Thursday 10 July 2008

Of Rich Web Experiences

If you want best practices, best information, best people and you care about code the place for you is the Rich Web Experience this September.

Early bird discounts apply right now – go check it out! If that sounds like marketing speak, say so! I’m working on my diversity skills. Last year I was honored with the same spot but health issues prevailed so I could not participate. This year, I’m raring to go and excited to be talking to as many Web developers and professionals as I can. Particularly application developers.

Interestingly, today is the day my relationship with Microsoft really, really ends (last check deposited to my account). Today, I stumble toward a “rich web experience” despite concerns about standards, agendas and linear thinking.

You can read about my Keynote and other sessions at the RWE web site. There’s an early-bird registration discount too! The richest Web experience I know is ironically off the Web. Face to Face, that’s the magic place.

I hope to see you at RWE!

Filed under:   accessibility, ajax, announcement, browsers, community, conferences, how we will be, ie8, innovation, javascript, microsoft, policies, rails, society, software, standards, w3c, web design and development, whatwg
Posted by:   Molly | 11:12 | Comments (9)

Tuesday 22 January 2008

TravelBlog 2008: Australia and New Zealand

I’m in Houston and in a few hours will board a plane that will take me to Guam, then on to Cairns and points in Australia and New Zealand.

There are two concise reasons this trip is important to me:

1). 2008 marks the 20th (yes, that’s TWENTIETH) year online (bbs’s anyone?)
2). I turn 45 on the 25. It’s a rite of passage, I think.

For one month I’m going to explore Australia and New Zealand. I will post photos and ideas and inspiration.

I am also working hard, my current project: massive HTML and CSS testing for MS.

I’m very excited.

Filed under:   The Daily Molly, accessibility, ajax, browsers, community, food and drink, javascript, microsoft, professional, rails, society, software, standards, travel, w3c, web design and development, whatwg
Posted by:   Molly | 00:01 | Comments (30)

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Come Together for a Rich Web Experience

The Rich Web Experience is a show I’m really getting excited for. I’ll tell you why.

I know nothing about JavaScript and Web applications in the real world. And I’m aching to learn!

And wow, I get to do that from people such as Douglas Crockford and Alex Russell. If you do anything with front end web development or browser technology, they are both worth a very serious listen. Not to mention the fantastic line-up that RWE has put together.

I’ll be reviving the popular keynote I did in Vancouver in February “WSI: Web Standards Investigations” as well as presenting on Web browsers and standards. I’m giving a workshop on CSS, too.

Here’s my schedule:

• KEYNOTE – WSI: Crimes Against Web Standards
  Web standards investigators: Get your crime scene gear on and help Molly dig up the dirt on crimes committed against web standards. Molly will demonstrate markup and CSS samples from her own felonious work dating back to 1993, as well as the work of other infamous standardistas before they got rehabilitated and let standards into their hearts.
• Markup & CSS for Developers: Empowering the Application Developer with Front End Magic
  As a developer you’ll probably be tasked with technical concerns such as streamlining file size, optimizing http requests, and ensuring that your web sites and apps remain manageable and flexible. You also need to step in and modify style and even create visual interfaces for your apps. Markup and CSS for Developers is a 90 minute presentation aimed directly at dealing with CSS from a developer’s point of view.
• The Broken World: Solving the Browser Problem Once and For All
  The Web was meant to be interoperable, but as every web designer and developer knows, interoperability is the very thing we lack. As we build standards-based, flexible, accessible, well-designed sites, we find it’s the browser that gives us most of our headaches. In this session, you’ll learn to take better control not through hacks and filters, but through an understanding of why browsers work the way they do.

Social Software as a Platform for Human Advancement
As we enthusiastically embrace the many technologies that come together to create Web applications, it’s important to also stay aware of the societal impact our software offers. In particular, social applications offer a foundation for improvements in all kinds of relationships. Spanning from business-oriented apps that enhance networking and economic opportunities to the more personal social applications that allow for myriad interaction, the social application deserves our attention not just as technologists, but as individuals and communities, too.

I’ve been honored to bring what I know about markup and CSS to the Rich Web, in particular the applications experience. I’m not a programmer, but I love working with programmers to find solutions to major issues in the delivery of a great web site experience.

Who’s going to The Rich Web Experience (RWE)? Anyone want to go?

I’m hoping to see you there.

Filed under:   RWE07, WaSP, accessibility, ajax, announcement, browsers, community, conferences, ie7, javascript, microsoft, policies, professional, rails, society, software, standards, travel, w3c, web design and development, whatwg
Posted by:   Molly | 16:02 | Comments (49)

Friday 3 November 2006

No More Next Page: Embracing the Non-Linear Web

For many years I’ve pointed out that the Web is essentially a non-linear environment. Yet, we insist on imposing linear processes and function on it. I’ve long felt this imposition has been far more limiting to innovative thinking than any other influence, including the cry for standards and best practices.

In workflow, linear patterns are not effective because web sites and web applications are inherently non-linear. Web sites and apps are also iterative, requiring cyclical attention for the entirety of their lifespan.

I compare the process of creating, and then maintaining a real-world, working web site or application to pregnancy: You’ve got the incubation period, where months go by in developing and perfecting the entity.

Then, there’s the birth, which is rarely peaceful and usually involves lots of screaming and crying followed by an exhaustion that seems to never leave. At this point, you can’t abandon the outcome. Our baby here, our web site or app, is going to require parenting for the rest of its days. It will have to be nurtured, guided, even corrected. Over and over and over again.

In design, linear patterns can only work for very specific pagination approaches. A good example would be paging through images on Flickr. Still, the mere existence of other pathways makes it nigh impossible to stay on a linear path on Flickr.

The Web’s non-linear environment calls us and it’s an opportunity to do better work. Which brings me to the inspiration for this little ditty, Pete Forde’s Endless Pageless: No More Next Page article and example, in which he shows a means of ending the “Next” phenomenon forever.

When I met Pete at The Ajax Experience last week, he (somewhat) jokingly said I’m sure we’ll argue on lots more stuff. In theory, I have no arguments with innovation, and I am obviously attracted to script-based techniques of any kind that move us into the realm of more imaginative, less linear interface options.

The only dissent I have, and it’s an important concern, has to do with the fact that with JavaScript turned off, the technique is non-functional. Which brings us to another issue entirely: Unobtrusive scripting and accessibility. I, and so many users truly want useful features of this nature, but we have to think from the ground-up and be inclusive, providing some way to still offer practical if not elegant function for those without the scripting support.

Filed under:   accessibility, ajax, innovation, javascript, rails, software, theajaxexperience, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 07:50 | Comments (37)