An Event Apart Boston 2011

Sunday, May 1

1. 7:00pm–??pm

   Pre-Conference Party

   

   Sponsored by Typekit

   Clery’s
   113 Dartmouth St
   Boston, MA 02116
   
   

   Kick off the conference on the right note and share a drink with your fellow attendees and speakers!

Monday, May 2

1. 9:00am–10:00am

   What Every Web Designer Should Know - A Better You At What You Do

   

   Jeffrey Zeldman, author, Designing With Web Standards, 3rd Ed.

   When “everyone is a designer,” what does it mean to be a web or UX designer? The rules of design engagement are changing. You may no longer be in control of the user’s visual experience. Succeeding in today’s web is more challenging than it has been in years. Yet challenges are opportunities, and today is the best time in over a decade to create websites and applications. Learn the skills and opportunities facing every designer today, from mobile and small screen strategy (and the difference between them) to the design principles of HTML5. Then put your best practices into practice by identifying collaborative and growth opportunities at your job.

2. 10:15am–11:15am

   Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

   

   Whitney Hess, User Experience Designer, Happy Cog

   The visual principles of harmony, unity, contrast, emphasis, variety, balance, proportion, pattern and direction (and others) are widely recognized and practiced, even when they aren’t formally articulated. But creating a good design doesn’t automatically mean creating a good experience. In order for us to cultivate positive experiences for our users, we need to establish a set of guiding principles for experience design. Guiding principles are the broad philosophy or fundamental beliefs that steer an organization, team or individual’s decision making, irrespective of the project goals, constraints, or resources. Whitney will share a universally-applicable set of experience design principles that we should all strive to follow, and will explore how you can create and use your own guiding principles to take your site or product to the next level.

3. 11:30am–12:30pm

   The Experimental Zone

   

   Veerle Pieters, Designer, veerle.duoh.com

   Experimenting is a vital, and too often overlooked, phase in trying to achieve a great design. With experimentation comes inspiration. Without it, we might not end up with the result we had in mind—a design that speaks, influences, and sticks. Practical tips and example techniques will help you experiment your way toward truly great and surprising designs.

4. 12:30pm–2:00pm: LUNCH

5. 2:00pm–3:00pm

   Mobile Web Design Moves

   

   Luke Wroblewski, author, Web Form Design

   Mobile dances to a different beat. Learn how to transition what you know about designing for the Web to Mobile and pick up a bunch of new moves along the way that’ll help you rock the mobile Web.

6. 3:15pm–4:15pm

   The Responsive Designer’s Workflow

   

   Ethan Marcotte, co-author, Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition

   There’s been a lot of great discussion about responsive web design: merging media queries and flexible, grid-based layouts to create more adaptive, universal designs. But how does a responsive approach affect our design workflow? And when is responsive design right for your project? We’ll look at sites and strategies to try and answer these questions, and learn to become more responsive designers.

7. 4:30pm–5:30pm

   The Secret Lives of Links

   

   Jared Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

   Links are the molecular bonds of our web sites, holding all the pages together. They are the essence of a web site. Yet, what do we really know about them? If you create great links, your users easily find everything they need on your site. If you do a poor job, your users will find your site impossible or frustrating. We never discuss what truly makes a good link good. Until now. Jared will show you the latest thinking behind the art and science of making great links. Join him for this entertaining and amusing look at the secret lives of our site’s links.

8. 7:00pm–??pm

   Opening Night Party

   

   Sponsored by (mt) Media Temple

   Dillons
   955 Boylston Street
   Boston, MA 02115
   (617) 421-1818

   Media Temple’s opening night parties for An Event Apart are legendary. Join the speakers and hundreds of fellow attendees for great conversation, lively debate, loud music, hot snacks, and a seemingly endless stream of grown-up beverages. Please RSVP so there will be enough munchies to go around!

Tuesday, May 3

1. 9:00am–10:00am

   The CSS3 Anarchist’s Cookbook

   

   Eric Meyer, author, CSS: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Ed.

   A decade ago, Eric first showed the world how to use CSS for evil. Now, thanks to CSS3, we have even more powerful weapons at our disposal, and the time has come to make use of them. Join Eric for a live-without-a-net nuts-and-bolts tour of the dark side of CSS and see exactly how to torment friends, relatives, and co-workers with cruel tricks both subtle and gross. Start practicing your evil overlord laugh now!

2. 10:15am–11:15am

   All Our Yesterdays

   

   Jeremy Keith, author, HTML5 For Web Designers

   Our communication methods have improved over time, from stone tablets, papyrus, and vellum through to the printing press and the World Wide Web. But while the web has democratised publishing, allowing anyone to share ideas with a global audience, it doesn’t appear to be the best medium for preserving our cultural resources: websites and documents disappear down the digital memory hole every day. This presentation will look at the scale of the problem and propose methods for tackling our collective data loss.

3. 11:30am–12:30pm

   Idea to Interface

   

   Aarron Walter, author, Designing for Emotion

   When you’re working for the man, it’s hard to find time to make something fun for yourself. You’ve got ideas swimming around in your head for your next website or app, but translating abstract thoughts into a usable, successful interface is no easy task. Should you wireframe, prototype, or both? How do you know if your idea is even worth building? Aarron will share practical advice from the interface design school of hard knocks that will help you make your ideas a reality.

4. 12:30pm–2:00pm: LUNCH

5. 2:00pm–3:00pm

   Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

   

   Andy Clarke, author, Hardboiled Web Design

   Animation on the web has traditionally been low-fidelity and shares much common ground with the work of early animators. Web animations have always been the domain of Flash because equivalents couldn’t easily be created using open standards. That is until now, with ever increasing support for CSS3 Animations. Learn about the latest CSS animation techniques and how to create effective, accessible fallbacks for all browsers, including those with limited capabilities.

6. 3:15pm–4:15pm

   Outing the Mind: Designing Layouts That Think for You

   

   Mark Boulton, author, A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web

   How many times have you sat in front of a blank screen and wondered where to start? You have all this content, images, and rich media, and not only does it have to fit, it has to belong. It has to feel connected. Designing layouts doesn’t begin with colors, typefaces and eye candy. It begins with content and grids. We will go into detail of what other grid systems there are besides columns, how you can use what designers have been using for literally centuries to put more thinking—more intelligence—into your grid systems so that, when you need them to, they can provide you with answers to your layout problems.

7. 4:30pm–5:30pm

   Disaster, DNA, and the Fathomless Depth of the Web

   

   Jeff Veen, CEO, Typekit

   A few months ago, Jeff sat on a couch in the Typekit offices, staring out the window, and wondering if everything their company had been working towards was about to slip through their fingers. How that story ends is interesting (spoiler alert: the company is still going strong), and Jeff will share lessons on how they got through it and why they were ready for it. But beyond that, he’ll look at how you, your team, your clients, or your company can cultivate a culture of making amazing things—not just on the next project, but on everything you work on for the rest of your career.

8. 5:30pm–8:30pm

   WebINK Cocktail Party

   

   Sponsored by Extensis

   Zocalo Cocina Mexicana
   35 Stanhope St
   Boston, MA
   

   Ready to debrief after a long day of presentations? Join your fellow attendees and speakers mere steps from the conference to chat about the day over appetizers and festive libations. We look forward to seeing you at Zocalo!

Wednesday, May 4

A Day Apart

HTML5 and CSS3 are the most exciting news in web standards in over a decade, and serious browser support is nearly at hand. What will the new specifications mean to you? How will they change your work? What benefits do they provide to web designers, clients, and users, and how can you start using them today?

To answer these questions and more, two of our favorite speakers (and your favorite authors) have created a special one-day learning event focused on practical, usable takeaways and exciting new creative possibilities.

Understand HTML5 with Jeremy Keith

• Learn about the history of HTML5 and the design principles that drive its development.
• Find out how new native form controls can provide a level of accessibility that stopgap emulated solutions could never match.
• Come to grips with the new structural elements and ARIA roles introduced in HTML5.
• Learn about new rich media elements that you can start using today.
• Figure out a strategy for migrating to HTML5.

Explore CSS3 with Ethan Marcotte

• Learn what’s new in CSS3.
• Master progressive enrichment with CSS3 that works today.
• Explore web fonts and the future of type.
• Enjoy flexible color with RGBA.
• Experiment with transitions and transformations for happy modern browsers.

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Great Hotel, Special Savings

The Boston Marriott Copley Place has arranged special room rates for AEA attendees, starting at $269. To get these savings, call (617) 236-5800 and request the “special An Event Apart room rate.”

Located in beautiful and historic Back Bay, just off the Massachusetts Turnpike, four miles from Logan Airport and two minutes’ walk from the Back Bay Amtrak station, the Marriott Copley Place provides in-room, high-speed internet access; laptop safes and coolers; 27-inch color TV with cable movies, in-room pay movies, Web TV and Gameboy; luxurious bedding and linens, and more. Best of all, it’s the site of the conference. You can walk out of your room and into the show!