Scott Gledhill - Real world web standards
Catch this presentation live at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
Those initial stages of converting your company to web standards are much like trying to score that first kiss with the princess. You seduce them with the business benefits of web-standards development, and the rest of the arguments we have all read, written, and preached to anyone who will listen. But getting corporate web standards in place is just a sign that the real relationship is about to begin. The honeymoon is over, and now it’s time to figure out what has gone wrong and why the prince and princess now seem to be constantly bickering—when they were meant to live happily ever after.
Scott draws on his experiences leading the development of eight large media web sites for News Digital Media to examine the ideals of web standards and how they translate within a large organisation. Learn how to make web standards work for you, when rules must be broken and how to deliver a final product that meets deadlines and still keeps project teams happy.
So you’ve designed a fantastic website for your client, tested in all the major browsers and everything looks great. Now they want to send an email newsletter to all their customers, using the new design.
Dubbed “the King of Web Standards” by Business Week, Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded the group and movement that brought standards to our browsers. Through A List Apart Magazine, his books, and endless advocacy, he brought wisdom to our industry and benefits awareness to the people who approve our budgets. Ten years into the web standards movement, how are we doing? What agreements have we reached? What battles no longer need to be fought? What hurdles still prevent us from reaching standards and accessibility utopia?
When we follow the principles of web standards, we write valid HTML and CSS, unobtrusive JavaScript and follow WCAG and other accessibility guidelines. This simple act goes a long way to creating an accessible web site, application or service. At the same time, many sites that don’t utilize all that is good and wholesome about web standards perform surprisingly well when they are used by people with disabilities.
Web Usability is far more complex than User Testing and Interaction Design alone. And while interface design is an important consideration, there’s more to a usable site than what’s on the surface. We all know the importance of accessibility and web standards, so let’s take that knowledge one step further and into the realm of usability. In this session Lisa Herrod will redefine the common definition of usability by introducing a greater focus on accessibility and web standards. By taking a more holistic approach you will soon see why usability is more than skin deep.
In this keynote, Chris Wilson examines the state of the web, some of the problems facing browsers (as platform Architect of the Internet Explorer browser) and standards (as co-chair of the HTML Working Group) and explores what we need to do together to move the web forward.
CSS level 2 became a standard in 1998. The last revision of HTML4 dates from 1999. That’s long time ago in Web years, but they aren’t forgotten: after several years of work, CSS is close to a revision and browser support is better than ever. It’s necessary, because CSS needs to grow: vertical text, columns, print support, complex layouts and much more is increasingly demanded. Likewise, there is a big effort to revise HTML. Interest is so high, the W3C is trying a new process, to let more people participate in the editing work. There are also new forms, standards for combining SVG and HTML and new work on the security of forms. Bert’s here to tell us: we haven’t seen the end of the Web page yet.
This was one of our most loved sessions last year, so much so that we decided to do it again this year, with some new faces, some new experiences. With speakers from both government/education as well as the private sector, get advice from those who’ve already been there on dealing with recalcitrant management, teams members and agencies, building by stealth and making incremental change.