Three Days Of Design, Code, And Content
An Event Apart Seattle featured 12 great speakers and 12 sessions. A Day Apart, a special one-day learning experience on HTML5 and CSS3, followed the regular conference and was led by Jeremy Keith and Dan Cederholm.
Follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or subscribe to our mailing list to stay informed, read speaker and attendee interviews, network with colleagues, and earn exclusive discounts. Shutterbugs, post event pix to our Flickr group.
Monday, April 5
-
9:00am–10:00am
Put Your Worst Foot Forward
Jeffrey Zeldman, author, Designing With Web Standards, 3rd Ed.
Nothing teaches like failure. Web standards godfather and An Event Apart cofounder Jeffrey Zeldman shares some of his biggest blunders as a designer, entrepreneur, and creative director, and how each mistake taught him to be better at what he does. Study what the problem was and why the mistake seemed like the right answer at the time; see why it turned out to be a really bad idea after all; and learn the great positive lesson each mistake taught.
-
10:15am–11:15am
Object Oriented CSS
Nicole Sullivan, co-author, Even Faster Websites
How do you scale CSS for millions of visitors or thousands of pages? What happens to the size of your CSS file as more pages and modules are added? The answer, for most sites, is that it grows out of control and becomes an unmaintainable tangle of spaghetti code. Object Oriented CSS allows you to write fast, maintainable, standards-based front-end code. It adds much needed predictability to CSS so that even beginners can create beautiful websites. OOCSS is not a framework or a tool (though in this session Nicole will demo both); it is a better, saner way to write and maintain style sheets.
-
11:30am–12:30pm
The CSS3 Experience
Dan Cederholm, author, Bulletproof Web Design and Handcrafted CSS
In a fast-paced hour of design ideas and techniques, learn how advanced CSS and CSS3 can add richness to your site’s experience layer, and discover the role CSS3 can play in enhancing interactivity.
-
12:30pm–2:00pm: LUNCH
-
2:00pm–3:00pm
Mobile First!
Luke Wroblewski, author, Web Form Design
More often than not, the mobile experience for a web application or site is designed and built after the PC version is complete. Learn the three reasons web applications should be designed for mobile first instead: mobile is exploding; mobile forces you to focus; and mobile extends your capabilities.
-
3:15pm–4:15pm
Learning To Love Humans—Emotional Interface Design
Aarron Walter, author, Building Findable Websites
Humans, though cute and cuddly, are not without their flaws, which makes it a challenge to design for them. By understanding how the wet, mushy processor works in these hairy little devils, you can design interfaces and web experiences that will have them hopelessly devoted to your brand. Aarron will introduce you to the emotional usability principle—a design axiom that identifies a strong connection between human emotion and perceived usability. Through real-world examples, you’ll learn practical interface design techniques that will make your sites and applications more engaging to the humans they serve.
-
4:30pm–5:30pm
Anatomy of a Design Decision
Jared Spool, Founder, User Interface Engineering
What separates a good design from a bad design are the decisions that the designer made. Jared will explore the five styles of design decisions, showing you when gut instinct produces the right results and when designers need to look to more user-focused research.
-
5:45pm–6:15pm
Microsoft: Help Us Kill IE6
Pete LePage, Senior Product Manager, Internet Explorer
That’s right, you read right. Microsoft is as tired of IE6 as you are, and wants your help migrating users to newer, better browsers. Learn what you can do, and let one of the good guys from Redmond know how you feel.
-
7:00pm–??pm
Opening Night Party
Sponsored by (mt) Media Temple
twist
2313 1st Ave
Seattle, WA 98121
Media Temple’s opening night parties for An Event Apart are legendary. Join the speakers and hundreds of fellow attendees for great conversation, lively debate, loud music, hot snacks, and a seemingly endless stream of grown-up beverages. Venue details will be announced in March.
Tuesday, April 6
-
9:00am–10:00am
Everything Old Is New Again
Eric Meyer, author, CSS: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Ed.
Faux columns. Sliding doors. Image replacement. We rely on these techniques on a near-daily basis, but how will they be affected by the expanding vocabulary of CSS3? Will they be reworked, slimmed down, or abandoned altogether? An Event Apart cofounder and CSS mastermind Eric Meyer pulls some old standbys out of the toolbox and applies the capabilites of CSS3 to see how they can be made leaner, meaner, and more powerful.
-
10:15am–11:15am
Paranormal Interactivity
Jeremy Keith,
author, DOM ScriptingInteraction is the secret sauce of the web. Understanding interaction is key to understanding the web as its own medium—it’s not print, it’s not television, and it’s certainly not the desktop. Find out how to wield HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to craft experiences that are native to the web.
-
11:30am–12:30pm
Message and Medium: Better Content by Design
Kristina Halvorson, author, Content Strategy for the Web
Designing for multichannel content delivery (mobile, anyone?) means an entirely new set of considerations and challenges for web professionals everywhere. Unfortunately for content creators, it’s nearly impossible to predict whether their writing will maintain impact and readability across each and every platform. But forget about the medium for a minute; it’s the message that matters most. We’ll learn how to identify your key business messages, how they inform your content strategy, and how they impact multi-channel content development and design.
-
12:30pm–2:00pm: LUNCH
-
2:00pm–3:00pm
Hardboiled Web Design
Andy Clarke, author, Transcending CSS
Take an uncompromising look at how to make the most from modern design tools and browsers, up-to-date techniques and processes. In this practical, design-focused talk, Andy will discuss the “how” as well as the “why,” and challenge your preconceptions to help you make better work for the web. Learn the most modern, forward-moving, and sometimes experimental CSS techniques, and why a forward looking approach to CSS will pay real dividends.
-
3:15pm–4:15pm
A Dao of Flexibility
Ethan Marcotte, co-author, Handcrafted CSS and Designing With Web Standards, 3rd Edition
“The Way is shaped by use, but then the shape is lost.” Our sites are accessed by an increasing array of devices and browsers, and our users deserve a quality experience no matter how large (or small) their display. Are our designs ready? Explore sites that think beyond the desktop and have successfully adapted to their users’ habits. Ethan will also discuss how bring an extra level of craftsmanship to our page layouts, and revisit popular CSS techniques in this ever-changing environment.
-
4:30pm–5:30pm
How the Web Works
Jeff Veen, author, Art & Science of Web Design
Turns out that the fundamental principles that led to the success of the web will lead you there, too. Drawing on 15 years of web design and development experience, Jeff will take you on a guided tour of what makes things work on this amazing platform we’re all building together. You’ll learn how to stop selling ice, why web browsers work the way they do, and where Rupert Murdoch can put his business model.
-
7:00pm–?pm
Closing Night Party
Sponsored by Newsvine
The Frontier Room
2203 1st Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121
Close out the conference with an awesome shindig hosted by our friends at Newsvine!
Wednesday, April 7
A Day Apart
HTML5 and CSS3 are the most exciting news in web standards in over a decade, and serious browser support is nearly at hand. What will the new specifications mean to you? How will they change your work? What benefits do they provide to web designers, clients, and users, and how can you start using them today?
To answer these questions and more, two of our favorite speakers (and your favorite authors) have created a special one-day learning event focused on practical, usable takeaways and exciting new creative possibilities.
Understand HTML5 with Jeremy Keith
- Learn about the history of HTML5 and the design principles that drive its development.
- Find out why HTML5 is more of an evolution than a revolution.
- Come to grips with the new structural elements introduced in HTML5.
- Learn about new rich media elements that you can start using today.
- Figure out a strategy for migrating to HTML5.
Explore CSS3 with Dan Cederholm
- Learn what’s new in CSS3.
- Master progressive enrichment with CSS3 that works today.
- Explore web fonts and the future of type.
- Enjoy flexible color with RGBA.
- Experiment with transitions and transformations for happy modern browsers.
A Day Apart Seattle follows An Event Apart Seattle. You can register just for An Event Apart or just for A Day Apart — or save over $100 when you register for all three days. The complete schedule for this special one-day event will be posted in February.
The Venue
Gorgeously situated at Pier 66 on the downtown Seattle waterfront, Bell Harbor provides stunning views of the city, and across Elliott Bay to Mt Rainier, plus easy walking proximity to the shops and restaurants of world-famous Pike Street Market. Oh, and did we mention that the facility brags wonderfully comfortable seating, world-class Wi-Fi, and fine catering to keep your tummy happy while you feed your brain with design and code?






