I just got home from day 1 of the @media conference. A handfull of great speakers, with real content.
Jeffrey Zeldman kicked off the day, with an excelent Keynote speech on the evolution of Web Standards and web standards fight and advocacy.
Joe Clark got into accessibility: Simple Facts about a Tricky Subject. The whys, what it is, what it isn’t, why WCAG is good, and why it may not be that good.
Robin Chistopherson talked of the subject “Web Accessibility and Disability: A practical Introduction”. This was a fascinating lecture. Being blind himself, Robin provided us with a real eye-opener (no joke intended) on many accessibility issues, and reminded us of a few basic things we sometimes take for granted. It got me thinking more about these.
Next came Douglas Bowman. And who better than him to introduce us to the “Beauty of CSS”. He illustrated how standards are important and left us with wonderful resources to learn further.
After lunch, Patrick Griffiths, the man behind the conference, introduced the theme of CSS + XHTML. Many of us were already familiar with it, but it is never too much to insist on such important concepts. His site HTMLDog, is a must.
Andy Budd took us on a trip from an HTML based design to a table-free CSS + XHTML design. That’s the way!
To finish off the day in a great way, Ian Lloyd touched on the subject of Accessibility Building Blocks. His many examples and explanations were valuable.
This is but a small sample of todays events. I mean to discuss them im more detail but, as usual, I can’t promise that.
I arrived in London yesterday evening, didn’t sleep that well, and was up today shortly after 6am, I have a headache and don’t feel that great. I hardly socialised, but got to say hello to Molly, though I meant to talk to her some more (I have a CD for you). I’m sure tomorrow, feeling better, I’ll have a chance to take full advantage of the Conference.
Glad you had a good time. I know I did.
I sure did. It was a fantastic experience.