@media 07

When you’ve a conference on your doorstep with big names from the web world turning up, it’s an insult to those not in the same position if you don’t go. How could I not? And it was well worth it, the roll call of speakers I saw:

As usual accessibility was high on the agenda, but this year the debate about where the responsibility lies turned more towards the user agent developers than ever before. As part of this theme Joe Clark presented “When Web Accessibility is Not Your Problem“. The comments he made, along with his take-no-prisoners style seemed to shake the audience up (and at least one other speaker). To tell you the truth, I’m still a little uncomfortable with what he had to say, I’m going to have to revisit that one. Also, there was a lot more about design, including the hilarious “High-Noon Shoot-Out: Design vs. Implementation“. Drew and Simon (mentioned above) presented a rousing debate culminating in Drew running into the audience handing out placards stating “THERE IS NO FOLD”. The event seemed to get the ‘designer’ and ‘developer’ tracks sorted this year (when compared to last), however as always you find yourself wanting to split in two for some sessions.

In retrospect, I’m a bit miffed I missed Nate Koechley‘s “High Performance Web Pages“, as afterwards I heard really positive things about it. Also, I found the choice between “1 Web, Acid2 and CSS3” and “Advancing Web Accessibility” to be difficult, it ended up being a bit of an ‘ip-dip-doo’ situation (very scientific me). Anyway I did see some really interesting and thought provoking presentations, I plan to blog them in my next few posts (I wrote 48 pages in an A5 note pad across two days, I’m not going to write it all up here but it’s a lot to go through). I’ve also got a few pictures I know I should post, still thinking what’s best for that but I guess I’m going to have to bite the bullet and get a Yahoo! ID and use flickr.

Posted on Saturday 9 June 2007.

Posted in @media, accessibility, design, employment/experience | Add a comment »

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