Non Breaking Space Show № 69: Allison Wagner — Career Path to UX Developer

Allison Wagner on Non Breaking Space Show

Today’s Non Breaking Space Show guest is Allison Wagner. She has worked at Happy Cog as a UX developer for over 6 years, building sites for high-profile clients such as Nintendo, MTV, Harvard, Ben & Jerry’s, and Shopify. 

She specializes in architecting custom front-end frameworks designed to scale and integrate. She lives in Philadelphia and enjoys traveling, outdoor running, and #konmarie in her spare time.

Her formal training is in design and advertising. She attended Temple University in Philadelphia, graduating with a BA from the School of Communications. 

She started coding her own web designs, and found her true passion to be in development. As she honed her skills, she garnered a sincere appreciation for standards-based development practices, believing whole-heartedly in the importance of an accessible web.

Topics discussed with Allison Wagner:

  • 3:30 Allison’s career path to development
  • 15:30 Expressive CSS
  • 22:00 Using Patternlab and Atomic Design
  • 28:50 Allison travelling and working adventures.
  • 35:00 Picking a good AirBnB location
  • 42:00 Working at the same place for a long time vs moving on quickly
  • 50:22 The magic of tidying up.
  • 53:27 Is your workspace actually working?
  • 54:45 Running and getting active.
  • 1:03:28 Career path for developers 

Non Breaking Space Show is still free of charge to high school teachers along with show notes and resources: Episode № 69: Allison Wagner — Career Path to UX Developer

Analyzing Form Element and CSS Support in Web Browsers

Last week, Kimberly Blessing and I gave a presentaion on Designing Our Way Through Web Forms at Web Visions in Portland, OR. 

It was a bit more advanced talk in some ways than the one we gave at SXSW.

For this session, I dove into my research of the Web Form Elements to analyze which CSS properties and form elements are poorly supported in browsers. 

I looked at each of the Web form elements to see if CSS property was supported on the form element–assigning it a value of Y for yes, N for no, S for somewhat and N/A for the CSS properties that didn’t apply. 

You can look at the start of this reseach in the lookup tables for Appendix D of the CSS Cookbook. It’s available as a free download from the O’Reilly Web site.

To see which form elements and CSS properties did well, you can look into the presentation itself from my SlideShare account (see pages 33 and 37) or you skip down this blog post to read the lists. 

Support for CSS Properties (Best to Worst)

  1. margin
  2. background-color
  3. width
  4. font-size
  5. border-style
  6. letter-spacing
  7. padding
  8. height
  9. color
  10. background-image
  11. border
  12. font-family
  13. border-width
  14. border-color
  15. font-weight
  16. word-spacing
  17. text-indent
  18. text-decoration
  19. text-align
  20. line-height

Support for Form Elements (Best to Worst)

  1. textarea
  2. input text
  3. submit buttons
  4. select (one item)
  5. select (multiple items)
  6. file uploads
  7. checkboxes
  8. radio buttons

Web Form Elements Design Quiz, Part 1: Radio Buttons and Width Property

Browser development is active.

Along with Opera and Firefox, there have been two versions of IE within the three years along with Google’s new browser, Chrome. 

These new developments in browsers are leading to some long desired features in browsers like opacity, auto-generated content and (maybe) embedding typefaces. 

However there is still an unresolved issue with browsers: Web form elements are inconsistently rendered.

While anyone can see that there are problems with how forms are rendered, the question is, “what is the best way to render for elements for a given form element and CSS property?”

Along the lines of Dan’s SimpleQuiz series, I figured it’s best to ask the Web design and development community for their opinions. 

Hopefully this discussion will lead to the appropriate solution that browser vendors could use when programming how browsers should handle the CSS-enabled design of Web form elements. 

The first question I would ask is one that I think shows readily the problem with Web form design: 

How should browsers render radio buttons when a value for width of a certain length is applied?

Pick your answer from the sample answers (which are taken from actual browser renderings) or suggest your own solution!

A. Radio buttons stretch to the size of the width property value.

fmtag-inputradio-width-ffx2-mac.png

B. Radio buttons do not resize, yet the space set by width property is applied and the radio buttons are aligned to the left.

fmtag-inputradio-width-sf3-mac.png

C. Radio buttons do not resize, yet the space set by width property is applied and the radio buttons are aligned to the center.

fmtag-inputradio-width-chrm-pc.png

D. Nothing happens. 

fmtag-inputradio-width-ffx3-mac.png

Validated Ampersands in HTML Links

When dealing with the W3C’s HTML Validator, you know that the error messages try to be helpful. But when you are new to HTML and Web design in general, the messages can be hard to decode.

One such error a student of mine recently encountered. When they ran a Web site through the HTML validator, she found an error message that confused her:

general entity “FID” not defined and no default entity .

This is usually a cascading error caused by a an undefined entity reference or use of an unencoded ampersand (&) in an URL or body text. See the previous message for further details.

Error message from HTML validator

HTML Character Entities

When dealing with a markup language that has markers like and > to indicate the start and end of tags is fairly simple. But when you want to actually use characters like and > when you want to talk about tags or you want to demonstrated how much greater this part of this sentence is > compared to this side.

It turns out that HTML has a method for handling these cases. You use a series of characters typed out in the right order in the HTML code to represent one character. For example, typing out & lt; and & gt; the HTML file will produce and >. Other examples include copyright (& copy;) and em-dashes (& em;).

The ampersand character is a trigger that tells the browser that a character entity is about to be formed and should be transformed when it is rendered on the screen.

But what happens when you want to present an actual ampersand and not tell the browser it’s some other character? Well, in this case, the only way out of this situation is through! There’s a character entity for ampersands and it looks like this & amp; if you were to write in HTML code.

For more information on character entities, check the listing of XML and HTML character entities.

But What About the HTML Error?

The “FID” error the student found is a little confusing, especially since it’s not really an error in the sense we have a malformed tag called “FID” that we need to fix.

Rather what’s happening is that the long link has an ampersand in its query string that is not properly formed. Since ampersands are supposed to be escaped and they aren’t in the long link in the source code, the browser is expecting the characters after the ampersand to be one of those special HTML characters it knows. Since it’s not, it’s throwing up it’s hands and giving up.

So, when placing links with query strings in your Web document, be sure to write out the character for ampersand in the href value:

add-cart.html?isbn=9780470177082& amp;id=023

That removes the error and allows you to get on with life™!

Getting More Out of the W3C Validator

When checking out sites with the validator, you can click on an option called “Verbose Output” which will give you more insight into error or probable cause of the error messages you are receiving.

However, I’ve found that most people don’t know about this option even though Zeldman made W3C put it in way back in 2003, a magical time when we didn’t have to be told to leave Britney alone.

To help with that, I’ve made a bookmarklet which sets Verbose Output on when testing a page for validation.

To use it, first drag this link to your browser’s bookmark menu: 

HTML Validation (Verbose)

Then surf over to a site you want to check out and press the “HTML Validation (Verbose)” bookmark in your browser’s menu.

You are automatically taken to the validation report with Verbose Output and, as an added bonus, Show Source already turned on. 

Kimberly Blessing Voices That Matter Interview at SXSW 2008

Before she rocked An Event Apart in Boston, Kimberly Blessing was at South by Southwest like everyone else was in the Web design and development crowd. While there the publisher of our book, Adapting to Web Standards, asked her if she would do an interview with fellow New Riders author, Richard Harrington.

Below is the video the publisher made of the interview along with the transcript I’ve recently produced to go along with it.

Richard Harrington: Hi. My name is Richard Harrington. I am a blogger as well as an author and we are here today at South by Southwest, taking look at some of the things happening over in the interactive space. We have joined by Kimberly Blessing, who is a co-author of a new book called Adapting to Web Standards.

Why is there the need for this book? What was really the motivation behind it?

Kimberly Blessing: Oh, so, I think, what happened was a number of different authors, who have worked on really large sites that have made successful conversions to Web standards came together and said, “we need a document of what we have done, because there are other large companies out there where perhaps there are standards evangelists that are having trouble convincing their companies that they need to make this leap.” 

I also think there are some companies out there that are kind of struggling. They need to know that there is success. You know there is a light at the end of tunnel, more or less. So, kind of bringing together people who have been successful at this and documenting those experiences as a way to educate, encourage and just document for others. 

RH: Now, many people when they hear standards think of it as a negative thing. What are some of the benefits of putting in good standards that are usable, effective? Describe some best practices or why I can’t be should doing this.

KB: I think the biggest benefit especially when you are in the enterprise the most company see are the dollar signs. The fact that there is lot of savings that come from utilization of standards. 

If you take a Web site with about a thosand Web pages and each page has been developed by a different coder, has been designed by a different designer, and none of them are hearing to any common set of those practices or standards, like you said, then you are essentially spending money for one-offs every single time you create a new product or a new page. 

And, so, utlimately to the big business there is a lot of savings by establishing a set of standards, ensuring that your teams are following them and kind of having review process to ensure that and then reaping the savings from that. 

Of course there are benefits to the user on the opposite end. 

Once they access a website that has been consistently designed and coded, they are going to have how much better user experience. It becomes much more simple to upgrade the website, to ensure that other standards are supported on an ongoing fashion. 

Sojust for example you mentioned accessibility. You know if today your Web site is coded in one common fashion, even if it has no accessibility features to go back and add those it should be relatively simple because you are not looking at upgrading a completely different codebase. You are looking at one common set of code then just need some couple of fixes. 

RH: Now, you’ve been in the trenches when it comes to standards for some very large companies. Why do you think there is a resistance to standards? Not necessarily the companies you’ve worked with, but. you have seen this. Why do people resist this?

KB: I think folks typically resist this for one or two reasons. 

Either they think it’s going to limit their creativity or it kind of means that, you know, The Man is—and I hate to use that term, but— you know, the man is kind of holding them and telling them what to do.

But I think that if you take a look at some of what those large companies are doing, in particular the technology based companies. They have realized that they need to have this process, they need to have this documentation and it becomes an essential part of being a quality technology company or producing a quality Web site. 

And on the design front when people feel like its kind of boxing them in, you know, I kind of put it in the way that you have to design a better box set. If this particular box is too constraining, in the next revision of those design standards of those design patterns, what should the box should look like like next?

RH: So, do you really see that, I guess, for standards to be effective, it is not just top down standardization. How does the whole team or what should a company be doing to involve others in the creation of standards? 

KB: So, I am typically used to more of a gross roots, a kind of bottom up approach, to standards where people who know about our web standards typically come together first and say, “hey, lets’ try to get the company on the same page.” 

So, when you start with that model, I think first of all, you get very passionate people who want to collaborate. So right there a kind of removing any of the barriers because the people know they want to achieve success and they want to do something together. 

So, I think that really helps in terms of making for a very successful process. 

And then what those folks typically have to do is evangelize and outreach and look for those key executives who they can then sell that message to. And then one those executives latch on then they can really become top down process change and then enforces standards throughout. 

If you start it out with an executive or with some kind of top-down mandate to achieve standards, I think that’s great, sometimes what I have seen happen though is that is kind of like forcing teams together, “you have to come up with standards.” 

You don’t always get the same level of passion and commitment, you know, and wanting to break down the boundaries, but if you can find the right team and the right leader for that team, really there shouldn’t be much of a problem. 

RH: Now, we talked about large companies. Is there room for using standards for small developers, smaller teams and, if so, how is that help out?

KB: I actually think that there is a place for standards for small teams. I say in the agency environment especially with some of the smaller consultancies that are out there where you may be only have three to five people on a design or a development team, typically what you want to do is still ensure that everybody is coding in the same manner. 

Just because you create a site today for a client doesn’t mean that somebody else in the future won’t have to comeback and maintain it. And that typically it won’t be you, it could be somebody either with the company today or somebody who is not even yet with the company. 

So, if you are all working against one common set of standards or set of principles for your designing and development work it should be really easy than to go back in later on, make changes, ensure that something new is being developed is in line with the design aesthetic or with the coding structure thus making it that much easier to share.

RH: Last question for you. What’s the one thing you have learn that really drives the standards? If a group is having trouble getting in place, what can they do to turn the corner to really get standards accepted?

KB: I guess I would say its really is that comes down to people. Its all about the people there involved. 

And I guess I can say that I have seen teams that really do struggle where these some more of dead weight on the team, somebody who isn’t fully bought into the idea, isn’t towing their part of the overall package and that can be really difficult for a team. I think what has to happen in those cases, you have to have an honest conversation. 

And when it comes into evangelism the best thing to do is to have that one-to-one conversation and convert each person one at a time rather than trying to talk to a big audience and not being able to customize. 

RH: Thank you Kimberly for joining us. The book is Adapting to Web Standards with Kimberly Blessing. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

KB: Thanks, Rich.

Related Interviews

The Stephanie Sullivan Interview

Stephanie Sullivan is always in motion. As a CSS expert, international speaker and corporate trainer, she is in demand and shows no signs of slowing down.

We recently wrapped up an interview in which we covered a lot of ground. We talked about women in our industry, her perception of education, the CSS layouts she built for Dreamweaver, her travel tips, her geek romance with Greg Rowis and much, much more.

For full disclosure, she’s also a co-lead with me on The Web Standards Project Adobe Task Force. So, “how does she put up with me” was one question I didn’t ask.

Stephanie Sullivan

Christopher Schmitt: How would you describe yourself?

Stephanie Sullivan: Oh me? I’m a dork. 

I’m not sure if you’re asking me to describe myself in the business, or personally. 

Personally, I’m pretty high-energy and active. I’ve always been involved in sports. I’ve got a fairly quirky, nutty sense of humor—which is where my dork comment comes from. I’m an extremely compassionate people-person. I can’t stand suffering, which likely explains my reason for continuing to give free help on forums. I’m pretty ADD as well. Meaning—I have a hyperactive brain that requires near constant stimulation. 

It also seems to be quite attracted to multi-tasking, which is not always the best way to function! 

A little more focus would likely do me well. Business-wise, I’m pretty tenacious, driven and I constantly challenge myself to learn new things. I don’t believe there are boundaries on what I can do—unless I set them myself. 

I refuse to believe, unlike some in my industry, that being a woman affects my ability to succeed. I am constantly looking for opportunities. There are few glass ceilings here—but there are many glass hats.

Women and Our Industry

CS: A few glass hats is an interesting comment. Do you feel that women, generally speaking in our industry, are holding themselves back? Possibly blaming others for a lack of whatever success?

SS: The term “glass hats” came up in a discussions with Jeffrey Zeldman recently. I really liked it, so I borrowed it from him—thanks Jeffrey! 

I do think it summarizes what happens to some people, including women. Obviously, this entire subject is huge and we could write a book on it. I’ll try to summarize my thoughts since I’ve spent a good deal of time mulling it over recently. 

I led a panel of five women at this year’s SXSW Interactive called “What Women Need to Succeed.” Obviously, I don’t speak for all women everywhere. I am coming from my own perspective based on what I’ve seen, learned and experienced. 

I eluded to my study of the brain, personality, etc over the years. And speaking in generalities—likely using the 8020 principle here: 80% of women are like I’m describing, but 20% are not—many women tend to have different dominant personality traits than men. In fact, there are scientifically proven differences in the structure. 

Undoubtedly, women are every bit as smart and talented as men. But the way we process information is sometimes different. 

One example is that the corpus callosum of a women’s brain is larger—for those of you that have forgotten anatomy class, this area is located between, and connects, the two hemispheres of the brain. I’ve heard it compared to a “superhighway” where we can easily dash back and forth between the two hemispheres of the brain—multitracking.

The smaller corpus callosum in men’s brains is likened to a one lane road causing them to do all they can in one hemisphere before moving to the other side to work from that perspective. This doesn’t make one of us better or worse. This makes us different. 

For those that have had children like I have, this may explain the mother’s ability to do ten things at once while the dad feel’s frustrated and overwhelmed by it all. But, as usual, I digress…

I believe the “trouble” some women have in this industry is really no different than any other industry—in fact, I think ours is likely better in some ways since it’s a newer industry with many younger people. In general, the men in our industry are intelligent—how many non-intelligent people really want to be, and love being a geek, right? And I say that in a most loving, admiring way with all the respect that term should elicit. 

My guess would be that if we ran the numbers, the median age would be lower than many other industries. And these men, for the most part, were raised by working mothers. Few of them are bigoted or controlled by a major dose of sexism. I believe what is more likely at play here is related to the differences in the way we interact and promote ourselves.

Many women are less aggressive. Women tend to do good work and then expect to be recognized for it. Most do not want to have to do “that locker room thing” where you tell people what you’ve done—some would call that a form of promotion—at times exaggerated. 

For the same reason—waiting on the earned recognition—women don’t tend to ask for what they want. We wouldn’t want to make someone else feel bad. 

Women are not generally taught how to focus righteous anger in the workplace when they feel a door has been closed. Many lapse into victimhood or get visibly angry instead of focusing that anger on doing more and doing better—like an athlete does. I’m not referring to anger based on something done that’s inappropriate—that absolutely should be shown as anger. 

In other words, many of us have self-limiting beliefs and behaviors—and this can certainly include men as well. As women, we can learn to use these difference as strengths—multi-tracking can be a wonderful thing. And we can also learn to change the areas we choose to change. I’ve chosen to confront and defeat many fears along this journey.

One place many women excel is in creating and maintaining relationships. And that can certainly be a big plus in the business world. But I’ve also noticed—at conferences which I obviously attend a lot of—that many times the women there don’t interact as much with the men. They hang back and don’t introduce themselves. And from the men, I see the same thing toward the women. 

To be blunt, some have told me they don’t want to be seen as “hitting on a woman” because they’re being friendly. So this is where our sexes can come into play. 

In truth, I’m uncomfortable when I meet new people. I’m rather loud, so many don’t realize this. When I’m at an event where I don’t know people, I’d much prefer to just sit back and observe. But I recognized early on that there are as many deals made over a beer as in the board room. Thus, I push myself to walk up, introduce myself, and get to know people. This is what I mean by “choosing to change.” When you need to bring someone in as a sub-contractor on a job, who do you think of? It’s not the people you don’t know—so forming relationships is important.

All this is not to say that every woman will succeed to the level she desires. Nor will every man. I’ve often wondered what men’s self talk is when they don’t reach the level of the company they envisioned. They can’t blame it on their sex, so where do they focus. 

Sometimes, you can do all the “right things” and still not make it to the place you wanted to be. Sometimes people are in the right place at the right time with the right opportunity—and yes, it could have been you instead. But it was them. That’s just life. 

But I think women can learn behaviors that will give them more opportunities to make it happen. Opportunities to create the life they want to live and career they want to have. Being successful in work is not the only thing that means we’re a successful person—I certainly took it slow at the beginning due to raising my boys.

I used to collect quotes. They were randomly attached to my signature file. One of my favorites from Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.” 

And another which Earl Nightingale quoted, but I don’t know if he originated it is, “Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. And opportunity is everywhere.” 

We need to take the opportunity to meet and talk to people—to form relationships. We need to take the opportunity to go above and beyond what’s expected of us in our work—and we need to give back. To help other people expecting nothing in return. Those things have never let me down—they’ve always come back to me. 

I’ve always loved the last line of the song “Can’t Stop” by Red Hot Chili Peppers, “This life is more than just a read through.” That it is. Live it and make it happen. You don’t fail till you quit.

CS: In 2005, there was a panel that addressed the issue of “Where Are the Women of Web Design?” which seemed to be a telling point about the industry’s gender slant. But what underscored that panel was, I believe, the 2007 A List Apart survey. In the survey only 15% of the people who filled it out were women. There really aren’t that many women here. Pretty much like Georgia Tech, if you ask me. 

Realizing that there are fewer women in the industry by a wide margin, do you think the lack of women in the workplace gives an appearance that women can’t succeed in this industry? Is there a cultural barrier that tells women to stick away from geek-related industries that is at fault?

SS: When I meet women and they ask what I do, I can get some really odd looks while explaining. Responses vary from the incredulous, “You write code? How in the world did you get into that?,” to the woman that finds it interesting that a woman would work in such an industry, to the ones whose eyes just glaze over and roll back into their heads. End of conversation. 

Women do culturally look at certain types of jobs. When I was younger, I wouldn’t in a million years have thought of doing this. But I grew up in a different era obviously. I’m older than many here. I would hope that at this point, it’s a bit different. That said, I have a son in college and I don’t know that any of his female friends are considering geekdom.

I’m not sure many schools encourage kids to look at their brain type and make career decisions based on that. Yes, I took a test in college and they gave me a list of things I might like—but none of them interested me at all. So either the test sucked, or my knowledge of myself was so lacking that the results were skewed.

I recently asked a friend of mine, whose 21st birthday is today, her take on this. This is one woman’s comment, of course, but she’s “of this generation” so her comment was interesting to me. To quote her, “I hear girls chat about it. They’re turned off by nerdy men and dont want to be thought of as nerds by men.” 

Wow. That took me back! Clearly, this generation of women does not realize how sexy smart geeks are. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly bothered by the perception that women will be thought of as “nerds” if they work in this industry. I personally prefer to be called a geek. 

So today, are we still fighting with the “Cosmo girl stereotype” within this age range? It certainly gives one pause. 

Learning Web Design

CS: How did you first get involved with Web design?

SS: Well, it’s probably not the usual story. 

When I was a teen, my dad talked me out of trying to be a brain surgeon. I did quite a few things after thatnurse, model, travel agent, corporate image consultant—but nothing I loved. 

After taking 10 years off to raise and homeschool my boys, I was ready to re-enter the work force. But there was nothing I’d done before that I wanted to do again. 

I have always studied the brain—brain quadrants, personality traits, brain lead. I decided this time, instead of just “trying something,” I’d look at some of the things I knew about my brain, and find a career that utilized them. My brain loves puzzle-type thinking—detective work, figuring things out, research. 

I thought maybe code would take advantage of those things. The only code I’d ever heard of was C++. I decided I’d learn that—until I mentioned it to a friend and he told me I was crazy. 

He said C++ would probably bore me and suggested I learn the code they build the web with—HTML. I’d never heard of it.

I took one class and figured out a classroom wasn’t my preferred modality to learn in—too fast or too slow. I learn well on my own so I bought books and did online tutorials for about 15 hours a day for well over a year. Did I mention I’m driven? 

I also took advantage of forums where I’m sure I drove people nuts with questions. And that’s another reason I now run a forum—to give back to the community and bring other people along. I vacillated between design and code over that time, since I enjoy both—but I found that even though I had previously done traditional art on paper, illustration and design on the web were different. I felt I had to focus on one or the other. 

Since I’m a major tweakaholic—I can never leave a design alone—I found I could save money by hiring someone else to do the design and simply art directing. But that’s probably more than you’re asking. Did I mention I’m blabby?

CS: Heh, that’s quite alright. Honestly. 

What interested in you in becoming a brain surgeon? How much convincing did your dad have to do to keep you from being a brain surgeon?

SS: My father was a family practice physician, so likely the attraction to medicine was because that’s what I was exposed to all my life. 

Due to my interest in the brain, I was really drawn to that particular specialty of medicine. Sadly, the reason he talked me out of it was very sexist—and yes, he has since apologized. 

He basically said that with the number of years I would have to go to school, with internships, residencies and such, by the time I was ready to practice, I would be about 30. 

He supposed that about that time I would want to have children, that I would likely raise my children myself and since medical school was so hard to get into, I should leave that spot for “a man that would use it.” 

I thought it sad to give up that goal, but yet logical at the same time. It was a big mistake for me though. I had no goal outside that and became a nurse instead. I took nursing in a special program offered to four students my senior year of high school. I didn’t love that at all and later left the medical field altogether. 

CS: And you eventually found your way to Web development. A year long, self-imposed Web education seems quite an unusual route to go. When was this?

SS: I lean toward the unusual. Or maybe, I lean toward the intense. Either way, it was about 1999.

Perception of Education

CS: You must have an interesting perspective on our industry than a typical design student going through college might have. What perceptions do you have about this industry that others might typically have? How does it compare to the other industries you’ve been in or exposed to?

SS: Well, likely my perceptions are different coming from a non-traditional path. 

Quite frankly, my overall perception of education itself is probably different. I believe that life is about learning. The day you stop learning is the day you start dying. 

My reason for home schooling my boys was not to sequester them from the world—they had plenty of friends—, but instead to create thinkers. School is great if you have the type of brain that can memorize well—and spew back accurately. You’ll be seen as brilliant. But what if you’re more of a non-traditional learner or thinker? 

Like Einstein, you could be thought of as almost retarded. My boys don’t have learning style challenges, but I still wanted them to learn as part of life—not as part of sitting down at a book because someone made you.

My older son was 11th in the nation in debate one year. When he was about 12, because he loves writing, he was published almost weekly at a website for kids called Neopets.

My younger son, at 11, was trying to invent a maglev elevator for the new, super tall buildings in Asia. Nowadays, he’s in public high school—says it’s boring—and does lots of online research and reading about physics and science on his own time. I believe this is because he likes to learn and challenge his mind. And before you think he’s too boring and geeky, yes, he loves video games and plays WoW and other games regularly with friends.

That train of thought obviously colors my own thinking about this industry. I don’t believe that because someone got a degree in something related to our field they know any more than someone that did not. In fact, I hear all the time how behind many of the programs in schools are. 

Our industry is fast-paced. Large institutions, like schools and universities, find it difficult to change rapidly enough. For this reason the WaSP EduTF, SoDA and Opera are all working on curriculums that schools can use that are actually useful for the graduates using them. Being self-taught, as long as you’re thorough about it, is not a bad thing at all.

CS: What activities did you do with your own children that you found worked best in facilitating this desire to learn rather than memorize?

SS: My approach was to use life as a learning tool. 

For instance, there is a lot of pressure put on parents to “make their kid smarter” than the other kids on the block, in the grade, wherever. As evidenced by things like, “I’m the proud parent of a honor roll student” bumper stickers, etc. 

When my boys were young, it was very difficult not to succumb to parent peer pressure and grab the flash cards so that Cameron could recite more letters, colors, read first, whatever. As other parents brag about how their child can already read certain words at four, you get an intense feeling of, “Hey, my kid is smart too!” and you really want to prove it.

However, brain studies show that, especially in boys, brain development of speech and reading areas can be slower. Pushing them to read before their brain development in that area is complete can make them feel that they’re stupid. The fact is, it will develop.

There are signs to watch for to know when they’re ready for it. If a child is kept out of school, not taught with books and just plays in nature till they’re 10 years old—within that first year in school, they typically catch up with all the other kids. So pushing them younger, to me, is not the answer.

For that reason, I waited—sitting on my hands—until Cameron started asking me things about the sounds letters made. Until he was asking me what certain things spelled. Only then did we dive into it all. But it was still just done as a part of life. I didn’t own a single phonics book or flash card. We simply read lots of books—we always did. We talked about the road signs and everything around us. Life was his phonics lesson. Both boys are tremendous readers and writers now.

I typically followed their interests. I let their inquisitive minds lead our learning. Books—not curriculum per se—and the internet contain everything you could want to know. Learning how to find it is key. 

I have a funny story about learning English that I love to tell. It’s about Cameron again—probably because he’s the oldest and all my experimenting was done on him. In second grade, all he wanted to do was math. Constantly. He did tons and tons of math on the computer with learning games and in little work books I’d get at the book store. At the end of the year, as expected, he tested 99th percentile in Math and about 75th in English. 

I wasn’t bothered by it. I figured that in third grade, we’d just do more English and catch up. Who says that doing every subject every year is the way it should be done?

I got a little English workbook from the bookstore—one of those that parents can use for supplemental learning—and sat him at a table with it. Sitting with a book was not really our usual way. And especially with something he was showing no desire to learn. But I was afraid he’d get too far behind, so I made him. 

After three days of this, he was in tears while I tried to force him to do it. And I thought—this is not why I home school my kids. When he’s ready, when he sees the value of it, he’ll learn it. That’s always worked before. I closed the book and put it away never to be seen again.

About two months later, he was playing one of his favorite games on the computer—Escape Velocity Nova, I think—and he discovered that there was a message board where all the players were talking to each other. He got really excited and he called me in. “Mom, I want to post here. I’ll tell you what I want to say, ok?” I said, “Nope. You type it. You spell it. You use proper grammar. When you’re all done, you call me in. I’ll spell check and proof it and then you can send.” 

He would have liked me to do it, but he was so excited by the prospect of discussing this with other people that he saw the value in doing those things. Every day, he would type up his posts and I would use them as his English lessons. Within about six weeks he was above grade level and within about three months he didn’t need me for that at all anymore. It was only a couple years after that when he started writing for Neopets.

That was the long answer to your question about what worked best for us. It was using their desires and interests. Using life as it happened around them. Exposing them to different things like the month we spent in Italy traveling by car in the countryside. Teaching them how to find the answers to their questions. That’s what creates an inquisitive, but self-sufficient mind in my opinion.

CS: I definitely agree with that. How about your own Web education? What kind of tutorials and books did you find the most useful?

SS: When I was at the very beginning, I got a Visual Quick Start Guide for every program I had. I found them to be a great reference allowing me to jump around and easily find what I needed—I rarely read a book cover to cover. 

For code and design though, I found myself using Web tutorials more. Much of my learning came from talking friends into letting me build their business a Web site, and then figuring out how the heck to do what they needed. And generally, after I had exhausted other options for figuring things out, I went to forums for help.

In fact, that’s how Community MX came about. We wanted to quickly disseminate information—instead of wait for a publishing cycle—as well as provide forums to point people to further information that might help. 

We’ve tried to create what we wished was there when we were learning. It’s been going for over five years now, and at this time, we’ve got over 2,600 tutorials on Adobe-related products as well as the Web in general.

CS: What’s the forum that you run?

SS: The forum where I’m a list mom is called WebWeavers. It’s Dreamweaver-related, but we don’t ban any general web-related question there either. It’s a great group of folks, many of which have been hanging out there a long time. I also work the forums at Community MX.

CS: How did you get involved in speaking at conferences, workshops?

SS: I started by writing at Community MX and Adobe’s DevNet Center. Then Ray West asked me to speak at TODCon and later, I spoke at Macromedia’s MAX conference. 

The past 18 months, I’ve been on the road almost non-stop due to writing the 32 CSS layouts contained in Dreamweaver CS3. I’ve had a lot of opportunity to talk about that, and CSS in general, in a large variety of settings all over the world. I’ve also been traveling doing training for corporate web departments.

Built-in CSS Layouts

CS: For those that might not know about layouts, can you describe what they are and how one can use them in Dreamweaver?

SS: The CSS layouts in Dreamweaver are simply solid, structural layouts accessed through the File > New menu. They contain no design—they have grey backgrounds on the div’s to show their placement—and no graphics.

Most sites online are basically either one, two or three-columns with or without headers and footers, so those are the types of layouts you can choose from. They come in 5 flavors: fixed, liquid, elastic, hybrid and a couple absolutely positioned—not my fault—they made me do those. 

Since there are so many ways to skin the proverbial CSS cat, I commented them heavily so users would understand issues they might encounter as they adapt them to their design. 

It’s a great learning tool for someone just starting with CSS for layout and a quick start for those that are already comfortable. I used to have custom snippets I used as quick starts, now I simply use these.

The CSS layouts don’t come with a user manual and for that reason, Greg Rewis and I wrote a book last year. Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS3 was published this year in New Riders’ Voices that Matter series. 

Greg is the Group Manager, Creative Solutions Evangelism for Adobe and past product manager for Dreamweaver—though he was originally one of the founders of GoLive.

It’s a project based book with six chapters. The first chapter is simply a review of the CSS principles that we felt were important for people to understand if they’re going to build sites with CSS. I call it a review, because there are entire books written on what is contained in that chapter. 

Each of the other chapters uses one of the CSS layouts to complete a web project. We teach Dreamweaver and CSS as you progress through the book. The projects are progressively more difficult and build on each other. 

We found that most CSS books used text editors. Most Dreamweaver books have a small chapter devoted to CSS. But there was not a book showing how to use Dreamweaver to its fullest potential to create standards based, accessible web sites. 

Since Dreamweaver has the majority of the WYSIWYG market, we wanted to fill that gap for people. To teach them how to use it for good and not for evil. We’re getting great feedback from people using it.

CS: How did you come about to writing the 32 CSS layouts?

SS: I was asked by Macromedia—now Adobe—to bid on the project. I was extremely busy that day, but wanted to respond in some way before the weekend. I quickly read the spec and shot back an email that said something like, “Off the top of my head, here’s what I see.” 

And then I listed things in no particular order as they came to me—A, B, C, D… M, N, O, P— I didn’t expect the list to be so long, but as I mentioned before, I do so much support for CSS and Dreamweaver on lists that I have a good idea of what trips new users up. And that’s basically what I was quickly throwing at them. 

I have no confirmation, but I would guess that my knowledge of the product, and what can confuse its user base, contributed to winning the bid. There are plenty of people that know CSS.

International Speaker

CS: I would say that’s a pretty good reason to pick you for the project! 

You’ve just come off a long speaking tour overseas. What events were involved and where did you go?

SS: I was in Cologne and Amsterdam for Adobe Live. London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Newcastle for the Creative License tour. Barcelona and Chicago for Adobe MAX.

I did four dates in Scandinavia where part of my responsibilities included a short session for agencies on the business value of Web standards. I had the pleasure of speaking again at MultiMania in Belgium and just got back last week from Sydney, where I did two sessions at WebDU.

CS: Your passport must be blistered with stamps by now. I hope you love traveling. Have you picked up any tips when flying?

SS: Always fly business class!

Yes, I do love seeing new places. Edinburgh and Munich were two of my favorites this year—though nothing has yet surpased Tuscany for me. 

The things that work for me are to have:

  • an extra computer battery,
  • a power cord that works on a plane ,
  • a pillow clipped to my backpack—since I don’t always fly business,
  • an airline blanket—it’s hard to get those in coach these days,
  • my iPod—to avoid annoying seat mates as necessary—always put the earplugs in the moment you sit down, even if the iPod is off. No one knows and you can always remove them, 
  • Bose noise canceling headphones,
  • eye drops for my contacts as the air in the plane is dry,
  • lip balm, for the same reason,
  • saline for my nose—I actually started having nose bleeds from the dryness,
  • business cards in case you meet someone cool, and 
  • a book—though sadly, I nearly always work instead of reading.

The other thing I learned by flying so much is that even when the day is overcast, or dark and stormy, once you take off and get through the clouds, the sun is shining and it’s gorgeous. 

I was talking to a friend who does photography about it and she put my quote on one of her photos: “It’s always a sunny day—sometimes it’s just hidden behind the clouds.

I try to keep this in mind on crappy days.

CS: Definitely something to keep in mind as you go through airport security these days. I’ve recently begun speaking in countries outside of America, but not as much as you have. I’m wondering if your experience have you found that audiences are different in these different cultures?

SS: I have to speak slower in some countries due to the language barrier. And the “personality” of audiences in some countries is much more reserved—Finland and Australia come to mind. 

But the questions and enthusiasm for our craft don’t vary that much. Especially once people ask questions after the session.

CS: Do you speak mainly about CSS and CSS layouts? What do you find are the common themes in the questions from your audience?

SS: I do speak a lot on content, CSS and semantic XHTML—with a little bit of SEO as well. And yes, this year has given me many opportunities to talk about the CSS layouts I built. What I tend to cover a lot in my talks is basic CSS principles. I get a lot of compliments for my ability to make these concepts more clear. I find, again based on how much online support I do, that people are using CSS—but many honestly never learned it thoroughly or properly.

They started “trying some things,” maybe by pulling someone else’s page off the internet and mucking about, and now, oh dear it’s broken and they have no clue why. 

So I enjoy “cementing the cracks” in their CSS foundation. I like speaking on more advanced topics as well, but there really is so much that people need to learn about the basics.

Even when I train in a corporate environment, I find they nearly always choose to start with basic principles and work from there. For those switching from tables for layout, there’s a paradigm shift that must occur. 

The same thing applies to the many designers in the print industry that are being forced to move into designing for the web. Though they don’t all need to know how to code, they do need to understand how it works and what’s possible. 

There’s a great lack of understanding in our industry, which leads to a lot of frustration. Starting at the beginning and working into more advanced concepts gets you past that.

A Geek Romance

Stephanie and Greg

CS: Your co-author, Greg Rowis, isn’t just your co-author, but also your fiance. How truly geeky was his proposal?

SS: Well, it was geeky enough to make the cover of wired.com. Does that count? 

Greg and I didn’t start out as “fiances writing a book.” We talked at a couple conferences, felt our skills were complementary and that we could write a better book together—the one that wasn’t written yet—than we would write alone.

Through the course of the year of writing and speaking together, we found that we have great compatibility—we’re both dorks—as well as complimentary personalities. Since our relationship was “major long distance”—I live in North Carolina and he’s in Phoenix—we use a lot of tools to stay in touch. Everything from cell phones, of course, to Skype to IM to Twitter. Telepathy isn’t quite as reliable.

Having him propose on Twitter was, for me, extremely romantic. People pay big money for the billboard in Times Square. Twitter is free and all my geek friends are there. It was like the geek billboard proposal. 

CS: So, Twitter is a natural venue, if you will, for a proposal for the both of you?

SS: Oh, gosh yes. Probably too much. I thought Twitter was the stupidest thing when I first heard about it. “What are you doing now” in 140 words or less? I didn’t get it at all. Left. Then a few months later I heard more about it and that time took the time to understand the way friends and followers worked and such.

Since then it’s been the greatest way to get to know people a little better. People you met briefly at a conference. People that you wouldn’t really IM with or call. Or people you’re going to meet at a conference. 

By the time I meet them, I actually feel like I know them a little bit. The ice has been broken. You learn who has a really quirky sense of humor, what’s going on in people’s lives. I absolutely love it since my office is in my home. 

I’ve tried other social networking applications, but I haven’t found any to be as useful and interesting as twitter. I’ve decided it’s because too many of them try to do too much. Or the interface is complicated. Twitter is clean and simple.

As far as a natural venue goes—yes, probably. Greg and I see what the other person is doing when we’re not in the same place using twitter a lot. I can see, while I slave away, that he’s in Munich in the beer garden enjoying a Hefeweizen. 

So the proposal was appropriately on Twitter and then he surprised me with the ring on the plane to South by Southwest—we connected in the same city.

Both, for me, were perfect for our relationship and very romantic. The criticism on some blogs—in response to the wired.com story—regarding the fact that he wasn’t “down on one knee in person” I find just silly. They don’t live my life and they’re obviously “just not geeky enough to get it.” It was lovely.

Web Standards and the Adobe Task Force

CS: How did you first get involved with the The Web Standards Project?

SS: I have been on the Dreamweaver beta for years now. I enjoy working with the engineers there testing, and helping to shape the product I use daily. 

At some point, I was invited to join WaSP and be a part of the Dreamweaver Task Force. Basically, I was told I was already doing what needed to be done—making a lot of noise—so just to keep it up.

CS: What kind of noise did the WaSP DWTF make about Dreamweaver?

SS: Oh, mainly Web standards and accessibility workflow stuff. It’s not like the engineers don’t want to make a more standards-compliant product. It’s just that they’re engineers. They’re into creating a product, and we’re into writing the code, so they appreciate us noisy folks giving them feedback about it. They’re really a great group of folks over there. Very open and willing to hear us. 

CS: What is your role there within WaSP?

SS: I’m the co-lead of the newly formed Adobe Task Force (AdTF). Adobe—Macromedia, originally—was so responsive to, and appreciative of our input, we’re now overseeing all Adobe products that go to the web in some way in light of web standards, best practices and accessibility.

CS: Can you point to the changes that AdTF has made to the product over its history? 

SS: I honestly can’t point to the entire history—you’d have to talk to Drew or Rachel about that—since I wasn’t involved the whole time. 

But the biggest changes I saw were related to web standards and accessibility. Moving Dreamweaver into rendering standards, writing cleaner code, removing deprecated elements and program “features” and giving people things like accessibility prompts so that it actually helps educate them on best practices. 

Dreamweaver had accessibility options for a while, but now they’re on by default instead of requiring people to discover them. Basically, we’ve tried to lead Dreamweaver into being a program that will write clean, semantic, accessible code and make it more difficult to write program or browser-specific crap so that new developers don’t get tripped up.

The newly formed Adobe Task Force is taking that one step further. We are working with Adobe on all products that go to the web in some way. We also hope to have some best practices articles about using Adobe products to write standards based sites in the WaSP Learn section this year.

Guilty Pleasures

CS: You’ve stated your guilty pleasure is 80s music. What are some of your favorite styles and artists from that decade?

SS: Heh… there are tons. Everything from Bronski Beat, Nina Hagen, Lene Lovich, The Cure, Oino Boingo, Bauhaus, Depeche Mode, Simple Minds, The Divinyls, Thompson Twins, and so many more. 

When I was younger, I was more into the punk version of the 80’s, but now that I’m old, I lean toward the New Wave stuff. Age… it’ll getcha.

CS: So, is 80s music in your iPod rotation constantly? Do you listen to other styles or, er, eras, he asks politely?

SS: Oh, heck, yea. 

I love the 80’s, but I’m not “stuck there.” Most of the day I listen to contemporary music. My personal ipod was recently wiped out by my 16 year old who thought he was loading his iPod with all the songs on his computer. So I lost a lot of my favorite playlists. 

Yes, smart people synch their iPods. But not me. 

A lot of my music is on my old computer—now used by my sons and containing a lot of music I don’t listen to. In light of that, I just drug what I wanted over to my iPod and handmade the playlists. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I have rather varied and eclectic tastes in music. I like everything from Damien Rice, The Dresden Dolls, Shiny Toy Guns, NIN, Drew Grow, Finger Eleven, Greg Rewis, Korn, Melissa Ferrick, Hellsongs, El Perro Del Mar, The White Stripes, PJ Harvey, The Killers, Sarah McLaughlin, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tori Amos, Death Cab for Cutie and sometimes I listen to Mark Trammell or Keith Robinson’s mix tapes and muxtapes.

CS: How long have you been into beach volleyball? Do you find it it’s a nice balance to work life?

SS: I guess I’ve played for about five years. I really wish I’d found it when I was young, but back then I mostly did free weights and played racquetball. 

Beach volleyball is an awesome sport. I play at a sports bar here in town where we have nine sand courts and year round leagues. Before I started speaking and traveling so much, I was in great shape due to playing three times a week. But now, I’m playing one league a week—when I’m in town. 

It’s not so good for the body. I’ve got to do better.

CS: I assume by doing better you mean setting up volleyball leagues to all the countries you visit! Otherwise, you would be racking up those frequent flyer miles.

SS: Actually, by “better,” I meant joining a gym and/or working out on the road. 

I’m only here so much anymore—though I did just sign up for another year of volleyball leagues. But maybe just having a few more shots of tequila on the court would work just as well.

CS: Thanks so much for your time, Stephanie!

SS: Thank you, Chris!

Further Reading

Christopher Schmitt’s past interviews:

Kevin Lawver Voices That Matter Interview at SXSW 2008

Co-author of Adapting to Web Standards, Kevin Lawver, was interviewed by Michael Nolan from Peachpit at South By Southwest 2008 as part of a podcast series.

I noticed the interview didn’t come with a transcript. So I decided to write up the dialogue from the interview, which is posted below the video. Enjoy!

Michael Nolan: Hi, I am Michael Nolan, a senior acquisitions editor for New Riders and we are coming to you from the 2008 South by South West Interactive festival and conference here in Austin, Texas. 

And I am speaking with Kevin Lawver who is one of the co-authors of our book, Adapting to Web standards: CSS and AJAX for Big Sites.

Now, Kevin, of course, is very familiar with big sites because he works at AOL, but before we get to that, tell me about the International Day of Awesomeness.

Kevin Lawver: (Laughter.) It is a holiday that I invented that started started as a joke at work and it slowly built. I threw together a website for it and send it to some friends and everybody thought that it is a funny idea, but I actually started taking it seriously. My kid came up with the tag line. 

MN: Which is? 

KL: “Nobody is perfect, but everyone can be awesome” and— 

MN: That’s a great tag line. 

KL: It became the start of, the idea is to do something that you wouldn’t normally do. 

MN: Then how did you do that, observe the International Day of Awesomeness? 

KL: I dyed my hair bright blue which is something I always wanted to do. My friends and in high school and they had bright blue hair and I was always very jealous, but never had the guts to actually do it myself. So, this morning in my hotel I ruin two hotel towels putting it in myself.

MN: I bet they will be unhappy when they come in and pick up those towels.

KL: I will pay for it.

MN: (Laughing.) Looks outstanding. It’s awesome, in a word.

KL: I would hope so. 

MN: Yeah, yeah.

KL: Would be a failure if I didn’t.

MN: So, your presentation you say you’ve been coming to SXSW for several years. How long? 

KL: This is my fifth. 

MN: Your fifth year at South By. And what you have seen change in South By in those five years?

KL: It’s so much bigger now. That we have—They just opened the third floor for panels last year and this year there are 12 panels going on at the same time and you have to give up all hope of meeting everybody. When I was here on 2004 my first one— 

MN: Still possible.

KL: Yeah, I met, you know, a good 150 to 200 people and I felt like I had met pretty much every one there and that was open to being met and this time there is just no way.

MN: There is no way. One of my authors compared it to drinking from a fire hose and I thought that was a good metaphor for what SXSW has become, but, still, it’s fabulous. It’s like the best conference in the Spring, at least— 

KL: Easily. 

MN: —for Web designers and developers. I mean I just always come away with new insights and excitement. 

KL: It’s a really good mix. It’s not a super technical conference and it’s not in a cubby hole. You got everybody together. You got designers and developers, entrepreneurs and writers, just lots of creative folks. So, for me the overlap is what is interesting. 

MN: Have you attended any good parties?

KL: I don’t do the parties. 

MN: You don’t do any parties?

KL: Because I just don’t handle being crushed by people. I am good with nerds because I am one, but, you know, in a bunch you cannot hear anyone talk. 

So, we decided there are two types of people in the world. There are Bar People and Dinner Party People. I am much more a Dinner Party Person.

MN: So, we probably have had nice dinners with folks here.

KL: Yeah.

MN: So when we talk about this book, Big Sites, that’s what you are presenting about here at South By this year. Tell us a bit about your presentation.

KL: I did a panel with Thomas Vander Wal, Cindy Li, Jason Garber, and Leslie Jensen-Inman about working for big companies and then making a transition to maybe start-up life or doing your own thing or educational stuff. And we talk a lot about coping mechanisms and— 

MN: What are some? What are some?

KL: I only ever worked for AOL. It has been my entire professional life. 

MN: Yeah, that’s a big company.

KL: It’s, yeah, huge. Fluctuates a bit, but it’s a very large company. 

I think the biggest one is to to know what your strata is and know what your role is and you can kick all kinds of butt within that role and within that strata and make a big difference. But, above that or maybe below it or to the sides of it, you have to decide to let that stuff be. And you don’t have much control. There is all kinds of stuff that happens above you that you can object to and, you know, make sure that your objection is noted. But they are going to go and make their decisions without you and there is nothing you can do. You can either. You have two choices, you either get over it and move on or you leave. And I have done a pretty good job over 13 years of getting over a lot of different stuff—

MN: Moving on, yeah.

KL: And you sorta cannot affect that anymore.

MN: And who on your panel represented the freelancer or the small company?

KL: Both—Jason Garber now works for a start-up. He worked with me at AOL for a while. He works for start-up of 10 people. Thomas Vander Wal works for himself. He is a single-person company. Cindy Li does freelancing and works in a small design firm and Leslie Jensen-Inman is a professor at The University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. We had, they all had broad experience in different size organizations. So, Cindy Li has done the start-up thing and AOL—

MN: So, what are the particular challenges for a Web designer or developer in a large organization?

KL: If you work at, you know, mass market Internet scale building things it’s a totally different exercise. You have to go out of the door being able to handle millions of request a day and you can’t really cut corners. 

Like, if you are start-up, you can sort of just throw something out there. Slap it together, throw it out there and see what happens and then worry about the scale when you get there. If you get that network effect of, you know, an AIM, an AOL, a Yahoo or Google, you can’t do that. 

You can’t just like say, “okay, eeeeeh, lets push it out and see what happens,” because it will melt without getting even half the traffic that it possibly could. 

MN: Yeah, understandable.

KL: So, you have to think a lot more about infrastructure and even, even on the frontend side you have to think a lot more about caching, geo distribution of content, you know, edge caching of assets and that kind of stuff. There aren’t books on it. 

And so when we, when Christopher, brought up the idea of doing the book. Well, lets do, you know a real explanation of how this works and how something in a very large company goes from beginning to— 

MN: So, it’s about applying Web standards to, for a large Web presence. 

What have you heard people talking about? What’s the buzz at South By this year that’s new. Is there anything new that’s caught your eye?

KL: There is a lot more talk about OpenID this year. There seem to be a lot more business panels. There is one this afternoon on bootstrapping, which we have never had a panel on bootstrapping your own start-up before. 

Honestly, I’ve been so busy doing my panel and a product that I built was up for a Web award last night, so I was little stressed out. 

MN: Did it win?

KL: We won in the CSS Category. It’s a site called Ficlets. Speaking of a scale, it was the complete opposite. AOL let us go off as an experiment last year. 

MN: Oh, so it’s an AOL site and you won a Web Award. 

KL: Yeah, for the CSS category.

MN: That should be a nice thing to go back to Virginia with and tell them. 

KL: Yes, it’s a little statue.

MN: Great. That’s wonderful. It’s really nice taking with you, Kevin.

KL: Yeah, thank you.

MN: And thank you for coming by.

KL: Yeah, no problem, it was fun.

Opera Web Standards Curriculum Released

This morning Chris Mills annonced that he finally launched the Opera Web Standards Curriculum. Chris has gather a fine list of authors to bring you the basics of solid Web education.

It’s just a start. There are a little over 20 articles that make up the curriculum, but what a start it is.

I’ve given talks across the country and around the world. Companies and businesses are clamoring for potential employees that “get it” regarding Web development. This curriculum should be a welcome sight. 

In addition, the content is wrapped up nicely with a Non Commercial — Share Alike license. As long as you site the source and don’t make any money off the material, people like university professors or corporate standards evangelists can use these materials to help spread the good word.

My only concern is that I believe the table of contents or a portion of it should should have been squeezed onto the front page. This would allow visitors to quickly dive into other portions of the curriculum without having to go. It’s hard to gauge the depth of the articles or the content on the first page alone. One has to read the introductory article first and then read down to the bottom.

So, I took the list of articles that make the up the curriculum, found in the introduction, and put the list below:

The Web Standards Curriculum
Table of Contents

The beginning

  1. Introductory material, by Chris Mills

Introduction to the world of web standards

  1. The history of the Internet and the web, and the evolution of web standards, by Mark Norman Francis. 
  2. How does the internet work?, by Jonathan Lane.
  3. The Web standards model—HTML, CSS and JavaScript, by Jonathan Lane
  4. Beautiful dream, but what’s the reality?, by Jonathan Lane.

Web Design Concepts

  1. Information Architecture—planning out a web site, by Jonathan Lane.
  2. What does a good web page need?, by Mark Norman Francis.
  3. Colour Theory, by Linda Goin.
  4. Building up a site wireframe, by Linda Goin.
  5. Colour schemes and design mockups, by Linda Goin.
  6. Typography on the web, by Paul Haine.

HTML basics

  1. The basics of HTML, by Mark Norman Francis.
  2. The HTML element, by Christian Heilmann.
  3. Choosing the right doctype for your HTML documents, by Roger Johansson.

The HTML body

  1. Marking up textual content in HTML, by Mark Norman Francis.
  2. HTML Lists, by Ben Buchanan.
  3. Images in HTML, by Christian Heilmann.
  4. HTML links—let’s build a web! by Christian Heilmann. 
  5. HTML Tables, by Jen Hanen.
  6. HTML Forms—the basics, by Jen Hanen.
  7. Lesser–known semantic elements, by Mark Norman Francis.
  8. More HTML articles to follow…

Supplementary articles

Twitter-Sized An Event Apart Presentation Summaries

I’m not one that you might call a copious note taker. I burn out quickly listening to presentations and tend to focus on note taking rather than digesting what is being said.

Rather than long notes, I go another direction. In order to help remind me of what I witnessed during the two-day event known as An Event Apart Boston 2008, I decided to run through the presentations and write-up a Twitter-sized summary of each one. 

Title Slide

Understandng Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman
Web designers are very talented people who should get more respect. Calls user centered design something else: “Empathy Web Design”.
The Lessons of CSS Frameworks by Eric Meyer
Eric examined nine CSS frameworks, but says they all aren’t right for you. You should make your own or adapt them to your liking. 
Good Design Ain’t Easy by Jason Santa Maria, 30
Designers should be story telling. Talks about the history of print design and how that can bleed over to Web design.
Web Application Hierarchy by Luke Wroblewski
Give your users the “confidence to take actions”. Telling people visually what to do on your site is good. Learn graphic design principles.
Design to Scale by Doug Bowman
We respect proportions. McDonald’s scales, Starbucks sells experience, not Java. Quotes Paul Rand: “Simplicity is not the goal.”
When Style Is The Idea by Christopher Fahey
Quoted Paul Rand, Stewart Brand, etc. Style encourages innovation. Style sells, style happens. Fashion has a vocabulary, does Web design?
Scent of a Web Page: Getting Users to What They Want by Jared Spool
Five types of pages users encounter: Target Contnet, Gallery, Department, Store, Home Page. Users have a purpose when coming to your site.
Debug/Reboot by Eric Meyer
CSS debugging is a good way to tease out things that might be trouble. Not many people use Link Checkers. Reviews his CSS Reset rules.
Comps and Code: Couples’ Therapy by Ethan Marcotte
It’s okay to admit mistakes. Covers three projects and problems he encountered. Treat everyone on your team like a client and prototype!
Principles of Unobtrusive JavaScript by ppk
Unobtrusive JavaScript is more like a philosophy. Use JS wisely for improved accessibility and Web standards-based sites.
Standards in the Enterprise by Kimberly Blessing
To get Web standards into large companies, you need to follow the Circle of Standards: train, review, document, repeat. Buy our book!
Designing the User Experience Curve by Andy Budd
People pay for the experience of Starbucks, not for the coffee. Pay attention to detail, pay attention to your customer.
Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps by Jeff Veen
We are awash in data.” Make data meaningful to your users. Another spotting of Napoleon March to Moscow infographic in a presentation.

The Nashville Voices That Matter Web Design Conference

I’ve recently returned from Voices That Matter in Nashville. As Jeremy noted earlier, this conference is a little different in that the common thread was that each speaker had written a book or is working on a book that will be published relatively soon through Pearson Education. If you don’t know who they are, I’m pretty sure you might have heard of New Riders or PeachPit books. 

This approach created a rather eclectic and engaging mix of topics in the crowd. One morning you are watching Steve Krug on stage having a conversation about usability and books. Then in the afternoon you have sessions from Kimberly Blessing talking about managing internal standards for Web development. 

As someone who is more of a generalist, working on almost every part of a site’s development, Voices That Matter was a refreshing change of pace on the conference scene. In fact, when I saw the speaker listing earlier in the year, I made a point to stay for the whole conference. 

In addition to the wide range of topics, the attendance is way lower than SXSW. So, if you wanted to follow up with someone at the conference, you could. You didn’t, like I had to for SXSW this past year, send an email to friends to haggle meeting locations and times. 

To help promote PeachPit’s Adapting to Web Standards, I was humbled to be one of the three CSS speakers that includes Charles Wykes-Smith and Zoe Gillenwater, I took the opportunity for my session to be a bit inspirational and showcase how several everyday CSS techniques, applied at the right time can create something visual interesting. 

Speaking of inspiration, there was the city itself, Nashville.

In taking it’s lengthy nickname “The Athens of the South” to the extreme, there’s a full-scale replica of Parthenon. As a reformed high school Latin geek, visiting the replica was a little bittersweet. If only the National Junior Classical League held their National convention there, I might have studied more for the Certamen.

Then there was Hatch Show Print, a printing house that’s been making music promotional posters since the late 1800s. The letter blocks they use today or pretty much the same ones they still use in music posters for R.E.M., Modest Mouse, Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson and so on. 

So, looking back at it, Voices That Matter was a wonderful, intimate conference. Hope to be back next year.