Web Standards, Accessibility & More

I attended the An Event Apart conference in San Francisco (AEASF08) this week, a pretty well known conference “for people who make web sites”, mostly designers and developers. I had the pleasure of speaking to Eric Myer and Derek Featherstone which was way cool. I took the Caltrain from Sunnyvale on the first day and drove all the way up from Cupertino on the second day (found early-bird parking for only $10!). There’s a nice Flickr AEASF08 album which has pictures of people, venue (The Palace Hotel), and the delicious food.

Here are some tidbits from the conference:

• Empathy for the user is what a designer needs most.
• The average headings sizes from nine CSS frameworks from H1 to H6 were (in em): 2.33, 1.8, 1.45, 1.25 1.11, 1.05
• Use visual weight (through size, color, texture, etc) to create a hierarchy of elements on a web page which creates meaning for the user.
• Modern web design (like jazz music) is about creating frameworks where users (musicians) can improvise and participate.
• Pixel/em value make more sense when using the 62.5% method (body font size).
• “Progressive disclosure” is a new term which refers to progressive enhancement used with hiding/showing content.
• Eric Myer discusses debugging in CSS and his CSS reset file.
• Web accessibility checklists are only a starting point.
• Google was lazy in not making Google Map controls keyboard accessible.
• “Math is easy; design is hard.”

Here’s a cool slideshow of some strange characters I created quite a while ago:
View my old, funny digital artwork on Flickr!

Went to the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Michigan, last Friday. There sure were some really cool cars. I especially liked the concept Ford Mustang, concept Ford Airstream, Lexus LF-A, and the Chevrolet Volt. The MINI exhibit was the coolest; it had games, live DJ, and great cars. My two-year-old son Carson had a great time too!

Flickr pics of North American International Auto Show