2011 June | Web Directions

News from June 2011

Memories and articles from back in the day

Wendy Chisholm & Charles Pritchard — Universal Access: now for apps as well

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 6, 2011

In this session, Wendy Chisholm will help you understand the challenges to and solutions for creating accessible apps with web technologies. Wendy will cover WAI-​​ARIA, accessibility and HTML5, as well as some common accessibility pitfalls when designing and developing applications, particularly on mobile and tablet devices.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Lea Verou — Mastering CSS3 gradients

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

With most browsers adding increasing support, and the simplicity of providing fallbacks for those that don’t, CSS3 gradients are something we can start to use right now. They benefit our users with faster websites and ourselves with more time in our hands to spend in other things, since they are easy to create, edit and update. A very powerful feature that can also be utilized for a surprising number of design effects, even ones that don’t resemble gradients at all. In this talk, Lea will explore CSS3 gradients in great depth and it’s almost guaranteed that no matter your expertise level, you will walk out having learned new things.

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Brian Suda — Visualising Data

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

In this presentation, I’ll walk you through a quick overview of some basic chart and graph design, then look at how easy it is to write some quick scripts in your favourite language to produce beautiful graphics. SVG is an under-​​​​rated technology, but it can be created programmatically and quickly to visualise data.

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Jonathan Stark — The mobile frameworks landscape

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

In this session, Jonathan Stark takes an in depth look at several mobile frameworks, including JQTouch, JQuery Mobile and SenchaTouch, comparing and contrasting their approaches, and most appropriate uses. As a developer looking to tailor experiences and applications for the mobile web, this will be an invaluable session.

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Michael Mahemoff — HTML5 offline for fun and performance

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

In this session we’ll get hands-​​​​on with the application cache to make the app run when it’s not online. We’ll check out the techniques for client-​​​​side persistence: web storage and indexed database. Finally, we’ll look at the latest techniques for file access — reading and writing files on the user’s hard drive from a web app is being defined by web standards and implemented in today’s modern browsers.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Bruce Lawson — Native multimedia with HTML5

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

We’ll look at the pros and the cons of HTML5 multimedia and see how to write simple controls with JavaScript. Most excitingly, we’ll also look at how HTML5 builds in support for subtitles and captions for multimedia accessibility. And you might pick up a Turkish dancing tip on the way.

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Tom Hughes-​​Croucher — Lessons from a coding veteran

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

Here are Tom’s rules of development:

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Brian Fling — Six rules to designing amazing mobile apps

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

After spending ten years building mobile apps for some of the biggest companies in the world, author and mobile designer Brian Fling shares his six rules for building amazing apps that will either you get you started or improve upon your next release.

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Hannah Donovan — Designing without the browser

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

Donovan argues the processes for the future lie in our more material-​​​​based graphic designer pasts, and our cousin disciplines of industrial design and architecture. After a decade of honing our newfangled browser-​​​​based skills, learn how to dust off and sharpen the tools of our roots.

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Sebastian Deterding — Closing keynote: Don’t play games with me with me

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

How to design a playful experience that is truly meaningful to users – instead of just creating shallow novelty effects? Which lessons do games really hold for other products and services? What criticism is valid? And how can designers interested in “gameifying” an application steer clear of the worst pitfalls?

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Daniel Burka — Designing the first fifteen minutes

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

The first fifteen minutes of your product are the most important and they’re so often squandered. But! We’re starting to figure out what works and what does not. There’s no longer any excuse to give your visitors a poor initial experience. Learn how great user interfaces entice people right out of the gate, then help newcomers get people over the threshold.

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Dave Balmer — Rockstar graphics with HTML5

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

In this session Dave will cover high-​​​​performance presentation and animation using HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3 and Canvas. Examples will include mobile-​​​​friendly techniques you can use today for creating game effects and “flashy” user experiences across a range of browsers and devices.

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Dave Orchard — Offline Web Apps with HTML5

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

There’s an old expression, that there are only 2 hard problems in computing: naming, cache invalidation and off-​​by-​​one errors. Building offline web apps is all about those hard problems. We’ll spend the bulk of our time on these hard problems, which is probably more useful than api description and sample code.

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Relly Annett-​​Baker — Content Strategy for Apps

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

In one sentence: it’s about creating a fulfilling experience, one that puts you ahead of your competition, simply through the power of the written word.

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Chris Wilson — Keynote: The Convergence of All Things

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• June 4, 2011

This keynote will focus on the unique potential offered to web developers — the ability to use the web platform to build compelling applications that reach across different devices, scenarios and environments. In discussing the approaches necessary to deliver great experiences across all these spaces, we will also uncover unique opportunities in a platform that reaches from mobile phones to the biggest display screen in your house.

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