Web Directions North | February 6 - 10, 2007 �

• John Allsopp
• Douglas Bowman
• Dan Cederholm
• Tantek Çelik
• Joe Clark
• Andy Clarke
• Derek Featherstone
• Kelly Goto
• Aaron Gustafson
• Paul Hammond
• Adrian Holovaty

• Molly E. Holzschlag
• Jeremy Keith
• Steffen Meschkat
• Cameron Moll
• George Oates
• Veerle Pieters
• Craig Saila
• Dave Shea
• Kaitlin Sherwood
• Jared Spool

John Allsopp

John Allsopp is a founder of Westciv, an Australian web software development and training company, which provides some of the best CSS resources and tutorials on the web. Westciv’s software and training are used in dozens of countries around the World.

The head developer of the leading cross platform CSS editor, Style Master, John has written on web development issues for numerous web and print publications and was one of the earliest members of the Web Standards Project.

Douglas Bowman

Recently appointed Lead Visual Designer at Google, Douglas Bowman is an influential designer whose highly successful and widely acclaimed designs for sites like Blogger, Wired News, Capgemini, and Adaptive Path have pushed him to the forefront of responsible, forward-thinking web design. Bowman refuses to keep techniques and secrets he discovers to himself, instead, opting to share them with his clients and the web community at large. Bowman’s consulting firm, Stopdesign, proves by example that beautiful, functional, and accessible design can coexist with efficient, standards-compliant code.

Bowman believes design should simplify and facilitate our everyday life.

Prior to founding Stopdesign, Bowman led the creation and implementation of design process and standards for an international network of high-traffic sites within Terra Lycos. As Design Director for Wired Digital, he designed and oversaw numerous trend-setting, industry-leading sites under the Wired umbrella. A firm believer in standards-based design, Bowman continues to help spread the word and practice through examples, articles, and tutorials covering design, web standards, and the confluence of the two.

Dan Cederholm

Dan Cederholm is a web designer and author living in Massachusetts, USA. He’s the founder of SimpleBits, a tiny design studio.

A recognized expert in the field of standards-based web design, Dan has worked with Google, MTV, ESPN, Fast Company, Blogger, Odeo, and others. He embraces flexible, adaptable design using web standards.

Dan is the author of two best-selling books: Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders) and Web Standards Solutions (Friends of ED). Dan also runs the popular weblog SimpleBits, where he writes articles and commentary on the web, technology and life. He also plays a mean ukulele.

Tantek Çelik

Tantek Çelik is Chief Technologist at Technorati where he leads the design and development of new standards and technologies. Prior to Technorati, he was a veteran representative to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for Microsoft, where he also helped lead the development of the award-winning Internet Explorer for Macintosh.

As co-founder of the microformats.org community and the Global Multimedia Protocols Group, as well as Steering Committee member of the Web Standards Project and invited expert to the W3C Cascading Style Sheets working group, Tantek is dedicated to advancing open standards and simpler data formats for the Web.

The microformats community believes that standards should do less, not more. Data formats should adapt to current web publishing behaviors 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.

Inspired by the can-do Webzine 2005 organizers (of which Tantek was one), and Tim O’Reilly’s FooCamp, Tantek came up with the idea that a half dozen enthusiasts with no previous conference organizing experience could put on an independent, open, and highly participatory weekend conference, and BarCamp was born this past fall in San Francisco in only six days. Since the first BarCamp was organized on a wiki, its DNA open for all to see, BarCamps have been subsequently duplicated in Amsterdam and Toronto, and are planned in Los Angeles, New York City, Dallas, Phoenix, Portland, DC, Boston, and Ottawa. Want to organize your own BarCamp in your city? Start at barcamp.org.

Tantek lives in San Francisco, and has Bachelor’s and Masters degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University, as well as a strong background in human interface and user centered design from his many years at Apple Computer. He shares his thoughts at tantek.com.

Andy Clarke

Andy Clarke is a sought-after speaker, designer and consultant focusing on creative, accessible web development. Andy is passionate about design and passionate about web standards, often bridging the gap between design and code. He regularly trains designers and developers in the creative applications of web standards and writes about aspects of design and popular culture on his personal web site, And All That Malarkey.

Joe Clark

Author, journalist, and consultant Joe Clark is one of the old-timers in accessibility for people with disabilities. It all started on a dark and stormy night in the late ’70s when he happened upon a captioned television program and has, over the years, led to his writing of a standard text on Web accessibility (Building Accessible Websites); his being named “the king of closed captions” by the Atlantic Monthly; and his expulsion from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. Clark has significant research interests and is cooking up a large research project. He lives in Toronto, where he runs a site about his neighbourhood. (photo credit: Patrick Lauke)

Derek Featherstone

Engaging, surprising, and inspiring, Derek Featherstone has a gift for taking a fresh look at virtually every aspect of web development and teaching it in a way that renews our passion for making the web better for everyone. Featherstone is an internationally-known authority on accessibility and web development, and a respected technical trainer, and author.

Creator of in-depth courses on HTML, CSS, DOM Scripting, and Web 2.0 applications, his approach never fails to champion the cause of web standards and universal accessibility. As founder of Furtherahead, he has been an in-demand consultant to government agencies, educational institutions and private sector companies since 1999. His wealth of experience and insight enables him to provide audiences with immediately applicable, brilliantly simple approaches to everyday challenges in website design. He serves on the Accessibility and DOM Scripting Task Forces of the Web Standards Project, and comments on a variety of subjects at the popular boxofchocolates.ca.

Kelly Goto

Kelly Goto is currently a principal at Gotomedia, an online consultancy for user experience and interaction design, Kelly continues to focus on developing new techniques for collaborative development in digital media. With over 15 years of experience in the advertising, design and interactive industry, Kelly bridges the gap between utility and aesthetics.

Formerly an award-winning Creative Director at Idea Integration Kelly successfully managed the redesigns of many sites ranging from independent to corporate levels. In advertising and commercial design since the late 1980s, Kelly has acted as creative director, designer, and producer for many high-profile clients including KPMG Consulting, Compaq, IBM, Warner Bros., National Geographic, Adobe Corporation, Paramount Television, Macromedia Corp., and Sony Pictures. Kelly is the co-author of the highly acclaimed book Web Redesign: Workflow that Works.

Aaron Gustafson

After getting hooked on the web in 1996 and spending several years pushing pixels and bits for the likes of IBM and Konica Minolta, Aaron Gustafson decided to focus full-time on his own web consultancy, Easy! Designs LLC. Aaron is a member of the Web Standards Project (WaSP) and the Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS). He also serves as Technical Editor for A List Apart, is a contributing writer for Digital Web Magazine, and is quickly building a library of writing and editing credits in meatspace. He has graced the stage at numerous conferences including An Event Apart, COMDEX, SXSW, and The Ajax Experience and is frequently called on to provide web standards training in both the public and private sector.

Paul Hammond

Paul Hammond is a web developer, product manager and father. He has been building websites for as long as he can remember, and is now part of the Yahoo! Technology Development group. Before that he led technical project management at BBC Radio and Music interactive.

Paul regularly speaks on subjects from javascript and APIs to the future of broadcasting, at events including Emerging Technology, d.Construct and xtech. He is currently living somewhere between London and San Francisco, and keeps a technical weblog at paulhammond.org.

Adrian Holovaty

Adrian Holovaty is a Web developer/journalist. During the day, he’s Editor of Editorial Innovations at washingtonpost.com; just as newspaper reporters write articles and TV journalists shoot video, Adrian writes journalism Web apps. He frequently evangelizes the use of technology by journalists and has spoken internationally about “journalism via computer programming.”

Cocreator and lead developer of the popular Django Web framework, Adrian enjoys contributing to open-source projects, making information accessible to the public and reverse-engineering things. His All Music Guide fixer was the inspiration for Greasemonkey, and his site chicagocrime.org was one of the original Google Maps hacks.

He lives in Chicago, where he was named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 at age 24. His weblog is at Holovaty.com.

Molly E. Holzschlag

Molly E. Holzschlag is a well-known Web standards advocate, instructor, and author. She is Group Lead for the Web Standards Project (WaSP) and an invited expert to the HTML and GEO working groups at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Via each of these roles, Molly works to educate designers and developers on using Web technologies in practical ways to create highly sustainable, maintainable, accessible, interactive and beautiful Web sites for the global community.

Among her thirty-plus books is the The Zen of CSS Design, co-authored with Dave Shea. The book artfully showcases the most progressive csszengarden.com designs. A popular and colorful individual, Molly has a particular passion for people, blogs, and the use of technology for social progress.

Jeremy Keith

Jeremy Keith is a web developer with the web consultancy firm Clearleft in Brighton, England where he enjoys building accessible, elegant websites using the troika of web standards: XHTML, CSS and the DOM. His online home is adactio.com.

Jeremy is a member of the Web Standards Project where he serves as joint leader of the DOM Scripting Task Force. He wrote the book DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model.

When he’s not building websites, Jeremy plays bouzouki in the alt.country band Salter Cane. He is also the creator and curator of one of the Web’s largest online communities dedicated to Irish traditional music, The Session.

Steffen Meschkat

Steffen Meschkat joined Google in 2004 and currently works on maps.

He earlier co-founded ART+COM AG and datango AG . At ART+COM, he worked on industry funded application research projects of Virtual Reality and, since 1993, the WWW. For datango, he built the client side components of the navigation suite, a technology that augments web applications by simulated user interaction fragments. He has an MSc (”Diplom”) in Physics from Humboldt University in Berlin.

Cameron Moll

Recognized as one of the web’s most balanced designers, Cameron Moll is proficient in functional web design, clean markup, and CSS. Cameron has been involved in the design and redesign of scores of websites, and his influential techniques have found favor in circles across the web.

Cameron’s work has been recognized by respected organizations such as National Public Radio (NPR), Communication Arts, and Veer. He was a contributing author for the book, CSS Mastery. His personal site delivers design how-to in the form of engaging conversation, on-topic banter, and downloadable artwork source files.

George Oates

George Oates joined a company called Ludicorp back in the middle of 2003, having moved from Australia, where she had enjoyed a successful career in the web industry. At the time, Ludicorp was making a hilarious online game called Game Neverending and George jumped in, helping design game elements, the GNE universe, and how players interacted.

It wasn’t long before Ludicorp shifted gears somewhat and decided to enter the photo-sharing space. We were all torn between wanting to keep doing fun game things and the need for money. So, we managed to find a way to blend the two, and Flickr was born!

George has a little tear in her eye now that Flickr is finally thinking about leaving the nest, riding on motorbikes and reading Kerouac. I guess she has the open API to thank for that.

Veerle Pieters

Veerle Pieters is a graphic/web designer based in Deinze, Belgium. Her journal is a popular online source for topics ranging from XHTML/CSS and Expression Engine tutorials to graphic design tips & tricks and personal impressions.

Starting in 1992 as a freelance graphic designer under the name of Duoh! Veerle worked on print orientated projects before moving into designing websites and user interfaces (since 1996). In 2000 Veerle founded Duoh! n.v. together with Geert Leyseele. Drawing has always been her passion, together with listening to soulful funky jazzy chillhouse tunes and an inexplicable fascination for the Balearic isle Ibiza.

Craig Saila

Craig Saila is the Senior Web Producer managing front-end development for The Globe and Mail family of Web sites, where he:

• introduced story-based reader comments to the news sites in 2005;
• brought the first RSS feeds to a Canadian online newspaper;
• and developed a complete redesign of the sites using the Web’s best practices.

Prior to joining CTVglobemedia and The Globe and Mail, he worked in dual of role of both an editor and Web developer for: the Ontario Science Centre; Sun Media’s CANOE; a business magazine company; and one of Torstar’s early online experiments, a daily webzine covering technology. In the early-2000s, he was also an assistant editor for Digital Web Magazine; he also built the templates for that site’s standards-based redesign.

For five years, starting in 1997, Saila taught basic Web design and online journalism at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. He also helped develop the curriculum for the school’s first course in that subject.

Throughout, he’s been writing about Web development and online journalism at saila.com.

Dave Shea

Dave Shea is the creator and cultivator of the highly influential web site csszengarden.com, and co-author of the recently-published Zen of CSS Design (New Riders, 2005).

The founder and design lead of Bright Creative in Vancouver, BC, Dave also writes for a large global audience of web designers and developers on his popular weblog, mezzoblue.com. His sites have won multiple awards, including “Best of Show 2004″ at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, TX.

Kaitlin Sherwood

With a keen eye for how people interact with technology now and the creativity to see how they could be using it in the future, Kaitlin Duck Sherwood started developing innovative Web sites in 1994. In addition to winning a 1995 GNN Best of the Web award, she developed one of the first webmail applications and the first navigation system for a large campus that integrated maps and floorplans.

Most recently, she developed the first mashup to feature thematic (area-based) maps, overlaying census bureau data on Google Maps. On the strength of this, she earned a summer internship at the Maps group of Google, and no, she’s not yet allowed to tell you what she worked on. She has since returned to her graduate studies at the University of British Columbia.

Sherwood spent several years as a “email anthropologist”, studying how people use electronic mail. From those experiences, she wrote two practical books and provided training to corporate and governmental clients on how to manage email better. She and her advice have been featured in the the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Tech TV, and many others.

Jared Spool

Software developer and programmer Jared founded User Interface Engineering in 1988. He has more than 15 years of experience conducting usability evaluations on a variety of products, and is an expert in low-fidelity prototyping techniques.

Jared is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute and teaches seminars on product usability. He is a member of SIGCHI, the Usability Professionals Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the IEEE. Jared is a recognized authority on user interface design and human factors in computing. He is a regular tutorial speaker at the annual CHI conference and Society for Technical Communications conferences around the country.

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