Workshops | Web Directions South

Workshops

• September 23 Workshop - Building a Custom CMS with Django
• September 23 Workshop - Real World Accessibility for Ajax and Web Apps
• September 24 Workshop - Javascript: The Good Parts
• September 24 Workshop - Designing Interaction in the Age of Ajax
• September 24 Workshop - W3C SIG Day

Building a Custom CMS with Django

Presented by Jeff Croft

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Tuesday 23rd September 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

Register now

Description

When people in our community talk about CMSes, the usual suspects - Wordpress, Moveable Type, etc. - always get the first mention. And rightfully so. These packages are robust, reliable, and time-proven blogging engines. But what if your content isn’t a blog? What if you are creating a catalog of recipes? Or maybe you’re doing music or movie reviews? Or perhaps your content is event dates and times?

The farther your content strays from the traditional blog, the more you’re going to have to force Wordpress or MT into submission via hacks, plug-ins, and other inelegant solutions in order to get your software to do what you want it to do.

Enter Django. Django is a full-stack web application framework written in Python which can be used to create all sorts of sites. However, Django’s origin in the newspaper world makes it uniquely suited to quickly and easily creating CMSes designed specifically for your site’s content.

In this full-day workshop, designer and developer Jeff Croft will walk you through creating a custom Django-powered CMS from the ground up, starting with creating models for your content, through Django’s view functions, URL configuration, and template language.

Who is this workshop for?

This workshop is designed for those who have some programming experience, but it is not necessary to be an OOP expert or have experience with Python.

What will you learn?

By the end of the day, you will have a firm grasp on the following:

• the basic architecture and construction of a Django application
• creating Django models specifically for your site’s content
• using Django’s automatic admin interface to administer your site
• using Django’s generic views to render your content
• using Django’s template language for presentational logic
• deploying a Django application

About Jeff Croft

Jeff Croft is a web designer and developer at Blue Flavor, an experience and design consultancy in Seattle. Beyond his work for Blue Flavor, Jeff is a blogger, speaker, critic, and industry thought leader. Prior to joining Blue Flavor, Jeff was a Senior Designer at World Online, an online journalism outfit responsible for a host of award-winning websites and the place of origin for Django, the Python-based open-source Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.

Jeff has been designing and developing web sites nearly as long as there have been web sites to design and develop. He created his first web page in 1994 and got his first web-related job in 1995. Although Jeff possess many technical skills, his true passion lies in visual design, user interface, communication, and social media.

Jeff has recently co-authored two books, Pro CSS Techniques, published by Apress, and Web Standards Creativity, published by Friends of ED.

Real World Accessibility for Ajax and Web Apps

Presented by Derek Featherstone

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Tuesday 23rd September 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

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Description

Your reputation—and the reputation of your agency or company—depends on bulletproof, functionally elegant web apps that will work now and in the future. Using your application shouldn’t frustrate users; their experience, regardless of who they are, should be effortless.

Want a truly usable, accessible web app? Learn from a world-class teacher how to harness Ajax, break out of your usual development routines, and build intelligently, using the technologies you really need.

We won’t just be covering the basics or theoretical situations. We’ll be examining original research conducted by Derek’s company and real-life test cases. You’ll see assistive technologies and prototypes of new techniques in action. During this intensive workshop we’ll even put a selection of existing web apps through their paces — zeroing in on how well they meet the needs of people with a variety of disabilities.

Who is this workshop for?

To get the most out of this workshop you will have some experience hand-coding (X)HTML AND CSS, and know at least the basics of JavaScript and general web accessibility practices.

What will you learn?

By the end of the day you will be able to:

• grasp the difference between accessibility for web apps and for websites
• build intelligently – plan for accessibility from the outset of a project
• understand the significance of Javascript and how to use it wisely
• implement simple HTML techniques that help ensure accessibility success
• recognize the impact of Ajax and dynamically-generated content on people with disabilities – and know what to do about it
• create an effective strategy for building more accessible applications that work with current assistive technology and anticipate future developments
• see how various assistive technologies interact with modern web development techniques such as DOM Scripting and know how to make developmental decisions based on this first-hand experience
• define best practices for testing the accessibility of your own web applications

About Derek Featherstone

Engaging, surprising, and inspiring, Derek Featherstone is an internationally-known authority on accessibility and web development, 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 Further Ahead, he has been an in-demand consultant to government agencies, educational institutions, and private sector companies since 1999. He is the leader of the Accessibility Task Force of the influential Web Standards Project and also serves on their DOM Scripting Task Force.

Javascript - The Good Parts

Presented by Douglas Crockford

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Wednesday 24th September 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

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Description

JavaScript is a language with more than its share of bad parts. It went from non-existence to global adoption in an alarmingly short period of time. It never had an interval in the lab when it could be tried out and polished. It went straight into Netscape Navigator 2 just as it was, and it was very rough. When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the Language of the Web by default.

But JavaScript’s popularity is almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. JavaScript has some extraordinarily good parts. In JavaScript there is a beautiful, elegant, highly expressive language that is buried under a steaming pile of good intentions and blunders. The best nature of JavaScript was so effectively hidden that for many years the prevailing opinion of JavaScript was that it was an unsightly, incompetent toy. My intention in this workshop is to expose the goodness in JavaScript, an outstanding dynamic programming language. I believe that the elegant subset I have carved out is vastly superior to the language as a whole, being more reliable, readable, and maintainable.

This course is a survey of the JavaScript Programming Language. Topics will include values, syntax, dynamic objects, prototypal inheritance, augmentation, lambdas, closures, and JSON.

About Douglas Crockford

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 Director of Technology at Lucasfilm. He was Director of New Media at Paramount. He was the founder and CEO of Electric Communities/Communities.com. He was founder and CTO of State Software, where he discovered JSON. He is now an architect at Yahoo!. He is the world’s foremost living authority on JavaScript.

Designing Interaction in the Age of Ajax

Presented by Donna Spencer

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Wednesday 24th September 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

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Description

AJAX, Flash and other rich internet application technologies have changed the way we design interaction on the web - all for the better. Before, we had static pages with a few interactive pieces - form elements, hyperlinks and submit buttons. Now, we have the ability to update part of a page, provide in-page editing, and allow users to interact with a wider range of elements on the screen. Designing for new interaction styles require a combination of our old skills plus a new set.

This workshop will provide skills and practice that will help you design effective, usable interactive interfaces. We will discuss:

• A recap of the ‘old way’ and the ‘new way’.
• Cognition: We’ll discuss key aspects of human cognition that affect how people react to interactive interfaces, such as visual perception, memory, intuition and error.
• Components: We’ll examine new components we could be using (single select, multi-select, sliders etc) and how to design them from scratch.
• Interacting with the screen: We’ll spend a lot of time looking at examples of different types of interactions such as part-page updates, in-page editing, exposing hidden data and more. We’ll discuss what works and doesn’t (and why).
• Documentation: how to explain interactions with sketches, wireframes, prototypes and pattern libraries.
• Project processes: We’ll discuss other changes, such as the need for more usability and technical testing.

The workshop will combine discussion of principles and hands-on, relevant activities. It will include a detailed set of notes and resources for you to follow up.

Note: this workshop will not cover technical aspects of developing interactive interfaces, nor will it cover the technical aspects of making them accessible. It will touch on many aspects of traditional interaction design (user research, page layout, designing forms, designing task flows) but not in depth.

Who is this workshop for?

This workshop is most suitable for designers and developers moving to, or already designing, more interactive interfaces. It is suitable for less experienced people as well, but they will need to follow up some of the more traditional aspects for a full picture.

What will you learn?

By the end of the day you will:

• understand humans better and be able to use that understanding to design more confidently
• have practiced designing components from the ground up
• have seen and discussed loads of good and bad examples
• be able to think through the pros and cons of particular design solutions
• have a range of documentation methods ready to try on your next project

About Donna Spencer

Donna Spencer is a freelance information architect, mentor, writer and trainer. She has 8 years experience working in-house and as a consultant doing strategic and tactical design. She has designed large intranets & websites, ecommerce & search systems, business applications, design patterns and a CMS.

Donna is an experienced speaker who has taught workshops and presented sessions at local and international conferences, on information architecture, interaction design and whatever else crosses her mind.

She spends her (little) remaining time on the board of IAI and writing a book on card sorting. Sometimes she even gets time to weave and sew.

W3C SIG Day

Presented by W3C Australia Office

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Wednesday 24th September 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

Register now

Description

Featuring keynotes, presentations and tutorials by Australian and international standards experts, the W3C Special Interest Group day goes in depth into W3C standards, both current and emerging.

Areas covered will include

• Accessibility standards, such as WICAG 2 and ARIA
• Semantic standards and technologies such as RDF, OWL, GRDDL and SPARQLA

As well as demonstrations of all leading edge standards in action.

The W3C SIG day is produced by the World Wide Web Consortium Australian Office.

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