An Event Apart Boston 2010

Sunday, May 23

1. 5:00pm–7:00pm

   The Extensis Pre-Conference Cocktail Party

   Sponsored by Extensis

   The Westin Copley
   10 Huntington Place
   Boston, MA
   

   Flying in early? Before the conference gets into full swing, join your fellow attendees and speakers for an evening of appetizers and festive libations. Just a short walk to The Westin allows you to reconnect with past attendees and make new connections. See you there!

Monday, May 24

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

5. 12:30pm–2:00pm: LUNCH

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 7:00pm–?pm

   Opening Night Party

   Sponsored by (mt) Media Temple

   Dillons
   955 Boylston Street
   Boston, MA 02115
   (617) 421-1818

   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.

Tuesday, May 25

1. 8:15am–8:45am

   Weaving the Modern Web

   

   Greg Rewis, Principal Evangelist, Creative Suite Web Premium, Adobe Systems

   As the web continues to evolve, workflows are morphing, and building even simple sites now involves more than just HTML and CSS. From Ajax to Content Management Systems to custom PHP applications and frameworks, it’s a lot to master. And then of course, there’s HTML 5 and CSS3. In this session, we will explore how the new Dreamweaver CS5 tackles all of these topics head on. If you haven’t looked at Dreamweaver lately, it’s definitely time to take another look!

2. 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.

3. 10:15am–11:15am

   Paranormal Interactivity

   

   Jeremy Keith, author, DOM Scripting

   Interaction 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.

4. 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.

5. 12:30pm–2:00pm: LUNCH

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.