Web Directions: what’s in a name?

Quite a few people have asked about the name change for the conference. Web Directions is something of a new start, but most importantly, we wanted to capture both the continuity with WE04 and WE05, and something of a change in focus reflecting the change in the web development world since 2003. When we started planning the WE conferences, in very late 2003, they were pretty dark days for standards based development, accessibility, and in many ways the web in general. An aging Internet Explorer 6 (and even 5.5 and 5) really set the “standard” (or lack thereof) for development best practice (after all, these accounted for over 90% off all browsers in user), and alt text was about as far as most sites went toward accessibility.

How times have changed. Developing valid, accessible sites, using CSS for presentation, focussing on usability, all these are becoming accepted best practice, right across the board. The rise of Firefox and Safari, as well as the emerging importance of mobile devices, means that the original dream of a device independent, interoperable web is becoming a reality. “Real world semantics” like microformats, structured blogging and webpatterns all show enormous promise for making a far richer web. The birth of Web 2.0 (a real phenomenon, but vastly overused label to the point of meaninglessness), the explosive growth of RSS (not just for blogging), the rise of wikis, and continuing strong growth of blogging, user generated content and the increasing importance of online communities, are all phenomena which have gone from peripheral to central since 2003.

So rather than just focus on the essentials, wd06 focusses on the directions we are heading, with speakers like IA superstar “Mr Folksonomy” Thomas Vander Wal speaking on Information Architecture for the “Come to Me Web”, renowned designer Kelly Goto on “Designing for lifestyle”, Jeremy Keith on Ajax, Derek Featherstone on webapp accessibility, fantastic britpack designer Andy Clarke on Creating inspired design, as well as wonderful local speakers.

These speakers will help us map out current and new directions for our web endeavours, whether we are designers, front end developers, back end developers, managers, strategists, content developers, whatever our roles on the web.

We are proud of the lineup we’ve put together, humbled that so many wonder wonderful people have agreed to come and speak, and excited to hear what they have to say. WE04 and WE05 both had a profound impact on the way we work and think about the web. I am sure WD06 will do so too.

john