Web Directions Podcast

Last year, Google released an experimental Greasemonkey API for Gmail: coding hooks that let anyone add CSS and Javascript to Gmail that enhances how it looks and behaves. Why would you want to do this? Why wouldn’t you? Hear how Google’s using Greasemonkey to distribute Gmail development amongst independent web developers - and how those developers are integrating their own product into Gmail - resulting in a Better Gmail for everyone. Gina Trapani is a web developer and the founding editor of Lifehacker.com, the 2006 Wired Rave Award-winning daily weblog on software and productivity. Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

Have you ever seen a web site so clear, logical, and exquisitely composed it made you stop in your tracks? Have you wondered how the designer achieved such a stunning and cohesive design? In this presentation, Kimberly Elam, designer and author of the best-selling "Geometry of Design" and "Typographic Systems" will reveal the mysterious relationships between proportion, visual systems, composition and aesthetics. Too often excellent conceptual ideas suffer during the process of realization, in large part because the designer did not understand the essential visual principles. This presentation explores these elements and how they work by examining how the use of visual principles informs, even creates, beauty in typographic design, but, more importantly, how you can use these techniques to create cohesiveness in your own design. The wide range of visual examples are both informative and insightful, and any designer can benefit from learning or revisiting the rules governing the basics of typographic design.

What happens when a designer decides to quit his day job, hang his shingle, and wakes up seven years later nowhere remotely close to where he imagined he would be? This frank, semi-informal discussion on the pros, cons, and potential progressions of a designer’s career will explore the following: - Niching your design services - Crafting a salable product - The Web Designer of Tomorrow A serial designer-entrepreneur, Josh Williams is the founder and CEO of several well known web related companies and communities including Firewheel Design, Blinksale, and IconBuffet. He is an authority on visual design techniques for rich web applications and an expert iconographer. Recently Josh has served as the design director for Project Agape (Causes on Facebook) and currently he in the process of launching another secretive iconic web company. Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

It seems like there’s a new Ajax library or JavaScript framework coming out every week, and there probably is! Which is the best one to pick? Will you be up the creek without a paddle if you choose the wrong one? "Working with Ajax Frameworks" will delve into some common Ajax design patterns and how various frameworks can be used to meet those needs. We’ll also take a look at how we can keep our own code flexible as we bridge the gap between it and the various frameworks. Jonathan Snook is currently a freelance web developer based in Ottawa, Canada. A Renaissance man of the Web, he has programmed in a variety of languages, both server-side and client-side. He also does web site and web application design. Jonathan worked for more than seven years with web agencies, getting to work with clients such as Red Bull, Apple, and FedEx. He made the leap to freelance back in January 2006. Jonathan likes to share what he knows through speaking, writing books, writing for online magazines such as Digital Web and S

When we follow the principles of web standards, we write valid HTML and CSS, unobtrusive JavaScript and follow WCAG and other accessibility guidelines. This simple act goes a long way to creating an accessible web site, application or service. At the same time, many sites that don’t utilize all that is good and wholesome about web standards perform surprisingly well when they are used by people with disabilities. How can we get the best of both worlds to create standards-based solutions that are highly usable for real people (including those with disabilities) in the real world? In this session, we’ll dissect several examples from real sites and apps to learn about accessibility problems that arise from design and development decisions and what we can do to create a more accessible user experience for all people, regardless of their ability. Derek Featherstone is a well known instructor, speaker and developer with expertise in web accessibility consulting. Derek delivers technical training that is enga

Crash Course in Adobe AIR There comes a time when web developers need to reach beyond the browser to allow users to go offline, use local files or get rid of the hideous browser chrome. The Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is an up an coming runtime technology that allows desktop applications to be developed with HTML, JavaScript, Flash or Flex. The AIR runtime and SDK are completely free so anyone can get started immediately. Andre Charland will will give an overview or AIR, the APIs you get access to and how to build a simple Flex and HTML application with it. From there we will explore some of the tools available to make AIR development easier and faster. We’ll finish up with a few important usability guidelines and real world case studies of AIR projects. A real world overview of Silverlight Seattle-based Jackson Fish Market helped deliver the Silverlight based search engine Tafiti, one of the earliest commercial Silverlight applications. In this presentation, Jackson Fish Market co-founder Walter S

Since the advent of personal computing, we’ve been tied to one place - typically sitting at a desk, with a keyboard and mouse, and in isolation. Even the advent of the web and the wifi-enabled laptop hasn’t much changed this quarter century old paradigm. But with the rise of mobile phones and devices like the Nintendo Wii and PSP featuring first class web browsing, our experience of the web will change dramatically over the coming years. In this context, which design and user experience patterns and techniques we’ve developed over the last 15 years hold up? And... which break? In this session, Dave Shea and John Allsopp consider the challenges we’ll face as the web devolves onto a myriad devices, and the web is "always on" wherever we are. John Allsopp Successful software developer, long standing web development speaker, writer, evangelist and expert, John has spent the last 15 years working with and developing for the web. As the head developer of the leading cross platform CSS development tool Style M

Content management systems have all but replaced the former art of publishing static HTML pages. From letting clients edit and add content, to content like calendars and forums that defy the "page" convention, dynamic interactive websites keep visitors coming back. At some point your website goes beyond just a site filled with HTML pages and actually becomes a full-fledged web application. From these features, we extract three stages of content management - simple content management, beyond the blog, and building your own web application. We’ll cover some of the products and approaches appropriate for each stage - Wordpress, MovableType, Expression Engine, Drupal, and Ruby on Rails will all be familiar terms when we’re done. As well, we’ll explore the following concepts: - the challenges of designing for dynamic systems: the need to think about template and interaction design - choosing open source: can you afford to choose an open platform? - the wild world of plugins and modules: get new func

You know what blogs and wikis are, and you know your YouTube from your Facebook. But do you know how to make a compelling business case for these technologies? Social media and social networking tools are poised to have as much of an impact on business as they’ve had on the way we communicate with our friends and family online. Anil Dash, a blogger since 1999 who’s helped thousands of businesses make use of social media through his work at Six Apart, shares real-world examples of how companies are using social media to build their business. Six Apart is the world’s biggest blogging company, behind such platforms as Movable Type, LiveJournal, Vox, and TypePad. And even more important than where technology has been is where it’s going: Learn about cutting-edge technological initiatives like OpenID and OpenSocial, and how these aren’t just about new ways to poke your Facebook friends - they’re business opportunities. Finally, no change this big happens without thinking about the social and political realities

Mobile technology is poised to revolutionize how we gather information. By 2010 half the population of the planet will have access to the internet through a mobile device, making the mobile web an essential part of our lives. Yet the mobile industry has few if any resources to help would-be mobile developers from diving in other than applied experience from within the industry. Brian Fling is here to discuss the mobile ecosystem in Canada and abroad, how you go about developing an integrated mobile web strategy, mobile design and development principles and best practices, and most importantly, practical techniques and information to start creating mobile websites today. Brian Fling is a leader in interactive strategy and both the web and mobile fields. He has worked with several Fortune 500 companies to help design and develop their web and mobile experiences. Brian is a frequent speaker and author on the issues on mobile design, the mobile web and mobile user experience. He has authored the dotMobi Mobi

User interface design is an iterative process - the design of Digg and Pownce have been a study in evolution and adaptation. This talk will inspect the why and how of these iterations by looking at specific case studies from the two projects as well as previous client work Daniel has tackled. The case studies will examine specific user interface challenges that have arisen and will chop them up into their various bits. How do I identify a challenge? What is the best approach for getting started? How do I solve the problem conceptually and technically? How will I know if I solved the challenge successfully? Case studies have been selected that are especially pertinent outside of their specific contexts to help you in your everyday UI design. The presentation will focus on design inspiration, decision-making processes, technical solutions, and learning from missteps as part of a designer’s iterative process. Daniel is the creative director at Digg, a founder of Pownce, and a founder of the Canadian web fi

What does Web 2.0 mean and, specifically, what does it mean for the future of governments? Tara Hunt has been speaking all over the world, talking to government audiences on this subject. She believes that Web 2.0 has very little to do with the technology and everything to do with people. Her talk will cover the main tenets of Web 2.0: openness, collaboration and community and what it means for government. "Miss Rogue" defines herself as a customer first, marketer second. In 2005, Tara became the marketing director at Riya, where her community marketing theories resulted in huge gains, such as national news mentions before launch and over one million photos uploaded within 24 hours of launch. She doesn’t believe in PR, only in the power of building relationships with a community. She co-founded Citizen Agency in 2006 with the mission of teaching her clients how to work more effectively with the communities they serve. Tara has over seven years experience in non-traditional marketing planning. She maintain

Security design is an important, but often neglected, component of system design. In this session, Douglas Crockford, creator of Javascript Object Notation, will outline the security issues that must be considered in the architecture of Ajax applications. The design of the browser did not anticipate the needs of multiparty applications. The browser’s security model frustrates useful activities and allows some very dangerous activities. This talk will look at the small set of options before us that will determine the future of the Web. During this session, attendees will: - Learn why effective security is an inherent feature of good design; - Experience a real-time demo of a Ajax client/server system based on sound security principles -See how to apply secure design to rich web applications. Douglas Crockford is a product of the US public school system. A registered voter, he owns his own car. He has developed office automation systems. He did research in games and music at Atari. He was Directo

Information visualization is becoming more than a set of tools and technologies and techniques to understand large data sets. It is emerging as a medium in its own right, with a wide range of expressive potential. Stamen’s work in visualization and mapping is among the most high profile online today, with the live dynamic displays at Digg Labs and Cabspotting being just two of many examples. The studio’s approach is deeply pragmatic, always starting with real data and aiming to work with graphics on screen as soon as possible. Though all analysis is a work in progress, a project is usually finished when it shows something nobody has seen before, or builds a vocabulary for describing a system, or offers more questions than answers. And then the process begins again. Rodenbeck will provide an overview of the studio’s recent projects, and insight into the studio’s working process. Eric Rodenbeck is founder and creative director of Stamen Design. He is a 10-year veteran of the interactive design field, and

We’re at an exciting time in the development of web-based interfaces - along with a maturing front-end toolkit (CSS & JavaScript), there are so many technologies, trends and exciting ideas emerging that are enabling us to push the boundaries of interface design. Author, designer and code cowboy Cameron Adams will explore some of these areas and how they will apply to our development of online interfaces, including: the possibilities of front-end customisation, application interfaces, browser-native vector graphics, and the general duty of all web developers to make things interesting. Cameron Adams (The Man in Blue) melds a background in Computer Science with over eight years experience in graphic design to create a unique approach to interface design. Using the latest technologies, he likes to play in the intersection between design and code to produce innovative but usable sites and applications. In addition to the projects he’s currently tinkering with, Cameron writes about the Internet and design in

Once seen as unsophisticated, childish and of low artistic value, comic-book art and culture has inspired artists and designers for generations and are now are often untapped resource for web design inspiration. In this session, designer and author of Transcending CSS, Andy Clarke will examine comic book layout, conventions and colour in the context of making inspirational designs for today’s web. Andy Clarke has been working on the web for almost ten years. He is a visual web designer based in the UK and started his design consultancy Stuff and Nonsense in 1998. As lead designer and creative director, his clients include national and international businesses, charities and government bodies. Andy is a member of the Web Standards Project where he redesigned the organization’s web site in 2006. He is also an invited expert to the W3C’s CSS Working Group. Andy regularly educates web designers on how to create beautiful, accessible web sites and he speaks at workshops and conference events worldwide. He wri

CSS level 2 became a standard in 1998. The last revision of HTML4 dates from 1999. That’s long time ago in Web years, but they aren’t forgotten: after several years of work, CSS is close to a revision and browser support is better than ever. It’s necessary, because CSS needs to grow: vertical text, columns, print support, complex layouts and much more is increasingly demanded. Likewise, there is a big effort to revise HTML. Interest is so high, the W3C is trying a new process, to let more people participate in the editing work. There are also new forms, standards for combining SVG and HTML and new work on the security of forms. Bert’s here to tell us: we haven’t seen the end of the Web page yet. Bert Bos was, in 1994, one of the original authors of CSS. He joined W3C in 1995 to set up W3C’s internationalization activity and was part of the groups that created HTML and XML. He is now coordinator for W3C’s style sheet and math activities. Bert studied mathematics in Groningen, The Netherlands, and holds a P

In 1998 the American Dialect Society voted "e-" (as in electronic) as the "word of the year". This signified how important the internet had become in our world. Almost 10 years later we’re undergoing an even larger change. Only this time the "e-" prefix stands for "everywhere". Mobile content, services and commerce are changing the way we communicate, work and do business. And these changes are building upon the already massive revolutions brought about by the internet - only faster and made more pervasive. This presentation will look at the strategic issues facing managers and developers as they strive to adapt to this literally "moving" target. The session will be highly interactive in nature so make sure you bring your mobile device! Alex Young has been involved in online for over a decade, moving from instructional design, visual and interaction design through to project and people management within the education, training, TV and telecommunications fields. This journey has instilled a sense of purp

There can be a feeling in the web development community that "SEO is evil" - Scott Gledhill cuts through the hype to focus on how developing accessible, standards compliant websites is the first step in creating search engine friendly websites - and also talks about what is being done in the industry to make websites more findable, sometimes at the cost of making them less usable. SEO is big business and it’s attracting a whole new breed of web practitioners into our industry. Learn the advantages that we have as web standards developers when it comes to the practice of search engine optimisation, as well as some of the disadvantages, and how to overcome them. We will discuss how to handle overzealous search engine marketers, how to find your way through the hype and buzzwords of the industry and, most importantly, how not to compromise your websites’ integrity, best practice development and usability when being confronted by SEO. Scott Gledhill is Web Technology Strategist at News Digital Media (NDM) i

Hear all about the exciting possibilities created by these technologies from Google Australia. Raul has been involved in digital-media technology (video animation, graphics, image processing, printing) for over 25 years, as software developer, architect, entrepreneur, and team leader. He recently joined Google Australia where he is helping to build and manage the growing Engineering team. Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).