An Event Apart: “Inclusive UX: Techniques for Everyone”

Derek Featherstone speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 4, 2018.

You and your teams are doing the things that need to be done to create inclusive designs. You’ve been using meaningful, semantic markup from the get-go. You stopped using light grey on slightly darker grey text years ago. Designing and building your apps and sites in an accessible way is just how you work now—you have to try really hard to make things that don’t work with a keyboard. So, what’s next for you? How can you make sure that you’re delivering on the promise of the web by delivering an inclusive design that can be easily used by people with disabilities? In this talk, Derek will tackle the tougher problems through design approaches and practical development techniques that you need to create accessible, modern web sites.

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An Event Apart: “The All-Powerful Front-End Developer”

Chris Coyier speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 3, 2018.

The internet is, without metaphor, just a bunch of servers tied together with wires. Without servers, we’d have no way to share our creations with the world. Yet in a bit of a paradox, servers are less essential to our work than they’ve ever been. We can now do things on the front end that used to require a back end. When we do need a back end, our front end skills can be put to work, giving us some surprisingly powerful new abilities. Join Chris on a whirlwind tour of the tools, tech, and code that puts more power than ever into our front-end hands.

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An Event Apart: “Performance as User Experience”

Aaron Gustafson speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 3, 2018.

Design is problem solving. Each and every day, we are tasked with finding ways to reduce the friction our users experience on the Web. That means streamlining flows, reducing cognitive load, and writing more appropriate copy, but user experience goes far beyond the interface. Our users’ experiences begin with their first request to our servers. In this intensely practical session, Aaron will explore the ins and outs of page load performance by showing how he made the web site of the 10K Apart meet its own contest rules, by having a site that was functional and attractive even without JavaScript, and was less than ten kilobytes at initial load. You’ll walk away with a better understanding of the page load process as well as numerous ways you can improve the projects you are working on right now.

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An Event Apart: “The Way Of The Web”

Jeremy Keith speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 3, 2018.

Do you ever get overwhelmed by the ever-changing nature of web design and development? Exhausting, isn’t it? How are you supposed to know which technologies and tools you should invest your time in? Will they stick around or will you just have to relearn everything in another few months? Join Jeremy as he takes a tour of the past, present, and future of working on the web. From the building blocks of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript through to frameworks and libraries right up to the latest and greatest Progressive Web Apps, this talk will examine our collective assumptions with a critical eye. By learning from the past, we can make sensible design decisions today to build the web of tomorrow.

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An Event Apart Orlando 2016

Photo source: Zeffrey Zeldman
Photo source: Zeffrey Zeldman

I was fortunate enough to attend An Event Apart in Orlando this month. I’ve posted my complete notes separately, but below you will find some of the key themes from the conference as well as an overview of each talk. You can also take a look at Articles, Links, and Tools From An Event Apart Orlando 2016 for more information and resources.

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