{"id":14,"date":"2009-11-05T17:00:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-05T06:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/?p=14"},"modified":"2009-11-05T17:00:21","modified_gmt":"2009-11-05T06:00:21","slug":"2009-edge-of-the-web-day-2-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/11\/05\/2009-edge-of-the-web-day-2-report\/","title":{"rendered":"2009 Edge of the Web &#8211; day 2 report"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/al3x.net\/\">Alex Payne<\/a>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/al3x\/mind-the-tools\">Mind the tools<\/a><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>How does language shape what we do?<\/li>\n<li>Web developers are polyglot programmers: a soup of HTML, CSS, JS + then all the backend variants. How often do we think about the efficiency of this?<\/li>\n<li>WWW era 1991\u201392<\/li>\n<li>CGI era 1993\u201397: C, Perl (established the value\/pair communication method!)<\/li>\n<li>Applet era 1995\u201397: Java (eventually unbundled by Microsoft, overtaken by Flash)<\/li>\n<li>Flash era 1998\u2013present? (now mostly used for delivering video and games)<\/li>\n<li>JS era 1998\u2013present<\/li>\n<li>PHP era 1998\u20132005<\/li>\n<li>LAMP era 2001\u201307<\/li>\n<li>Frameworks era 2005\u2013present: <a href=\"http:\/\/rubyonrails.org\/\">Ruby on Rails<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.djangoproject.com\/\">Django<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Post-framework era\n<ul>\n<li>Message queues connecting heterogeneous components<\/li>\n<li>Service-oriented architecture (scalability)<\/li>\n<li>LAMP assumed<\/li>\n<li>Cloud (really!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Native era\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/nativeclient\/\">Google native client<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Videos out of Flash (HTML 5)<\/li>\n<li>Mobile apps<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Functional era, defined by:\n<ul>\n<li>dynamism: rapid builds + releases, close user -&gt; developer interaction<\/li>\n<li>tension: web v.s. rest of technology industry<\/li>\n<li>heterogeneity: variety! swap tools<\/li>\n<li>evolution: rapid, both technical and cultural<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Lessons<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>dynamic typed, interpreted languages are dominant<\/li>\n<li>languages exclusive for the web face tough competition<\/li>\n<li>nothing lasts forever!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>The future<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Frameworks everywhere: JS, CSS, Typography (?) e.g. TypeKit, SiFR<\/li>\n<li>APIs everywhere<\/li>\n<li>JS everywhere (even in backend)<\/li>\n<li>Code generation<\/li>\n<li>Refining standards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kevinyank.com\/\">Kevin Yank<\/a>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/7530607\">CSS frameworks<\/a><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>CSS reset: Yahoo YUI (aim is a common look) or Eric Meyer\u2019s, bit of a controversy\u2014creates extra work v.s. forces developer to use quality HTML code<\/li>\n<li>Typographic grids: column grids and baseline grids (Try <a href=\"http:\/\/baselinecss.com\/\">Baseline<\/a> framework to control leading for prototypes, then develop your own:\n<ul>\n<li>query the HTML these frameworks make you write<\/li>\n<li>non-semantic classes: big beef\u2014use own class names (with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueprintcss.org\/\">Blueprint<\/a> via settings.yml)<\/li>\n<li>encourage presentational thinking?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Reasons to choose a framework: good documentation, nice code, any HTML source order, semantic classes<\/li>\n<li>CSS pre-fab: ready-made styles for documents made of prescribed components e.g WordPress themes, <a href=\"http:\/\/astuteo.com\/slickmap\/\">SlickMap CSS<\/a> (for styling site maps)<\/li>\n<li>CSS abstraction: like JS frameworks (JQuery), server-side frameworks e.g. <a href=\"http:\/\/compass-style.org\/\">Compass Sass<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.github.com\/anthonyshort\/csscaffold\">Scaffold<\/a> (for PHP)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/klepas.org\/\">Simon Pascal<\/a>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/klepas\/beautiful-web-typography-v53-edge-of-the-web-presentation\">Beautiful web type<\/a><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Reset CSS<\/li>\n<li>Try and get x-heights the same if pairing serif + sans-serif faces<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/klepas\/beautiful-web-typography-v53-edge-of-the-web-presentation\">Slideshare presentation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/mattbalara.com\/\">Matt Balara<\/a>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/mbalara\/flogging-design\">Flogging design<\/a><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Why is no one talking about design principles for ecommerce sites?<\/li>\n<li>Know your shoppers: cater for personas.<\/li>\n<li>browser: \u201cI\u2019m just looking.\u201d 1st impression counts. Move towards multiple pathways instead of strict categories (so they&#8217;ve got more chances to find what they want)<\/li>\n<li>questor: looking for something specific. If you have a product with lots of features, provide lots of info; one with less features, use big pictures (diamond rings!)<\/li>\n<li>socialite: ask their social network about buying decision. Provide short URLs, send to friend, share this page etc.<\/li>\n<li>blow-in: direct to product page (perhaps from banner ad) Do as much as you can to show the product off. Take a leaf from Apple\u2019s \u201cproduct theatre\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Product pages design: focus, 5px Gaussian blur on the page, then test \u201cWhere would you click to&#8230;?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Buying process: destroy all stops from getting the money i.e. why ask for card type when this can be inferred from the number? Why use a dropdown for country, why not a search with auto-complete? Why ask for a telephone number? \u00a0(Will you actually ever use it?) Put the cbeckbox for accept terms &amp; conditions right next to the progress button (rather than loose somewhere on the page)<\/li>\n<li>Improve thank you for your order pages\u2014huge opportunity here to upsell.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/powazek.com\/\">Derek Powazek<\/a>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/fraying\/wisdom-of-community-four-kinds-of-crazy-2438361\">The wisdom of community<\/a><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>People are crazy<\/li>\n<li>The web is missing social cues<\/li>\n<li>The new experience where we are \u201calone, together\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Kinds of crazy (crazy is a small % of the total number of your users)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Confused. Q: Which search term is higher on Google? \u201csex\u201d or \u201cgoogle\u201d? A: \u201cgoogle\u201d! Counter these people by providing good examples (show them first, then allow posting); give help in context; use the context as a filter to screen out; design for community: web as first note in \u201ccall and response\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Too passionate. Reference the bystander effect where people don\u2019t act if they\u2019re in groups, with the alone, together the opposite occurs i.e. \u201cisn\u2019t anyone listening?!\u201d (this is a symptom of succeess). The the angst a place to go. Timeouts, not deletions of accounts. Require accounts, no anonymity. Have community managers.<\/li>\n<li>Hecklers. Historical good roots: well-informed people talking back to power, but can be bad on the web. e.g. Chevvy Tahoe mash up ad debacle. Starve them of attention. Timeouts, not deletions. Private messaging. Empower community members to report. e.g. \u201cblock\u201d user function: but be careful about creating factions, which then people self-identify and behave as a collective.<\/li>\n<li>Trolls. Don\u2019t care at all. Active destroyers, not someone who disagrees with you. e.g. 4Chan. These people assume the gullibility of users and prey on them. Delete accounts, make them invisible (only they can see their posts), slow down the server, call the authorities.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Payne\u2014Mind the tools How does language shape what we do? Web developers are polyglot programmers: a soup of HTML, CSS, JS + then all the backend variants. How often do we think about the efficiency of this? WWW era 1991\u201392 CGI era 1993\u201397: C, Perl (established the value\/pair communication method!) Applet era 1995\u201397: Java [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conference-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/menogue.com\/evan\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}