Sessions

The Book Was Better: Writing as Source Material for Web Design

You’ve seen it. That terrible film based on a terrific book. When filmmakers disregard great source material, the result is often a beautifully shot fiasco. Don’t make the same mistake: Respect the written content that forms the backbone of your website and you won’t have to rely solely on design wizardry to tell a cohesive story. Learn how to start with the written word, consult it when your inspiration wanes, and know when it’s okay to stray from it.

Presented by Bronwyn Jones

Building on the Shoulders of Giants

Even in the early days, developers had libraries of code that they could bring into their project. Today, this level of sharing has proliferated to every level of development from frameworks, to APIs, from client-side to server-side. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, AOL are opening up their data.

This session will examine the pros and cons to building on top of these giants, delve into the tools that are available, and look at how quickly applications can be deployed.

Presented by Jonathan Snook

Business & Management

Like it or more likely loathe it we all have to tackle business and management issues in our professional lives in one-way or another. A better understanding of what managers and clients demand, and why, as well as how best to manage ourselves, tends to make a happier web bunny.

Communicating Best Practices

We might all be convinced by the benefits of web standards, and the importance of usability and accessibility, but how can we best communicate the importance of best practices to others, be they clients or managers?

A panel of highly experienced web professionals from very different backgrounds share their experiences and offer suggestions for the best ways of tackling something that is a lot more difficult than it should be.

With Rachel Andrew, Paul Boag, Patrick H. Lauke, and Murray Rowan

[Untitled Project Management presentation]

Outline coming soon.

Presenter TBC

Exploring the Server Side

The primary focus of @media has always been on design and front-end development. Invariably, though, developers are often required to be multi-skilled and few, if any, can avoid dealing with the server-side completely. These mini-presentations (two in each session) give a little insight in to areas you might want, or possibly need, to explore.

Beyond 404 + TBC

OK, so we all know what a 404 error is. But what about a 307, 201, or 503? What do the various HTTP status messages mean, and how can they be exploited to make improvements to a web site beyond a custom “Page not found” message?

Presented by Stuart Langridge and TBC

Rails + Django

In a rapidly growing, increasingly complex web world, the framework is firmly establishing itself as a powerful tool in the clever developer’s tool belt.

Renowned experts in their respective area give introductions to two of the more (and increasingly) popular frameworks: Ruby on Rails and Django.

Presented by James Adam and Simon Willison

For Example

A very well received session at @media 2007 was the “For Example” session.

The concept is simple: web site case studies giving insight in to some of the aspects of their creation, learning from how others work, how they innovate, and how they solve problems.

These are not paid-for, sponsored slots - the speakers and their subjects were approached due to their reputation and history of demonstrating particularly high quality web design and development.

Dopplr, The Guardian and a recent project from Clearleft will be the subjects, as will one other web site, to be confirmed.

Presented by Matt Biddulph, James Box, Marc Pacheco, and one other TBC.

Global Design: Characters, Language, and More

Offering further practical advice to designers and developers working with the world-wide aspects of the Web, Global Design will explore how character encodings and language declarations work. While avoiding the gory technical details, this talk will bring you the practical advice that you need under your belt as a Web designer or developer. There are some new developments in this area and some tricky aspects you may not be aware of. In addition, the talk will explore more aspects of user interface design that affect international users.

Presented by Richard Ishida

Hot Topics Panel

In what has become a popular @media tradition, the final session will feature a handful of speakers discussing questions posed by conference attendees.

Panellists TBC on the day

Mental Models: Sparking Creativity Through Empathy

You have probably heard all about addressing “the whole user experience.” You may have also heard that “innovation” is the new key to getting ahead of your competition, and “empathy” is the way to design good solutions. You are eager to jump on the bandwagon, but how can you address all the things going on in the user’s world, gain insight into their philosophies, and innovate based on what you learn? How do you know the extent of the user’s flow of attention in the first place?

This session will introduce you to a method for modelling the attention flow of a group of people with similar motivations and discuss how to make sure this model truly represents the root of what is driving your end user’s natural behaviour. It is easy to make assumptions, but less so to dive down to the core emotions, philosophies, and actions that drive people’s behaviour. The presentation will focus on how mental models represent the whole user experience, addressing how to coax the model towards representing the true roots of people’s behaviour.

Presented by Indi Young

Professional Front-End Engineering

In 2001, most web developers simply pushed pixels. The Web was pieced together by print designers and back-end engineers - almost no one was deeply focused on the front-end. Today, in 2008, as front-end engineers we author complex and efficient software and bend reluctant browsers to our will. And we are broadly recognised and respected as a first-order engineering specialisation.

In this talk the lead front-end engineer at the web’s largest web site will define the characteristics and important practices of our discipline. The key challenges we still face will be discussed and 13 tactical tips from the front lines that you can put into practice today will be offered.

Presented by Nate Koechley

The Why and Which of JavaScript Libraries

The ubiquity of JavaScript libraries in modern JavaScript development is undeniable, but why is this the case? In this session you’ll be presented with an extensive overview on the importance of JavaScript libraries, and how they can effect your development, followed by a whirlwind tour of the most popular libraries and what they can offer you.

Presented by John Resig