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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 11.45am.

Presentation slides

Session description

Over 4 million people in Australia have a disability. As a result they may use the web in a different way to you: a keyboard instead of a mouse; a screen reader instead of a screen. Accessibility is the way that you can tap into this large and growing audience.In this session, Damien will look at why accessibility matters - not just because it is the right thing to do, or a legal requirement. He will discuss how accessibility leads to more robust, maintainable, searchable and usable websites that meet everyone’s needs. Damien will also explore the opportunities accessibility offers for mobile web design, and provide some practical advice about how to include accessibility in your next project.

About Damien McCormack

Damien McCormack PortraitDamien McCormack is an accessibility expert and manager of Vision Australia’s web accessibility services. Seven years experience working with people who are blind or have low vision has evolved into a passion and drive to make the world more accessible. In this time, Damien has worked with a large number of government departments, commercial organisations and educational institutions promoting accessibility and providing business and technical advice across all aspects of a project. Damien is also responsible for developing the culture of accessibility within Vision Australia and experiences the challenges of delivering accessible outcomes daily.

" ["post_title"]=> string(47) "Damien McCormack - Accessibility means business" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(414) "

Damien McCormack PortraitOver 4 million people in Australia have a disability. As a result they may use the web in a different way to you: a keyboard instead of a mouse; a screen reader instead of a screen. Accessibility is the way that you can tap into this large and growing audience.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 10.45am.

Presentation slides

Session description

The most interesting problems on the web are social, not technical. Once the open, social stack moves into wide use, the real work is going to be on us to create ongoing experiences that inspire, inform, evolve. Avoid this talk if you want to hear about monetizing community, gaming the newest social site for a quick spike in your user numbers, or how to get a [insert cutting edge social platform] strategy for your brand.Instead, we’ll diagram (sentence-like) real examples of marketing and revising (reviving?) web products for connected consumers. Think of it as Mind Hacks for Web Marketers. We’ll show you how sites like Dogster, Etsy, Moo, Photojojo and others parlay initial passions into deep, sustained, active communities. People-powered thinking extends well beyond messaging. Instead, we’ll preach a connected style of marketing that addresses a range of operational areas, both coming & going. We’ll pay particular attention to what happens after launch, as we think an attentive to and fro is the intimate secret of success.

About Deborah Schultz

Deborah Schultz PortraitDeborah Schultz is a thought leader and innovator on the impact and adoption of Internet technologies and the power of technology to connect society, culture and business. She speaks and consults on the cultural and economic impact of the Internet, and specifically where our social and technological networks overlap. She currently serves as Procter & Gamble’s Strategic Adviser for Social Media & Emerging Technology and has also consulted with and advised Fortune 50 companies including Pepsi, GE, and Citicorp as well as numerous internet startups and VC firms. She is a regular keynote speaker at tech and business conferences.Previously, Deborah was the Marketing Director at Six Apart, ran her own marketing consultancy firm, was a management consultant at AnswerThink and spent five years at Citibank where she developed many of the global bank’s first internet initiatives. One of her proudest accomplishments was launching the Downtown Info Center, a lower Manhattan community center & online hub to revitalize lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11th. Deborah is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University.The former Manhattanite is now a tireless road warrior and can be found in SF, NYC, or Tel Aviv. But wherever she is, she’s always ‘connected’.Follow Deborah on Twitter: @debs

" ["post_title"]=> string(41) "Deborah Schultz - It's the people, stupid" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(574) "

Deborah Schultz PortraitThe most interesting problems on the web are social, not technical. Once the open, social stack moves into wide use, the real work is going to be on us to create ongoing experiences that inspire, inform, evolve. Avoid this talk if you want to hear about monetizing community, gaming the newest social site for a quick spike in your user numbers, or how to get a [insert cutting edge social platform] strategy for your brand.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 11.45am.

Presentation slides

Session description

The ABC launched three new socially networked digital radio websites: ABC Dig Music, ABC Jazz and ABC Country in July 2009. They are the first of several ABC projects involving content aggregation. As well as having slick, highly usable designs the music platform integrates with various sources including MusicBrainz, YouTube, Last.fm and Wikipedia. This aggregation functionality graphically illustrates the possibilities of Semantic Web technology for an editorial organisation such as the ABC.
Fergus Pitt will discuss why and how the ABC is using the radically transformed online environment to enhance its new digital music radio stations ABC Dig Music, ABC Jazz and ABC Country, and how the functionality and technologies relate to the ABC’s charter, editorial policies and traditional operations.
David Peterson will explain how the sites were built with Drupal 6 and key ingredients that made the mashup possible: Semantic Web, Linked Data, MusicBrainz, Last.FM, Discogs and Apache Solr Search. He will cover the highs and the lows of Drupal along with the secret sauce that makes it all work.

About Fergus Pitt

Fergus Pitt PortraitFergus Pitt is the Technical and Strategic Projects Manager for ABC Radio Multiplatform. He has worked on the development of the ABC’s digital radio operation, and has been involved in ABC projects around participatory media, locative media, and changed production models for the digital environment.Follow Fergus on Twitter: @fergle

About David Peterson

David Peterson PortraitDavid Peterson has been pushing at the boundaries of Web development since 1995; that combined with a background in wildlife cinematography brings fresh insight into what can be a geeks’ paradise.David works as an independent consultant way up north in the tropics of Townsville where the heat nearly threatens to fry his brain. He is busy building Web apps that utilise Java, .Net, Semantic Web and the almighty Drupal. He enjoys exploring deep into the guts of these amazing platforms and strategically implanting Semantic Web goodies - opening up the possibility to do all sorts of deep Web integration. Did anyone say ‘Linked Data”?Follow David on Twitter: @davidseth

" ["post_title"]=> string(53) "Fergus Pitt & David Peterson - The mashed up playlist" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(901) "

Fergus Pitt PortraitDavid Peterson PortraitThe ABC launched three new socially networked digital radio websites: ABC Dig Music, ABC Jazz and ABC Country in July 2009. They are the first of several ABC projects involving content aggregation. As well as having slick, highly usable designs the music platform integrates with various sources including MusicBrainz, YouTube, Last.fm and Wikipedia. This aggregation functionality graphically illustrates the possibilities of Semantic Web technology for an editorial organisation such as the ABC.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 11.45am.

Presentation slides

Session description

In the summer of ‘07 in a flood-soaked Oxford, England, Elliot appeared on stage for the very first time. His presentation, ‘Progressive Enhancement & Intentional Degradation’, looked at how to reward modern browsers with the latest CSS tricks and punish IE by dropping certain site features. Over two years later, what has changed? We’re starting to see the ideology of progressive enhancement — especially with CSS3 — spread throughout the web design community, but more work needs to be done.What can we do to spread the message further and design a better-looking web faster? Elliot will look at how features of the CSS2.1 and CSS3 specs can enhance your websites and he’ll examine the implication of using such techniques. He’ll look at the issues surrounding font embedding and the recent development of the font-as-service; the arguments about browser support; the potentially controversial irrelevance of validation; and how we can attempt to reach the future sooner by writing forward-thinking code. In this motivational presentation Elliot will urge you to embrace the techniques of modern web design and to stop worrying about the so-called restraints.

About Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks PortraitElliot Jay Stocks is an independent designer whose work is frequently featured in online and offline publications, showcased on various ‘inspiration’ websites, and used as an example to design students around the world of how accessible web design can still look beautiful. A regular face at design conferences around the globe and author of the best-selling book Sexy Web Design (SitePoint, 2009), Elliot can often be found writing about design trends, issues, and techniques for industry-leading publications such as .Net (aka Practical Web Design), Computer Arts, and Computer Arts Projects. His extensive portfolio includes work for clients such as The Virgin Group, WordPress.org, The Beatles, Blue Flavor, Twiistup, EMI Records, and Carsonified.Follow Elliot on Twitter: @elliotjaystocks

" ["post_title"]=> string(43) "Elliot Jay Stocks - Progressive enhancement" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(658) "

Elliot Jay Stocks PortraitIn the summer of ‘07 in a flood-soaked Oxford, England, Elliot appeared on stage for the very first time. His presentation, ‘Progressive Enhancement & Intentional Degradation’, looked at how to reward modern browsers with the latest CSS tricks and punish IE by dropping certain site features. Over two years later, what has changed? We’re starting to see the ideology of progressive enhancement — especially with CSS3 — spread throughout the web design community, but more work needs to be done.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 2.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

AJAX is changing the way that users interact with websites - it has the potential to provide richer and more interactive online user experiences but also introduces its own set of usability and accessibility problems. This session will present views from leading usability experts from around the world from an experienced practitioner workshop conducted at the Usability Professionals Conference in USA.We will also discuss key usability issues we have unveiled through our own usability testing of a range of websites using AJAX over the last 2 years. The session will highlight some of the pitfalls and user frustrations with AJAX as well as how AJAX can be used to enhance the user experience. We will present usability and accessibility issues and common user behaviours with AJAX applications.Finally we will discuss interaction design guidelines for developing user friendly AJAX designs. This is not a technical session and will appeal to designers, developers and anyone working with interactive websites or web applications.

About Tania Lang

Tania Lang PortraitTania Lang is founder and principal of Peak Usability as well as a member of the UPA, WIPA and the Queensland Representative for CHISIG in Australia. She is considered one of the leaders in her field and is passionate about usability. She regularly presents and conducts training workshops to increase awareness and adoption of good usability and UX design practices. With over 10 years experience as a UX practitioner and consultant, Tania has conducted hundreds of usability tests and has learnt a lot about online user behaviour and how this has evolved over the years. She has worked on UX projects for Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, Suncorp, Flight Centre, iiNet, RACQ, NRMA, Ergon Energy and numerous government agencies.Follow Tania on Twitter: @tanialang

" ["post_title"]=> string(37) "Tania Lang - Using AJAX to enhance UX" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(546) "

Tania Lang PortraitAJAX is changing the way that users interact with websites - it has the potential to provide richer and more interactive online user experiences but also introduces its own set of usability and accessibility problems. This session will present views from leading usability experts from around the world from an experienced practitioner workshop conducted at the Usability Professionals Conference in USA.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 2.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

The Open Web is an evolving term that encompasses technologies from web standards stalwarts like HTML, to almost-mainstream buzzwords such as OpenID, and on to emerging specifications like PortableContacts, but it’s more than that. It is a philosophy.It is the dream of technical building blocks that mesh together to discover and define identity, authorise accessible data, and validate membership of social or professional groupings. It’s one big personal data party and everybody on the web is invited.Lachlan Hardy will cover specific technologies and their usecases, showing how they plug together to make a cost-efficient open stack. He examines what the Open Web really means, how it works, and how your business can use it to reach more people, more powerfully.

About Lachlan Hardy

Lachlan Hardy PortraitLachlan currently works as a Design Engineer at Atlassian where he builds functional designs into all their products. He is a web standards expert who has worked on numerous high-profile sites for News Digital Media, Queensland Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries, several Victorian government projects and the ticketing system for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.He leads the team behind the highly successful Webjam events promoting web innovation in Australia and has written for ReadWriteWeb. He’s an advocate of open web technologies and currently very interested in networking the facets of our online identities. His site is Lachstock.Follow Lachlan on Twitter: @lachlanhardy

" ["post_title"]=> string(28) "Lachlan Hardy - The open web" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(399) "

Lachlan Hardy PortraitThe Open Web is an evolving term that encompasses technologies from web standards stalwarts like HTML, to almost-mainstream buzzwords such as OpenID, and on to emerging specifications like PortableContacts, but it’s more than that. It is a philosophy.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 2.40pm.

Video recording of session

Presentation slides

Session description

This talk focuses on the efforts engaged by W3C to improve the new HTML 5 media elements with mechanisms to allow people to access multimedia content, including audio and video. Such developments are also useful beyond accessibility needs and will lead to a general improvement of the usability of media, making media discoverable and generally a prime citizen on the Web.Silvia will discuss what is currently technically possible with the HTML5 media elements, and what is still missing. She will describe a general framework of accessibility for HTML5 media elements and present her work for the Mozilla Corporation that includes captions, subtitles, textual audio annotations, timed metadata, and other time-aligned text with the HTML5 media elements. Silvia will also discuss work of the W3C Media Fragments group to further enhance video usability and accessibility by making it possible to directly address temporal offsets in video, as well as spatial areas and tracks.

About Silvia Pfeiffer

Silvia Pfeiffer PortraitDr Silvia Pfeiffer has worked on novel media technology for more than 15 years and is an internationally renowned expert in new Web video standards. Silvia completed her PhD in Mannheim, Germany, on audio-visual content analysis. She then spent 7 years at the CSIRO developing new video technology for the Web in the “Annodex” project. In 2007, she co-founded Australian video company Vquence which offers consulting and technology services for Web 2.0 video.Silvia is now an invited expert on four W3C video-related working groups. She is making contributions to the new audio and video elements in HTML5, to media annotation standards, to media fragment addressing via URIs, and to video accessibility technology for hearing and seeing-impaired people (captions, audio annotations etc).Follow Silvia on Twitter: @silviapfeiffer

" ["post_title"]=> string(59) "Silvia Pfeiffer - Taking HTML5 <video> a step further" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(523) "

Silvia Pfeiffer PortraitThis talk focuses on the efforts engaged by W3C to improve the new HTML 5 media elements with mechanisms to allow people to access multimedia content, including audio and video. Such developments are also useful beyond accessibility needs and will lead to a general improvement of the usability of media, making media discoverable and generally a prime citizen on the Web.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 10.45am.

Session description

Doug will talk about the technologies currently under development at W3C which we are likely to see in browsers now or in the near future, and will have demos of as many of them as possible. Some of these demos will be HTML5 demos, but also technologies from the WebApps WG, Device API and Policies WG, CSS, SVG, geolocation, etc. He will clear the air about HTML vs. XHTML, and why they are not as far apart as people think.He will also describe specs and areas that people might not know about at W3C, such as some of the SemWeb stuff (and the various industries interested in that), the voice browsers, the eGov activity, and other areas.He will also discuss W3C’s structure, goals, how it works, and how people can get involved, and touch on the role of Web education in designing standards. He will describe (briefly) the standards track, and the tools which are used. Finally, He will talk about future directions for the Web and standards.

About Doug Schepers

Doug Schepers PortraitDoug Schepers works for the W3C as the Rich Web Clients Activity Lead, and the Team Contact for the SVG and WebApps Working Groups, and participates in several other groups, including HTML and OWEA. He is an editor of the Element Traversal, DOM3 Events, and SVG specifications, and co-chairs the SVG Interest Group. Before joining the W3C Team, he has been a long-time developer of Web applications, with a focus on SVG. Doug works from home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.Follow Doug on Twitter: @shepazu

" ["post_title"]=> string(49) "Doug Schepers - W3C and web standards big picture" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(574) "

Doug Schepers PortraitDoug will talk about the technologies currently under development at W3C which we are likely to see in browsers now or in the near future, and will have demos of as many of them as possible. Some of these demos will be HTML5 demos, but also technologies from the WebApps WG, Device API and Policies WG, CSS, SVG, geolocation, etc. He will clear the air about HTML vs. XHTML, and why they are not as far apart as people think.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

Presentation videos

Video 1 - 15:41
Video 2 - 28:47
Video 3 - 43:28

Session description

Designing websites in amongst the “suits” and their business models, targets, projections and synergies (ha!) can be death by dot point. Or fun. What are manager types actually thinking when they brief (or don’t) you. How do you translate their KPI’s into interface designs that
  1. 1. get their point across & achieve their targets
  2. 2. contribute to a profitable business
  3. 3. are easy to use (who would have thought the users get a say! ;-)
Pete gets on their case, video camera in hand, to find out what they’re thinking.*Suits = managers/clients/executives. Dedicated to the Billy Walsh character in Entourage

About Pete Ottery

Pete Ottery PortraitPete has been designing web sites for about 10 years. Having previously worked as the Head of Design at Fairfax Digital and Creative Director at Daemon, he is now working at News Digital Media as the Group Interface Designer. Recently he has been designing carsguide, truelocal, & iphone.news.com.au. He works directly with site owners and execs (the suits!) to help inform requirements and push product design boundaries. He is daily knee deep in photoshop concepts and html/css code.Follow Pete on Twitter: @c41

" ["post_title"]=> string(33) "Pete Ottery - Designing for suits" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(627) "

Pete Ottery PortraitDesigning websites in amongst the “suits” and their business models, targets, projections and synergies (ha!) can be death by dot point. Or fun. What are manager types actually thinking when they brief (or don’t) you. How do you translate their KPI’s into interface designs that

  1. 1. get their point across & achieve their targets
  2. 2. contribute to a profitable business
  3. 3. are easy to use (who would have thought the users get a say! ;-)
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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

Semantic Web technologies, both those envisaged and those already realised, have the potential to benefit domains where issues such as volume, complexity and heterogeneity can overcome traditional techniques. Sensor networks are one such area where the application of semantics is indicated by scale, complexity, and the need to integrate over heterogeneous standards, sensors and systems for multiple purposes and multiple disciplines.The Semantic Sensor Networks W3C Incubator is an international initiative to develop standards for sharing information collected by sensors and sensor networks over the Web, including an ontology for different types of sensing devices and their observations, and new approaches for the semantic markup of sensor descriptions and services that support sensor data exchange and sensor network management.Kerry will describe the ongoing effort to increase the quality and reduce the cost of capturing environmental data, to address the growing demand for information about the environmental systems that support Australia’s agricultural, resource and process-based industries.

About Kerry Taylor

Kerry Taylor PortraitDr Kerry Taylor is a research scientist in the CSIRO ICT Centre, and co-chairs both the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Semantic Sensor Network incubator group and the 2009 International Workshop on Semantic Sensor Networks. She has broad interests in AI, databases, service oriented architectures, and environmental information systems. Currently, most of her work is about using semantic representations, especially ontologies, to support data integration and evolvable information systems. She hopes that this work will drive a new wave of e-research driven innovation in Australia.

" ["post_title"]=> string(35) "Kerry Taylor - Semantics & sensors " ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(548) "

Kerry Taylor PortraitThe Semantic Sensor Networks W3C Incubator is an international initiative to develop standards for sharing information collected by sensors and sensor networks over the Web, including an ontology for different types of sensing devices and their observations, and new approaches for the semantic markup of sensor descriptions and services that support sensor data exchange and sensor network management.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 2.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

Social Networks have been a world-wide phenomenon and their proliferation poses a pressing interoperability and usability challenge to both web users and service providers. Web users have different social networks accounts and utilise them in different ways depending on the context. For example, more friendly chat on FaceBook, more professional on LinkedIn, and a bit daring interaction on Hi5. Maintaining these multiple online profiles is cumbersome and time consuming and locks in the web user to a service provider. Also, sharing information and user-generated content is particularly challenging due to the obscure nature of privacy and rights management on social networks and the lack of awareness and transparency of such policies.The W3C Social Web Incubator Group (XG) has been investigating these challenges with the purpose to define a number of new standards that can address the needs of the social web users and balance the needs from the servicer providers. This talk will look at the social profile portability needs and the policy (privacy and rights) directions needed to break down the “walled gardens” of social networks.

About Renato Iannella

Renato Iannella PortraitRenato is a Principal Scientist at the National ICT Australia (NICTA) research laboratory where he leads the Social and Professional Interoperable Networks (SPIN) research activity. His research covers technologies and standards in distributed information modeling and architectures, rights management, and policy-oriented web infrastructures. Renato has extensive experience standards for Internet, Web, and Mobile technologies and was a former member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Advisory Board.Renato also is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong and was previously the Chief Scientist at LiveEvents Wireless, IPR Systems and Principal Research Scientist at the Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC).Follow Renato on Twitter: @riannella

" ["post_title"]=> string(44) "Renato Iannella - Opening up social networks" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(892) "

Renato Iannella PortraitSocial Networks have been a world-wide phenomenon and their proliferation poses a pressing interoperability and usability challenge to both web users and service providers. Web users have different social networks accounts and utilise them in different ways depending on the context. For example, more friendly chat on FaceBook, more professional on LinkedIn, and a bit daring interaction on Hi5. Maintaining these multiple online profiles is cumbersome and time consuming and locks in the web user to a service provider. Also, sharing information and user-generated content is particularly challenging due to the obscure nature of privacy and rights management on social networks and the lack of awareness and transparency of such policies.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

This talk focuses on the efforts engaged by W3C and its members to promote and improve web standards and in particular HTML 5 with mechanisms to allow people with disabilities to access multimedia content, including audio and video.Scott will present the current user experiences of accessibility and the challenges of getting uptake in government. This would include the take-up of W3C access standards within government, use of WCAG and ATAG by developers, the technical challenges of video-specific implementations of captioning and audio description, and ways in which such challenges can be better addressed through the involvement of Internet users.

About Scott Hollier

Scott Hollier PortraitDr Scott Hollier is the Project Manager, New Media for Media Access Australia (MAA), a not-for-profit, public benevolent institution. Scott’s work focuses on making computers and Internet-related technologies accessible to people with disabilities. Scott represents MAA on the Advisory Committee of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and is a member of several Web Access Initiative (WAI) working groups. Scott has completed a PhD titled ‘The Disability Divide: an examination into the needs of computing and Internet-related technologies on people who are blind or vision impaired’. Scott is legally blind and as such understands the importance of access at a personal level.Photo credit: Gary Barber.

" ["post_title"]=> string(48) "Scott Hollier - Boosting new media accessibility" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(380) "

Scott Hollier PortraitThis talk focuses on the efforts engaged by W3C and its members to promote and improve web standards and in particular HTML 5 with mechanisms to allow people with disabilities to access multimedia content, including audio and video.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

At Xerox PARC in the early 90’s Mark Weiser predicted a fundamental shift would move the user’s experience of computing away from the desktop and out into the “real” world. During the late 90’s the web brought the first wave of pervasive “anytime, anywhere” applications like search and webmail.Over the last few years the mobile web has driven a fresh wave of networked applications like Facebook and Twitter that are being used at the beach, in the car and in bed. QR Codes, Wifi Access Points and 3/4G dongles are everywhere you look. “Pervasive” is a very accurate description.What is driving this accelerating diffusion of networked technologies? How do you really measure or control how “pervasive” something is? Why would you even want to? We’ll introduce you to a practical framework for analysing and measuring your “spatial perception of an activity” and explore what it literally means for an application to be “pervasive”, in both an experiential and business sense. At the end of this session you’ll be able to clearly diagram the key change that’s driving this evolution and how it will impact your strategies for technology and business in the future.

About Rob Manson

Rob Manson PortraitRob has been modeling information architectures and innovation driven business models since 1989. Over the last 5 years his focus has been exploring how mobiles and service based APIs are changing our lives. He spends his time helping MOB’s clients and partners explore life after convergence - a place where objects and their interfaces diverge, allowing you to control them anywhere, anytime. He focuses on developing and exploring hands on, real world experiences with new networked technologies.Follow Rob on Twitter: @nambor

" ["post_title"]=> string(31) "Rob Mason - Pervasive computing" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(747) "

Rob Manson PortraitWhat is driving this accelerating diffusion of networked technologies? How do you really measure or control how “pervasive” something is? Why would you even want to? We’ll introduce you to a practical framework for analysing and measuring your “spatial perception of an activity” and explore what it literally means for an application to be “pervasive”, in both an experiential and business sense. At the end of this session you’ll be able to clearly diagram the key change that’s driving this evolution and how it will impact your strategies for technology and business in the future.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 10.45am.

Presentation slides

Session description

RDFa is at the cornerstone of the Browser Web and the Semantic Web. With RDFa, publishing data becomes as easy as publishing HTML, and can help web pages authors to join the linked data cloud and leverage all the URI-based data integration features brought by Semantic Web and Linking Open Data technologies. In this introductory session primarily directed at those who author web content, Mark will touch a range of RDFa topics from its goals and how it came about, to its relationship to linked data and how it’s being used in some recent projects for UK Government web-sites.One of the main reasons why interest is growing fast in RDFa is because the prospect for being able to extend documents without having recourse to standards organisations is enormous. Mark will explain how the RDFa task force has managed to provide extension points to a base language as a mean to break the perpetual cycle of guessing in advance which new language features are sought by authors.

About Mark Birbeck

Mark Birbeck PortraitMark Birbeck is the managing director of webBackplane. He has been creating software for many years, and his particular interests are the semantic web, and components that help to create dynamic, flexible, user interfaces. He has consulted, given training, spoken at conferences, and contributed to books and articles on these and other topics. He is also heavily involved in the creation of new standards on these themes.An Invited Expert at the W3C since 2003, Mark has also edited multiple W3C technical reports and publications for both the XForms Working Group and the XHTML 2 Working Group. Over the years his work there has included devising and proposing RDFa and Compact URIs.Follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkBirbeck

" ["post_title"]=> string(43) "Mark Birbeck - Marking up content with RDFa" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(728) "

Mark Birbeck PortraitRDFa is at the cornerstone of the Browser Web and the Semantic Web. With RDFa, publishing data becomes as easy as publishing HTML, and can help web pages authors to join the linked data cloud and leverage all the URI-based data integration features brought by Semantic Web and Linking Open Data technologies. In this introductory session primarily directed at those who author web content, Mark will touch a range of RDFa topics from its goals and how it came about, to its relationship to linked data and how it’s being used in some recent projects for UK Government web-sites.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

With the proliferation and widespread adoption of JavaScript frameworks, smart developers have wondered if a similar approach to smoothing over the rough spots of CSS might work. Thus, CSS frameworks like Blueprint, YUI Library CSS Tools, Boilerplate, and many others were born. In this session, we will survey the landscape of CSS frameworks and consider how each of them deals with the unique challenge of creating generalised, reusable CSS styles.There are a number of different approaches, and some are better than others. Choose the right framework and you’ll save yourself a lot of work. Choose the wrong one, and you’ll find your projects weighed down by restrictive assumptions and masses of code that you don’t understand. When it comes to CSS frameworks, making the right choice is everything. By the end of this session, you might just decide that the right framework for you is no framework at all.

About Kevin Yank

Kevin Yank PortraitAs span class="org">SitePoint’s Technical Director, Kevin Yank keeps abreast of all that is new and exciting in web technology. Best known for his first book, Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, Kevin also co-wrote Simply JavaScript in 2007 and Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong in 2008. He also writes the SitePoint Tech Times, a free weekly email newsletter that goes out to nearly 200,000 subscribers worldwide, and hosts the SitePoint Podcast. When he isn’t speaking at a conference or writing his next book, Kevin lives in Melbourne, and performs improvised comedy theatre with Impro Melbourne.Follow Kevin on Twitter: @sentience

" ["post_title"]=> string(27) "Kevin Yank - CSS frameworks" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(592) "

Kevin Yank PortraitWith the proliferation and widespread adoption of JavaScript frameworks, smart developers have wondered if a similar approach to smoothing over the rough spots of CSS might work. Thus, CSS frameworks like Blueprint, YUI Library CSS Tools, Boilerplate, and many others were born. In this session, we will survey the landscape of CSS frameworks and consider how each of them deals with the unique challenge of creating generalised, reusable CSS styles.

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Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 11.45am.

Presentation slides

Session description

Over 4 million people in Australia have a disability. As a result they may use the web in a different way to you: a keyboard instead of a mouse; a screen reader instead of a screen. Accessibility is the way that you can tap into this large and growing audience.In this session, Damien will look at why accessibility matters - not just because it is the right thing to do, or a legal requirement. He will discuss how accessibility leads to more robust, maintainable, searchable and usable websites that meet everyone’s needs. Damien will also explore the opportunities accessibility offers for mobile web design, and provide some practical advice about how to include accessibility in your next project.

About Damien McCormack

Damien McCormack PortraitDamien McCormack is an accessibility expert and manager of Vision Australia’s web accessibility services. Seven years experience working with people who are blind or have low vision has evolved into a passion and drive to make the world more accessible. In this time, Damien has worked with a large number of government departments, commercial organisations and educational institutions promoting accessibility and providing business and technical advice across all aspects of a project. Damien is also responsible for developing the culture of accessibility within Vision Australia and experiences the challenges of delivering accessible outcomes daily.

" ["post_title"]=> string(47) "Damien McCormack - Accessibility means business" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(414) "

Damien McCormack PortraitOver 4 million people in Australia have a disability. As a result they may use the web in a different way to you: a keyboard instead of a mouse; a screen reader instead of a screen. Accessibility is the way that you can tap into this large and growing audience.

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Presentations from wds09

Damien McCormack — Accessibility means business

Damien McCormack PortraitOver 4 million people in Australia have a disability. As a result they may use the web in a different way to you: a keyboard instead of a mouse; a screen reader instead of a screen. Accessibility is the way that you can tap into this large and growing audience.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Deborah Schultz — It’s the people, stupid

Deborah Schultz PortraitThe most interesting problems on the web are social, not technical. Once the open, social stack moves into wide use, the real work is going to be on us to create ongoing experiences that inspire, inform, evolve. Avoid this talk if you want to hear about monetizing community, gaming the newest social site for a quick spike in your user numbers, or how to get a [insert cutting edge social platform] strategy for your brand.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Fergus Pitt & David Peterson — The mashed up playlist

Fergus Pitt PortraitDavid Peterson PortraitThe ABC launched three new socially networked digital radio websites: ABC Dig Music, ABC Jazz and ABC Country in July 2009. They are the first of several ABC projects involving content aggregation. As well as having slick, highly usable designs the music platform integrates with various sources including MusicBrainz, YouTube, Last​.fm and Wikipedia. This aggregation functionality graphically illustrates the possibilities of Semantic Web technology for an editorial organisation such as the ABC.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Elliot Jay Stocks — Progressive enhancement

Elliot Jay Stocks PortraitIn the summer of ‘07 in a flood-​​soaked Oxford, England, Elliot appeared on stage for the very first time. His presentation, ‘Progressive Enhancement & Intentional Degradation’, looked at how to reward modern browsers with the latest CSS tricks and punish IE by dropping certain site features. Over two years later, what has changed? We’re starting to see the ideology of progressive enhancement — especially with CSS3 — spread throughout the web design community, but more work needs to be done.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Tania Lang — Using AJAX to enhance UX

Tania Lang PortraitAJAX is changing the way that users interact with websites — it has the potential to provide richer and more interactive online user experiences but also introduces its own set of usability and accessibility problems. This session will present views from leading usability experts from around the world from an experienced practitioner workshop conducted at the Usability Professionals Conference in USA.

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Lachlan Hardy — The open web

Lachlan Hardy PortraitThe Open Web is an evolving term that encompasses technologies from web standards stalwarts like HTML, to almost-​​mainstream buzzwords such as OpenID, and on to emerging specifications like PortableContacts, but it’s more than that. It is a philosophy.

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Silvia Pfeiffer — Taking HTML5 <video> a step further

Silvia Pfeiffer PortraitThis talk focuses on the efforts engaged by W3C to improve the new HTML 5 media elements with mechanisms to allow people to access multimedia content, including audio and video. Such developments are also useful beyond accessibility needs and will lead to a general improvement of the usability of media, making media discoverable and generally a prime citizen on the Web.

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Doug Schepers — W3C and web standards big picture

Doug Schepers PortraitDoug will talk about the technologies currently under development at W3C which we are likely to see in browsers now or in the near future, and will have demos of as many of them as possible. Some of these demos will be HTML5 demos, but also technologies from the WebApps WG, Device API and Policies WG, CSS, SVG, geolocation, etc. He will clear the air about HTML vs. XHTML, and why they are not as far apart as people think.

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Pete Ottery — Designing for suits

Pete Ottery PortraitDesigning websites in amongst the “suits” and their business models, targets, projections and synergies (ha!) can be death by dot point. Or fun. What are manager types actually thinking when they brief (or don’t) you. How do you translate their KPI’s into interface designs that

  • 1. get their point across & achieve their targets
  • 2. contribute to a profitable business
  • 3. are easy to use (who would have thought the users get a say! ;-)

    • See the slides and hear the podcast »

    Kerry Taylor — Semantics & sensors

    Kerry Taylor PortraitThe Semantic Sensor Networks W3C Incubator is an international initiative to develop standards for sharing information collected by sensors and sensor networks over the Web, including an ontology for different types of sensing devices and their observations, and new approaches for the semantic markup of sensor descriptions and services that support sensor data exchange and sensor network management.

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    Renato Iannella — Opening up social networks

    Renato Iannella PortraitSocial Networks have been a world-​​wide phenomenon and their proliferation poses a pressing interoperability and usability challenge to both web users and service providers. Web users have different social networks accounts and utilise them in different ways depending on the context. For example, more friendly chat on FaceBook, more professional on LinkedIn, and a bit daring interaction on Hi5. Maintaining these multiple online profiles is cumbersome and time consuming and locks in the web user to a service provider. Also, sharing information and user-​​generated content is particularly challenging due to the obscure nature of privacy and rights management on social networks and the lack of awareness and transparency of such policies.

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    Scott Hollier — Boosting new media accessibility

    Scott Hollier PortraitThis talk focuses on the efforts engaged by W3C and its members to promote and improve web standards and in particular HTML 5 with mechanisms to allow people with disabilities to access multimedia content, including audio and video.

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    Rob Mason — Pervasive computing

    Rob Manson PortraitWhat is driving this accelerating diffusion of networked technologies? How do you really measure or control how “pervasive” something is? Why would you even want to? We’ll introduce you to a practical framework for analysing and measuring your “spatial perception of an activity” and explore what it literally means for an application to be “pervasive”, in both an experiential and business sense. At the end of this session you’ll be able to clearly diagram the key change that’s driving this evolution and how it will impact your strategies for technology and business in the future.

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    Mark Birbeck — Marking up content with RDFa

    Mark Birbeck PortraitRDFa is at the cornerstone of the Browser Web and the Semantic Web. With RDFa, publishing data becomes as easy as publishing HTML, and can help web pages authors to join the linked data cloud and leverage all the URI-​​based data integration features brought by Semantic Web and Linking Open Data technologies.
    In this introductory session primarily directed at those who author web content, Mark will touch a range of RDFa topics from its goals and how it came about, to its relationship to linked data and how it’s being used in some recent projects for UK Government web-​​sites.

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    Kevin Yank — CSS frameworks

    Kevin Yank PortraitWith the proliferation and widespread adoption of JavaScript frameworks, smart developers have wondered if a similar approach to smoothing over the rough spots of CSS might work. Thus, CSS frameworks like Blueprint, YUI Library CSS Tools, Boilerplate, and many others were born. In this session, we will survey the landscape of CSS frameworks and consider how each of them deals with the unique challenge of creating generalised, reusable CSS styles.

    See the slides and hear the podcast »

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