developer. This book will take you from average to expert in the area that matters the most: making things more readable and more usable to more people. Ensuing chapters will look into discrete interface patterns; modules, components, widgets, conventions, whatever-you-want-to-call-thems. It would be foolhardy not to first acknowledge that each will ultimately belong to a web document. HTML pages vary dramatically in shape and size and can include any combination of patterns, but there are a handful of 'document level' best practices to which we should adhere. The aim here is not to go in search of the ultimate 'boilerplate' but to configure a parent web page to support inclusive design. You'll learn: Accessibility myths and misconceptions as well as common solutions and rules of thumbs, A library of well-tested accessible HTML/CSS components that you can use right away, How to properly use WAI-ARIA roles and Content Accessibility Guidelines, How to tackle common accessibility issues in RWD, How to deal with "skip" links and external links, as well as navigation regions and landmarks, How to keep labels, buttons, tables of contents, dynamic widgets and tabbed interfaces accessible, How to implement infinite scrolling, grid display and dynamic content accessibly, How to deal with password validation, error messages, web forms, JavaScript patterns and touch targets, How to keep an interface accessible in legacy browsers, How to prototype with accessibility in mind Best-selling author, designer, and web standards evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman has revisited his classic, industry-shaking guidebook. Updated in collaboration with co-author Ethan Marcotte, this third edition covers improvements and challenges in the changing environment of standards-based design. Written in the same engaging and witty style, making even the most complex information easy to digest, Designing with Web Standards remains your essential guide to creating sites that load faster, reach more users, and cost less to design and maintain. Substantially revised & mdash;packed with new ideas How will HTML5, CSS3, and web fonts change your work? Learn new strategies for selling standards Change what & ldquo;IE6 support & rdquo; means & ldquo;Occasionally (very occasionally) you come across an author who makes you think, & lsquo;This guy is smart! And he makes me feel smarter, because now I finally understand this concept. & rsquo; & rdquo; & mdash; Steve Krug, author of Don & rsquo;t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy & ldquo;A web designer without a copy of Designing with Web Standards is like a carpenter without a level. With this third edition, Zeldman continues to be the voice of clarity; explaining the complex in plain English for the rest of us. & rdquo; & mdash; Dan Cederholm, author, Bulletproof Web Design and Handcrafted CSS & ldquo;Jeffrey Zeldman sits somewhere between & lsquo;guru & rsquo; and & lsquo;god & rsquo; in this industry & mdash;and manages to fold wisdom and wit into a tale about WHAT web standards are, HOW standards-based coding works, and WHY we should care. & rdquo; & mdash; Kelly Goto, author, Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works & ldquo;Some books are meant to be read. Designing with Web Standards is even more: intended to be highlighted, dogeared, bookmarked, shared, passed around, and evangelized, it goes beyond reading to revolution. & rdquo; & mdash; Liz Danzico, Chair, MFA Interaction Design, School of Visual Arts Preface Before You Begin 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete Designing and Building with Standards Gentle Persuasion The Future of Web Standards Modern Markup XHTML and Semantic Markup HTML5: The New Hope Tighter, Firmer Pages Guaranteed: Structure and Semantics CSS Basics CSS Layout: Markup, Boxes, and Floats—Oh My! Working with Browsers Part I: DOCTYPE Switching and Standards Mode Working with Browsers, Part II: Bugs, Workarounds and CSS3’s Silver Lining Working with Browsers Part III: Typography Accessibility: The Soul of Web Standards Working with DOM-Based Scripts A Site Redesign NYMag.com: Simple Standards, Sexy Interfaces Index If you are in charge of the user experience, development, or strategy for a web site, A Web for Everyone will help you make your site accessible without sacrificing design or innovation. Rooted in universal design principles, this book provides solutions: practical advice and examples of how to create sites that everyone can use. Providing dozens of practical examples of accessible interface components and inclusive design workflows, this book covers all the techniques, gotchas and front-end strategies you need to be aware of when building accessible, inclusive interfaces. -- Edited summary from book Discusses how to use Web standards to create sophisticated Web sites efficiently, covering topics such as quality assurance, functionality, and accessibility guidelines.