This is going to sound small-town-boy-in-the-big-city of me, but one of the best parts of attending An Event Apart San Francisco was the commute. Each morning started with a rise on an escalator from the quiet roaring trains and muted conversations of the Montgomery BART station into the urban bustle and dizzying, glittering towers of the Financial District. Joining tailored businessmen and iPodded art students at the crosswalk facing the Palace, I'd cross Market Street and enter the hotel from the New Montgomery Street entrance, where I would be greeted by the majesty of the Garden Court before making a left to the Grand Ballroom and a tasty breakfast.
The conference reunited me with Jennie, whom I haven't seen since graduation over two years ago. Unlike our college days, when we'd sit in the back row of Computer Science lectures and I'd fall asleep working on the Aggie crossword puzzle, we sat in the second row from the front, attentive and eager to learn. Making websites is our passion, after all, and we were about to hear from a speaker lineup that consisted of some of the most relevant voices in our field. We were joined by Hau, who I knew online through Jennie back in the day, but never had the pleasure of meeting in person.
There are some great writeups on the San Francisco event already out there (I particularly recommend Brandon Kelly's summary, or Joe Clark's series of posts), but hopefully I'll add something new.
Secrets of the CSS Jedi, by Eric Meyer
Memorable quote: "Truly understanding the inline model is to achieve a deep and abiding sense of wonder that any page renders at all."
Eric revealed that the secret is to detach one's mental model of how elements should be styled (usually related to default browser styles), and to style them as we need, using the example of a vertical bar graph created from a table element. Realizing that a table didn't need to be set to display: table; was a revelation that took Eric "oh gosh … nine years, no probably ten years to figure this out."
It was extremely helpful having Eric walk through his stylesheet line by line, dispensing little helpful tips and explanations for particularly puzzling style declarations.
Design Your Way Out of a Paper Bag by Jason Santa Maria
My first note on this presentation says "Jason Santa Maria is funny."
And indeed he is. Jason entertained attendees as he walked us through his design process, from discovery and inspiration to branding and layout. He pulled examples from his redesign of the Wordpress logo to Happy Cog's work on AIGA's website. Particularly memorable was how he compared the layouts of Philadelphia and London as a metaphor for designing with a grid, and even the growth of a website.
His parting point: sweat the small stuff. If you miss a few details, they proliferate, and after a while they affect the overall effectiveness of a design, and the effectiveness of the message, too.
In Q&A, Jason gave a great answer about working with clients who don't "get" design, emphasizing the importance of keeping the client involved throughout the design process, clearly outlining each step from the beginning.
Writing the User Interface by Jeffrey Zeldman
Memorable quote: "This is what the project manager does. He goes to the designer and says 'Is it ready?' and the designer says something I can't repeat on stage."
Jeffrey is funny, too. Keenly aware that he was the only thing between hundreds of hungry attendees and lunch, he breezed through his presentation on the relationship between design and writing on the web. His key point: Design helps people read less.
Defining the different types of copy on a website, he emphasized how each should be used to emphasize usability and brand. He went on to provide examples from some of Happy Cog's work, and finished up with a demonstration on how to turn "manure" copy into gold copy.
Lunch
Was delicious. See?
Photo by Keith Chu.
My lunch companions and I discussed the morning's presentations, which were excellent across the board.
Why I hate online captioning by Joe Clark
This presentation was puzzling, since I wasn't quite sure what to take away. Maybe I missed the point.
Joe spent some time outlining his work in accessibility—since he is the seminal authority in the field, he certainly had a lot to say. Jennie IMed me during the talk to say she was lost, and I was a little lost, too— I think we came to the conference expecting inspiration, or things we could take back and apply in our work come Monday morning, and so far only understood that captioning on the web is a mess, isn't a good idea, and there isn't much we can do about it. Hrm.
Still in IM, Jennie mentioned how she had a colleague whose interest in Section 508 stemmed from having relatives with disabilities. Developers are interested in accessibility, but we still don't know how to do it. We want simple, straightforward solutions and best practices, but have the darnedest time finding them. We face client disinterest (Target lawsuit notwithstanding). We were told that it's enough to try to design with web standards … and then were told that wasn't true. We're left befuddled and frustrated. Lame excuse? Probably.
Content Strategy to the Rescue by Erin Kissane
I must confess that Erin's name wasn't familiar to me, even though I'm a near-religious reader of the magazine she edits. Her presentation and bright pink hair doubled for a win in my book. She demonstrated passion and poise on par with the four better-known names that came before her — no small feat. Starting with the laws of content strategy ("ignoring it hurts everyone" and "anyone can do it"), Erin proceeded to define content strategy by comparing it to art direction, technical specs, brand strategy, and information architecture. The key, she noted, was to ask the right "who, what, and how" questions about audience and content delivery. She then moved on to implementing content strategy, and finished up with an optimistic view of the future for content strategy, comparing current interest in it to the growing interest in information architecture about nine years ago.
Why Good Content Must Suck by Jared Spool
Memorable quote: I have only one word to describe Google: Jonestown.
In spite of frequent breaks, most of the attendees were looking a little haggard by the last presentation. Jared took note and said "Remember, I'm the only thing between you and a party," referring to the opening night social at the London Wine Bar. To his credit, Jared was tremendously entertaining, quipping through the whole presentation as he regaled us with study after study on user experience, drawing at times surprising conclusions (I had my first "Eureka!" moment of the conference during his talk), and generally waking up the crowd. He even finished up with a magic trick with the help of Jason Santa Maria and an audience member. I definitely anticipated an informative talk from Jared, but I didn't expect to finish off the first day of the conference laughing as hard as I did.
Jared's a nice guy: I asked him some questions about user research after his talk, and although he'd already handled his fair share of questions, he took the time to answer mine thoroughly as we walked from the conference room to the hotel exit.
That's it for Day One. AEA San Francisco Day 2 wrap-up will follow shortly.
Well, yes, my presentation was the one that was "off-topic." Maybe someday you'll work on a site that has to provide video; at that point you might look back and decide my presentation was useful after all. Also, *I* didn't tell you or your friend that it wasn't worth designing with standards.
Hi Joe, thanks for visiting.
What was challenging about your presentation was that we had plenty of examples of what doesn't work, and why, but not too many examples on what does work. I do expect to work with video soon, actually, and I want to do the right thing, but came away unsure of what that was. I did come away with the impression that captioning is easy to get wrong, that there are few tools available to get it right, and even when one does get it right (as with your CBC example, which sounded like a tremendous success), poor oversight and management can easily reverse all that work. I ended up with the impression that it may be wiser to stay far, far away from online video captioning.
(There are only two things I've seen that truly generate an interest in accessibility — lawsuits, or personal relationships with people with disabilities. And that's sad.)
The note about designing with standards wasn't directed at you, either — rather, it was an expression of my general frustration with making sites more accessible. A few years ago, it was generally accepted that designing with standards was enough. Then, some people came out and challenged this assumption (and rightly so). Section 508 seems to be the baseline standard, but it's just that — a baseline. What do we need to do to go above and beyond? I think there's a real desire among developers to incorporate accessibility measures, but still, after all these years, a lack of know-how or resources. In large enterprises, I imagine that there should be budget to bring on board an accessibility expert or educate developers, but at the small to medium-sized organizations (which employ a healthy chunk of web professionals, according to the recent ALA survey), accessibility fights with and loses to other priorities. In that sort of environment, what steps should an accessibility-aware developer take to put forth their best effort?
Whew … that was longer than I expected it to be. Hope it clears some things up.
Swing by CNET next time you're over there. ;o)
Ryan: Haha— I'll try to remember. :)
That sushi place looks awesome.