• Web Design Worldview, Part 1
• Web Design Worldview, Part 2
• Web Design Worldview, Part 3
• Web Design Worldview, Part 4

Speaking of websites: we've launched our official wedding website. May write up a case study if I find time, but I just wanted to note for posterity that it got featured on CSS Mania, the first time a site I've built has been featured in one of the major* CSS galleries. Coolio, and thanks, CSS Mania.

*What defines "major" these days in CSS galleries, anyways? I have no idea. There's like a jillion of them these days, but CSS Mania still seems fairly important.

She said yes.

The last time I was at the Moscone Center, I was attending IHRSA, the premier international tradeshow for the healthclub industry. Quite a different crowd, let me tell you. ;)

Neat experience so far -- only had an exhibitor pass, so I couldn't see the keynote, but the Apple booth (obscured by a thick black canvas) broadcast the whole thing live (sound; no picture). Other people who didn't shell out the hundreds of dollars to get a pass into the keynote were sitting on the exhibition hall floor around the booth, listening in. I fortunately sat next to some guys with a WiFi-ed laptop, and they were able to get images from MacRumors. Felt strangely similar to camping out for a midnight showing of Star Wars.

Nice thing about being there, though, was that once the canvas went down, I got to be one of the first people to play with it. Very impressive little machine. I was surprised that it contained a hard drive (the Apple employee demo'ing the machine mentioned that it used the same drive as an iPod). Not a bad machine for $1799, though if I really wanted a second laptop (not likely), I'd probably go for an Asus Eee PC, based on bang for buck. The solid state drive version runs around $3000 -- yowsers!

• Woken up at 5AM, feeling refreshed and ready to start the day, for the first time in months
  
• Had a great time in personal devotions, especially encouraged by the theme of renewal in Nehemiah 8, and promise in John 21
• Discovered that my iPod, which I couldn't get working after it gave me the Sad Face of Doom a few days ago, has somehow resuscitated itself.
• Tried out my new $5 RCA headphones from Woot and delighted to find that they had decent sound quality and fit
• Went to the ARC and had a great morning workout in for the first time in months
• Realized cashed-out vacation time = bigger paycheck than I expected
• Scheduled my last payment ever on undergraduate school loans (I'm now debt-free!)
• Called up my old DSL provider and convinced them to cancel a $100 charge
• Fixed and ate a nutritious, high-protein, high-fiber, low-fat, low-calorie breakfast

I got 47 out of 90. Oddly, CITE was the first tag that came to mind, although I don't think I've ever used that tag in my life.

Some of my embarassing omissions: TITLE, BLOCKQUOTE (which Kottke actually mentions in his post about the quiz ... duh), and, ironically, CODE, which I used to semantically mark up the tags in this post.

How well can you do?

It's like having Snoop Dogg introduce the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Doug Bowman's been kind of quiet in the blogosphere of late, but that hasn't diminished the respect he gets from web professionals for his work in pushing web standards at a corporate level. As the lead of visual design at Google, you figure he still has a lot to say. His presentation was more inspirational than practical — you'd figure as much since most of his work at Google is probably sealed away behind an NDA. Still, it was very good.

He started his presentation with a quote by Malcolm X: "The future belongs to those who prepare for it today." The upshot: organizations that design to scale well now will be those that succeed tomorrow. Describing an organization that has grown tremendously in the past 50 years, he asked the audience to identify it. I felt kind of smug as the first person with the correct answer: "McDonald's." He also cited IKEA as an example, noting that their efficiently-packed products save warehouse space, thus scaling very well.

He went on to address web-specific challenges: growth (Gmail's invitation system as an example of controlling it), flexibility, speed, and universal appeal, especially in relation to internationalization. That last one rung true for me, as I recalled the challenge I had at Intel adapting a design for nearly two dozen locales worldwide (I still tell people how hard it is to convert a US English design to Thai, which has no spaces between words).

The best part of his presentation was describing his strategy to quickly and objectively evaluate design decisions. Since "everyone has an opinion on visual design," he set up a system where designs were checked against clusters of desired brand attributes. They were also compared with brand attributes that his team would want to avoid. Smart, simple, but effective.

Interface Cosmetology by Jina Bolton

I was definitely looking forward to this presentation, since I have great respect for Jina Bolton's work, both on her personal site and her work at Apple. After starting with a self-deprecating jab at her famous headshot ("That's me — airbrushing does wonders."), she went on to break down design into many of its key components: layout, composition, typography, and imagery, illustrating with lots of screenshots and quotes — but not much else. Perhaps I came in with the wrong expectation: I was hoping she would touch on more specifics, maybe even walk through some of the design decisions she made on a past piece. Although I did like some of the quotes she picked, and especially liked her tips on getting inspired, overall I was kind of disappointed. Jina is a great designer, and I'd really hoped to learn more about how great designers like her think.

As a counterpoint to my impression, Jennie thought it was an inspiring presentation, and even felt some camaraderie with Jina— it was as if she was listening to someone who thought and designed just like she did. That was pretty cool.

Standards in the Enterprise by Kimberly Blessing

I have Kimberly's name written down in my notes with the title "professional standards evangelist," which she earned after leading a massive push for standards at AOL. Yowsers!

I'm showing my ignorance by saying this, but I'm not really sure what "the enterprise" is. Does the term refer to large corporations? It seemed that way, as her talk seemed to be addressed to those who work in environments with a lot of people and a lot of bureaucracy— it reminded me of some of my time at Intel. Bureaucracy isn't necessarily a bad thing— done right, it's helpful for standardizing processes and ensuring knowledge doesn't become tribal— but I had trouble relating to the talk as I now work at a medium-sized organization.

That actually got me thinking that it might be nice for a future conference to address "Standards in Small to Medium-Sized Organizations." Web standards seems to have been adopted at small startups and design firms on one end and large corporations on the other end, but I wonder if that mature understanding of web development today has penetrated "non-webby" organizations somewhere in the middle. Doing some quick math, I figured that around 36% of the people who responded to A List Apart's 2007 Web Design Survey work for organizations that have between 11 and 750 employees— that's nearly half the people who answered the question on organization size. I'd be really curious to see what their experiences as "standards evangelists" has been.

The State of CSS in an IE7 World by Eric Meyer

This was a fun talk that made the CSS nerd in me salivate a little. Finally being able to use fixed positioning, attribute selectors, child selectors, and alpha channels in PNGs without browser-specific hacks is like being handed power tools after building houses for years with just hammers, screwdrivers, and a little dental floss.

They were actually giving away books on the second day to anyone who asked questions, so I had two up my sleeve, but they were answered before I got my chance.

First question: do other modern browsers support these selectors? A quick Google search answered in the affirmative.

Second question: Well, what about backwards-compatibility with IE6? Eric answered that one: Use Dean Edwards' IE7 library, which I'd heard of but never used. Now with an Eric Meyer endorsement, I'll definitely give it a shot.

Attribute selectors, here I come!

Learning to Love Forms by Aaron Gustafson

Aaron was another unfamiliar name to me, but now I'm definitely interested in taking a look at his book. Another great presentation, he showed he really knows his stuff when it comes to styles and semantic markup in forms. The presentation covered a lot of ground, though, and I felt like I missed a lot of the golden tips he threw out while I frantically tried to keep up my note-taking. Hopefully the presentation slides will reveal something.

Selling Design by Jeffrey Zeldman

Memorable quote: "Sell ideas, not pixels."

This last talk was an inspiring send-off. Noting that client relationships are a lot like other relationships, Zeldman suggested that we should approach working with clients as we would approach dating. For example, a first meeting with a client should be treated like a blind date: if you're feeling "bad date vibes," it's probably not a client worth the trouble. I suspect this is a good instinct to have on during job interviews, too. If you make it past that stage, the next step is to build trust.

With those principles established, he went into the specifics of the process, showing how he worked through his relationship with past clients. The examples were memorable, including his work on Amnesty International and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Zeldman is a really nice guy, too. I remember going up to him after the presentation with a question, and not wanting to blurt out an incoherent "omigosh-you-are-such-an-inspiration-can-i-have-your-autograph." He'd had a long two days, but stuck around to answer my question and many others.

Thank you, Jeffrey, Eric, and everyone else that made AEA San Francisco a reality. I'm definitely planning on being there when you come back to the Bay next year.

Doug Bowman's been kind of quiet in the blogosphere of late, but that hasn't diminished the respect he gets from web professionals for his work in pushing web standards at a corporate level. As the lead of visual design at Google, you figure he still has a lot to say. His presentation was more inspirational than practical — you'd figure as much since most of his work at Google is probably sealed away behind an NDA. Still, it was very good.

He started his presentation with a quote by Malcolm X: "The future belongs to those who prepare for it today." The upshot: organizations that design to scale well now will be those that succeed tomorrow. Describing an organization that has grown tremendously in the past 50 years, he asked the audience to identify it. I felt kind of smug as the first person with the correct answer: "McDonald's." He also cited IKEA as an example, noting that their efficiently-packed products save warehouse space, thus scaling very well.

He went on to address web-specific challenges: growth (Gmail's invitation system as an example of controlling it), flexibility, speed, and universal appeal, especially in relation to internationalization. That last one rung true for me, as I recalled the challenge I had at Intel adapting a design for nearly two dozen locales worldwide (I still tell people how hard it is to convert a US English design to Thai, which has no spaces between words).

The best part of his presentation was describing his strategy to quickly and objectively evaluate design decisions. Since "everyone has an opinion on visual design," he set up a system where designs were checked against clusters of desired brand attributes. They were also compared with brand attributes that his team would want to avoid. Smart, simple, but effective.

Interface Cosmetology by Jina Bolton

I was definitely looking forward to this presentation, since I have great respect for Jina Bolton's work, both on her personal site and her work at Apple. After starting with a self-deprecating jab at her famous headshot ("That's me — airbrushing does wonders."), she went on to break down design into many of its key components: layout, composition, typography, and imagery, illustrating with lots of screenshots and quotes — but not much else. Perhaps I came in with the wrong expectation: I was hoping she would touch on more specifics, maybe even walk through some of the design decisions she made on a past piece. Although I did like some of the quotes she picked, and especially liked her tips on getting inspired, overall I was kind of disappointed. Jina is a great designer, and I'd really hoped to learn more about how great designers like her think.

As a counterpoint to my impression, Jennie thought it was an inspiring presentation, and even felt some camaraderie with Jina— it was as if she was listening to someone who thought and designed just like she did. That was pretty cool.

Standards in the Enterprise by Kimberly Blessing

I have Kimberly's name written down in my notes with the title "professional standards evangelist," which she earned after leading a massive push for standards at AOL. Yowsers!

I'm showing my ignorance by saying this, but I'm not really sure what "the enterprise" is. Does the term refer to large corporations? It seemed that way, as her talk seemed to be addressed to those who work in environments with a lot of people and a lot of bureaucracy— it reminded me of some of my time at Intel. Bureaucracy isn't necessarily a bad thing— done right, it's helpful for standardizing processes and ensuring knowledge doesn't become tribal— but I had trouble relating to the talk as I now work at a medium-sized organization.

That actually got me thinking that it might be nice for a future conference to address "Standards in Small to Medium-Sized Organizations." Web standards seems to have been adopted at small startups and design firms on one end and large corporations on the other end, but I wonder if that mature understanding of web development today has penetrated "non-webby" organizations somewhere in the middle. Doing some quick math, I figured that around 36% of the people who responded to A List Apart's 2007 Web Design Survey work for organizations that have between 11 and 750 employees— that's nearly half the people who answered the question on organization size. I'd be really curious to see what their experiences as "standards evangelists" has been.

The State of CSS in an IE7 World by Eric Meyer

This was a fun talk that made the CSS nerd in me salivate a little. Finally being able to use fixed positioning, attribute selectors, child selectors, and alpha channels in PNGs without browser-specific hacks is like being handed power tools after building houses for years with just hammers, screwdrivers, and a little dental floss.

They were actually giving away books on the second day to anyone who asked questions, so I had two up my sleeve, but they were answered before I got my chance.

First question: do other modern browsers support these selectors? A quick Google search answered in the affirmative.

Second question: Well, what about backwards-compatibility with IE6? Eric answered that one: Use Dean Edwards' IE7 library, which I'd heard of but never used. Now with an Eric Meyer endorsement, I'll definitely give it a shot.

Attribute selectors, here I come!

Learning to Love Forms by Aaron Gustafson

Aaron was another unfamiliar name to me, but now I'm definitely interested in taking a look at his book. Another great presentation, he showed he really knows his stuff when it comes to styles and semantic markup in forms. The presentation covered a lot of ground, though, and I felt like I missed a lot of the golden tips he threw out while I frantically tried to keep up my note-taking. Hopefully the presentation slides will reveal something.

Selling Design by Jeffrey Zeldman

Memorable quote: "Sell ideas, not pixels."

This last talk was an inspiring send-off. Noting that client relationships are a lot like other relationships, Zeldman suggested that we should approach working with clients as we would approach dating. For example, a first meeting with a client should be treated like a blind date: if you're feeling "bad date vibes," it's probably not a client worth the trouble. I suspect this is a good instinct to have on during job interviews, too. If you make it past that stage, the next step is to build trust.

With those principles established, he went into the specifics of the process, showing how he worked through his relationship with past clients. The examples were memorable, including his work on Amnesty International and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Zeldman is a really nice guy, too. I remember going up to him after the presentation with a question, and not wanting to blurt out an incoherent "omigosh-you-are-such-an-inspiration-can-i-have-your-autograph." He'd had a long two days, but stuck around to answer my question and many others.

Thank you, Jeffrey, Eric, and everyone else that made AEA San Francisco a reality. I'm definitely planning on being there when you come back to the Bay next year.

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.

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.

No one belongs here more than you is the promotional site for Miranda July's book of short stories by the same title. Typing a description of how the site works feels like it would suck it dry of some of its magic (go see it for yourself, then come back here!), but here I go: rather than the expected structure of a website -- a navigational homepage, some pages about the book and where to buy it, perhaps an "About the Author" page -- it consists of a photographed sequence of the author's scrawlings with a marker.

Now whether the author chose to go this route because she doesn't know how to code HTML, or to be brashly different (I suspect a combination of both), what results is code that doesn't validate, navigation that doesn't give you context of where you are on the site (and doesn't even have a way to go back to the home page), content that is not accessible (all the text is in images without associated alt tags, for starters), copy that isn't search-optimized (search engine spiders can't even crawl it, anyways), and a load time that laughs in the face of the "8-second rule." Even the way the navigation works brings us back to David Siegel's seminal, but now oft-villainized book, Creating Killer Websites, what with its concept of entry "tunnels" to draw visitors in, rather than being upfront with your site structure as Jakob Nielsen and dozens of other usability experts would advocate. The site breaks almost every tried-and-true guideline of over a decade of web design, mantras that I work by and passionately advocate.

Yet, I love this site.

In fact, I went through every page of the site in one sitting on my first visit.

Why do I love this site? Because it works.

That's right -- the site takes twists and turns. Just like a book. In fact, the sequential approach to navigation mirrors the structure of a book, and for good reason: July sells a book of stories by telling a story. How brilliant is that?

The lesson here is not to throw out best practices all willy-nilly when building sites, especially in the arenas of usability and user experience. Rather, in our profession, sometimes it seems very easy to get so caught up in best practices and exciting new technologies and trends that we forget that at its core, a successful website strives to communicate clearly with a real person on the other end. And to achieve its purpose, every aspect of a site must tell that person that "no one belongs here more than you."

That's right -- the site takes twists and turns. Just like a book. In fact, the sequential approach to navigation mirrors the structure of a book, and for good reason: July sells a book of stories by telling a story. How brilliant is that?

The lesson here is not to throw out best practices all willy-nilly when building sites, especially in the arenas of usability and user experience. Rather, in our profession, sometimes it seems very easy to get so caught up in best practices and exciting new technologies and trends that we forget that at its core, a successful website strives to communicate clearly with a real person on the other end. And to achieve its purpose, every aspect of a site must tell that person that "no one belongs here more than you."

You'd think that most teams would run for the hills after that kind of intimidation, but les Bleus barely flinch in the video, and Sébastien Chabal — or "l'Homme des Cavernes" ("the Caveman") as his fans call him — looks positively ready to pick a fight. Go figure -- he has a reputation as a hard-hitting bad boy. So perhaps it's not surprising that the Frenchmen pulled off an upset win, drawing comparisons to a similar 1999 upset over the All Blacks that's considered one of the greatest rugby games ever.

Wow. I should watch rugby more often.

You'd think that most teams would run for the hills after that kind of intimidation, but les Bleus barely flinch in the video, and Sébastien Chabal — or "l'Homme des Cavernes" ("the Caveman") as his fans call him — looks positively ready to pick a fight. Go figure -- he has a reputation as a hard-hitting bad boy. So perhaps it's not surprising that the Frenchmen pulled off an upset win, drawing comparisons to a similar 1999 upset over the All Blacks that's considered one of the greatest rugby games ever.

Wow. I should watch rugby more often.

During the break between Eric Meyer and Aaron Gustafson, I headed to the other side of the Palace to use the men's restroom that didn't have a queue. At the restroom sink, I waited as an elderly man with a cane and a newsboy cap washed his hands. He was hunched over with age, and moved slowly and deliberately, as if the task of turning on a faucet demanded his most intense concentration.

As he turned from the sink with shuffling steps, I noticed pins on the lapel of his navy blazer: a sergeant's rank insignia, crossed cavalry swords, and a silver "10."

"Did you serve?" I asked him softly.

He turned his head up and peered at me with eyes squinted almost shut. "Eh?"

It was then that I noticed the brown buffalo pin beside the crossed swords. My eyes widened as I repeated my question. "Did you serve?"

His expression didn't change, but he answered: "Yes. Yes I did."

He started to turn to the door, drying his hands with a paper towel. "A long time ago. Long before you."

As he shuffled toward the door, I called after him. "Thank you."

He stopped with the door open, turned his head, and acknowledged me with a nod.

"You're welcome."

I looked for him after leaving the restroom, and watched as he made his way slowly up the lobby stairs into the sunlight that fell through the hotel's immense glass entrance.

Getting back to my laptop in the conference room, I confirmed with Wikipedia what I suspected: the man was probably a member of the 10th Cavalry Regiment — an original Buffalo Soldier.

The first time my coworker Melanie introduced me to Loncheria Morales (or Taco De Oro -- there are multiple signs on the truck), she indicated that it was a great taco truck because of all the bottle caps on the ground. Lots of caps indicate repeat customers and a truck that doesn't need to make a quick get-away in case of health code violations or even worse, bad food.

Although "Pedro Morales" is the name on the side, I've only ever seen two women working the truck's cramped kitchen, presumably a mother-daughter pair. On my most recent visit, I could tell the Morales' have been doing well because they'd set up a picnic table for their customers under the truck's blue canopy. And no wonder: without fail, the food they serve up is filling, fresh, and tasty. Although I savor their carnitas tacos and burritos, this time I opted for something presumably healthier and ordered four "tacos pollos" (yes, my Spanish is fantastic).

"With everything?" the younger woman asked, as she penciled my order in a worn, ruled notebook. She usually takes orders, while her mother works the grill.

"Yes, please," I answered as I handed her four bills. At a dollar a piece, the tacos are a steal.

Stepping away from the window, I moved under the shade of the truck's blue sun shades and surveyed the other customers. A landscaping crew occupied the picnic table with a sheriff's deputy. The officer kept a watchful eye on his orange-garbed work crew, who ate their lunch inside a white police van. Two other customers in line behind me ordered burritos and tacos, and also sought shelter in the shade.

Fifteen minutes later, the line at the order window was getting long, the two customers behind me had gotten their orders, and mine still hadn't come up.

Cutting in line, I asked "Are those chicken tacos coming?"

The girl at the window gave me a quizzical look.

"Pollo," I said. "Tacos pollos."

She carefully looked over the worn notebook, absently tucking a stray lock of bleached-blond hair behind her ear. Turning back a page, she ran her pencil down the page to the bottom. Her mother turned from the grill and looked over the girl's shoulder.

Then, together they looked up at me apologetically. "Sorry."

Somehow, they'd missed my order. The girl smiled sheepishly, said something to her mother, and turned to start working on my tacos. The older woman looked at me and gave me a warm smile, the sort of look you'd think would be reserved for her favorite grandchild. Even after turning back to the grill, she kept looking back to give me that apologetic smile.

My order was up soon after, but the girl signaled me to wait as she handed it to me through the window. Reaching below the counter, she counted out and handed me four crisp dollar bills, a full refund.

I shook my head and said no -- I mean, a fifteen minute wait is nothing, and that heart-breaking grandmotherly look was more than l I'd ever want as an apology. The girl insisted emphatically, though, and with people in line behind me getting visibly impatient, I accepted the money.

Contrast this with an experience at a major department store recently, trying to find and print out a gift registry. Salespeople in one department wouldn't help us (Why should they? No commission from us). An enthusiastic older gentleman who was a new hire and didn't quite know the store layout (the only helpful employee we encountered) eventually helped us find the computer to print out registries -- but it was out of paper. We were told to wait in line at a checkout, only to have the cashier tell us to wait for her to ring up the customers behind us before she'd take a few minutes to reload the printer, or even hand us a ream of paper to do it ourselves. We were walking out of the store in frustration when we happened on a working registry computer on a different floor and did in fact make our purchase. Nevertheless, we're not planning on going back to that particular store anytime soon.

As for Loncheria Morales, I've become a regular return customer, not to mention an enthusiastic advocate for their business. How? It wasn't just the money. Read that again: it wasn't just the money.

It was the sincerity and the promptness of their apology, and the fact that they took immediate action, moving my order to the front of their queue. Refunding me for the order was just a nice extra.

It's sad that a multi-million dollar corporation can be out-serviced by a humble taco truck.

The tacos, by the way, were delicious.