molly.com
Monday 9 May 2005
Greetings from WWW2005, Chiba, Japan
LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS in Japan and I’m having a terrific time. I have already taken numerous photos, everything is so fascinating (right down to the computerized toilets) and I will be getting them online as soon as I am able, connectivity is limited to the conference center mostly.
As fascinating as I’m finding my experience of the country so far (I’m sure I’ll have lots of thoughts in the following days) I’ve managed to run into lots of old friends and make some new ones, too.
First, I’m excited to meet Kazuhito Kidachi who is a wonderful supporter of Web standards. “Kaz” has done a great deal to get web standards developers together, creating a group on the Japanese social network, mixi, which now totals close to 650 members. He is also putting together a dinner so we can meet some of the standards designers in the Tokyo area.
This morning I left my hotel and came over to the conference center to get registered. In the line I ran into friends such as Wendy Chisholm and Shawn Henry, both terrific women at the W3C in the area of accessibility. I met Andres Gonzales from Adobe, who also works on accessibility issues, particularly in Acrobat. Andres will be speaking about accessible DOM in just a bit, so I’m looking forward to that.
After getting registered, I went over to heckle Eric during his web standards design tutorial. I was sitting in the back making good use of the wireless here when a gentleman comes in, sits down next to me, leans over and asks “that’s Eric Meyer, yes?” I said yes, and the man says “and you are the famous Molly.” Well, that of course made me feel very wonderful, but the story gets better.
It turns out that Asela Jayarathne, a web designer from Sri Lanka living in Japan, was reading my blog when I asked for ideas to keep me amused during the long plane ride. He followed the link to the www2005 web site, decided he wanted to come to the conference, and then told his workplace he wanted some time off to come to the conference. When they told him no, he quit his job! Well (I think that was already in his plans but it was a good set up, eh?)
So now Asela is sitting right next to me in the Workshop on Web Accessibility, where Eric is giving a presentation, “Is Accessible Design a Myth?” Interesting topic, especially coming from Eric, who rarely presents on the subject. I like his take, he points to problems in assistive technology and has also talked a bit about the role of CSS in accessibility, naturally.
A great lunch with Kaz, Asela, Eric, Tantek and myself in a cafe in the New Otani Hotel, which has a beautiful view of the bay with Tokyo beyond. A day of friendship, fun, and stories rounds out my first 24 hours on this side of the international time zone.
Filed under: standards, travel, web design and development
Posted by: Molly | 22:50 | Comments (8)
Sounds like you’re having a wonderful time; I’m soo jealous.
So, what *did* you do on your long plane ride?
Thank you for introducing me and the web standards community on mixi. It’s my great honor for me. Though I have my personal web site of http://kidachi.kazuhi.to/, it’s only in Japanese language (Sorry!). I hope you have a chance to go for sightseeing. Anyway, I’m looking forward to see you again on Saturday.
Well.. well.. things went in a really intersting way, which I never thought.. so nice to meet & get to know you
Kaz, you are really doing a great job for Japanese web design industry . Shame on me, I didn’t catch you before.
BTW thanks for inviting for the dinner.
ERNesbitt, that was my 3rd question for her when we met. Ofcource she writes about first two above
Oh for a live blog feed from “Is Accessible Design a Myth” (preferrably in english!)
While I think assistive technology gives us a great opportunity to test the semantics of our sites, lord knows that accessibility is a shared responsibility.
I’m always lookin’ for those “accessibility requirements that stink”. Ones that unduly put the burden on the web developer when indeed the problem has a more elegant solution within assistive technology.
It is fun watching assistive technology grow up to meet the needs of both the consumers and the designers. Almost as much fun as watching browers become standards compliant!
hello please good day is marc from cameroon