Sessions

The presentations and panels will tackle a multitude of aspects of web design, covering topics such as user-interface design, web standards, CSS, DOM scripting, and accessibility.

To be spread across two tracks, here are the sessions so far confirmed, with more to be announced soon...

Keynote Presentation

Presented by Eric Meyer

Beyond a Code Audit

When considering web site accessibility most people tend to concentrate on ensuring that code conforms to the WAI guidelines when, in reality, there are many issues that can only be identified by employing a range of access technologies and disabled end users. For example, did you know that many people with a vision impairment using magnification software miss vital fields when filling out badly laid out forms, or that voice recognition users can't click on image buttons if their alt text doesn't correspond exactly with the image text? Not everyone appreciates that most screen reader users have JavaScript enabled and hence won't be accessing your noscript content, or that dyslexic users will see rivers of white in your fully justified text? Robin Christopherson, AbilityNet's Web Consultancy Manager and himself blind, will be explaining these issues and many more with practical demonstrations of access technologies.

Beyond a Code Audit will be presented by Robin Christopherson

Bug Hunting

In an ideal world, our sites would work properly in every browser. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world, and browsers are littered with bugs and inconsistencies. Hacks are seen by many as the answer. Arcane sigils with exotic names that, when applied to your code, will magically fix your broken layouts. Hacks are definitely potent tools in your armoury, but with great power comes great responsibility, and hacks should not be used lightly. In this session Andy will discuss where bugs come from, how to find them and what to do with them when you do.

Bug Hunting will be presented by Andy Budd

Bulletproof Web Design

Embrace the flexibility that's made possible with XHTML and CSS while creating compelling designs. Prepare your designs for worst-case scenarios, increased user control and readability for varying text sizes and amounts of content. Dan will attempt to help you "let go of pixel precision", while explaining the importance of lean markup, flexible CSS and planning for the unknown. We'll also tie various components of a page's design together by walking through the construction of a bulletproof, single-page template.

Bulletproof Web Design will be presented by Dan Cederholm

Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps

As the buzz and excitement around Web 2.0 continues to increase, much is already changing in how we design and develop online. In this presentation, Jeffrey Veen will look at how new thinking is being infused into design practices in trends such as Ajax, syndication, tagging, progressive enhancement, and anticipatory interaction, philosophical shifts in business towards openness, generosity, and collaboration with users.

Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps will be presented by Jeffrey Veen

The Fine Art of Web Design

Andy Clarke is a designer who sees web pages wherever he goes. From paintings on the walls of Tate Modern to posters on the walls of tube stations. He sees web pages everywhere, leaping out from the pages of magazines and newspapers, record covers, political posters. It might be that Andy just needs to remember to take his medication, but he finds inspiration for innovative designs in the most unlikely of places.

In his presentation, Andy will take you for a ride around his world, showing how he gains inspiration for layouts and designs which break with the boxey conventions which are sometimes associated with web standards and how we can use advanced CSS to implement them in progressive and accessible ways.

The Fine Art of Web Design will be presented by Andy Clarke

Fine Typography On the Web

With a technological revolution and 500 years of typographic tradition under our belts, why in the world has the Web been stuck with Verdana and Arial for so long? There are now multiple ways to include custom fonts in an HTML document, and each has its advantages and drawbacks. In this session, from the creator of the renowned CSS Zen Garden, you'll learn about these methods, see how to implement them, and find out when and why they make sense for your projects.

Fine Typography On The Web will be presented by Dave Shea

Good Design vs. Great Design

When it comes to aesthetics, you might think you know what makes a good web site design, but what does it take to really tip the scales and make something a great design? Three designers, well known for their high-impact designs, lead the debate with opinions on key indicators of great design and a review of some particularly exemplary examples.

The Good Design vs. Great Design panel will be hosted by Jon Hicks, Cameron Moll, and Veerle Pieters

IE: 7 and Beyond

Chris Wilson, the Group Program Manager of the Internet Explorer Platform team, talks about the implications of IE7 for web designers and developers and the future of IE and web standards.

IE: 7 and Beyond will be presented by Chris Wilson

Internationalisation: Awakening the Sleeping Giant

The W3C has been involved in developing technologies and techniques to manage the various aspects of internationalisation, localisation, and multilingual document management and design for a very long time. But most Web designers and developers are only beginning to learn what's involved in building sites for the global environment. In this overview, Molly will cover the primary concepts within internationalisation, giving insight into the general topics that Web designers and developers will face as they begin to work on global sites.

Internationalisation: Awakening the Sleeping Giant will be presented by Molly E. Holzschlag

JavaScript Libraries: Friend or Foe?

Like it or not, JavaScript libraries like Prototype, Dojo and Mochikit are making a huge impact on the field of DOM Scripting. As AJAX matures and the complexity of the script to support it increases it becomes much less feasible to re-invent the wheel and produce code from scratch for every project. In addition to this, the growth of AJAX and the current interest in Web 2.0 are bringing many new people to the field who don't want to spend the long hard years learning the arcane knowledge required to wrestle with browser bugs and API differences. A panel of DOM Scripting experts discuss the whys and what-fors of JavaScript libraries, the advantages, the disadvantages and what affect this might have on the future of DOM scripting.

The JavaScript Libraries: Friend or Foe? panel will be hosted by Cameron Adams, Peter-Paul Koch, Stuart Langridge, Dan Webb, and Simon Willison

Microformats: Evolving The Web

The microformats community believes that standards should do less, not more. Data formats should adapt to current web publishing behaviours and reuse existing broadly interoperably implemented standards. Easy to adopt formats are enabling a diverse set of web designers and developers to visibly publish, share, and consume all kinds of common information, and microformats are leading the way.

Microformats: Evolving the Web will be presented by Tantek Çelik

Mobile Web Design

Designing Web sites that are usable, accessible and elegant has its challenges - but add digital products to the mix and it's a whole, new ball game. The variety of screen sizes, devices, and operating platforms alone can be overwhelming.

This presentation takes a look at where we're at, where we're headed, and how to best extend an existing or planned website to handheld devices with minimal repurposing of code, content, and images. Discover the elements of forward thinking design needed to maintain consistency, regardless of where and how users access your content.

Mobile Web Design will be presented by Cameron Moll

The New Accessibility Guidelines: WCAG 2.0

The W3C's long-awaited new accessibility guidelines are just about to drop, but do you know what they're all about? In this panel, we'll try and get to grips with the philosophy, the content, the good, the bad, and the controversies of the second edition of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and look at how they impact on areas such as design, or the use of widgets.

The New Accessibility Guidelines: WCAG 2.0 panel will be hosted by Andy Clarke, Patrick H. Lauke, Gez Lemon, and Ian Lloyd.

Strategic CSS Project Management

Who's in charge: you or your Cascading Style Sheets? Authoring a simple CSS file for a static page is easy enough, but the story gets complicated when you're talking about multiple pages and varying layouts across an ever-changing site driven by a content-management system. Factor in the management of browsers and their quirks -- and teams of people and their quirks -- and it becomes obvious that a sound project-management strategy is necessary to make the most of your code. This panel discusses how to gracefully deal with legacy browser issues, handle layout and file management demands, and manage team coordination when building Web sites with CSS.

The Strategic CSS Project Management panel will be hosted by Rachel Andrew, Andy Budd, Roger Johansson, and Dave Shea

Using DOM Scripting to Plug the Holes in CSS

CSS is a great technology... in theory. In practice, there are a lot of powerful CSS features that we can't use because of poor browser support *cough*IE*cough*.

Fortunately, the Document Object Model enjoys very good cross-browser support. Not only that, but the DOM can be used to update styles. Using a combination of JavaScript and the DOM, you can achieve effects that are indistinguishable from the more advanced aspects of CSS 2.1 and CSS 3. Waiter, there's presentation in my behaviour!

This talk will demonstrate some examples of this kind of CSS patching. It won't stop there. You will also learn how to use DOM Scripting to achieve stylistic effects that would be impossible using CSS alone.

Using DOM Scripting to Plug the Holes in CSS will be presented by Jeremy Keith

Yahoo! vs. Yahoo!

How are Web Standards, semantic markup, CSS, and JavaScript used on the Web's largest site? We explore that question through case studies from two Yahoo! products. Both products share base infrastructure and goals, but unique requirements and influences lead to different decisions and compromises, and vastly different outcomes.

By contrasting the approach taken by each team, we'll garner insights into how Web Standards are used, in practice, under the pressures of massive scale and global distribution.

Yahoo! vs. Yahoo! will be presented by Nate Koechley