Modern Web Development: Improving Usability, Accessibility, and Efficiency with Structured Semantic Markup and Cascading Style Sheets
Presentation 8
Nate Koechley, Yahoo! Inc.-User Experience & Design Group

Modern Web development is actually a misnomer. HTML has been around since 1992, and CSS is now more than 10 years old. Discussion of the proper use of these technologies is a recent development, however, and opens the door to a more usable Internet for all. By maximizing the semantics and structure of the HTML, we’re able to construct a meaningful and powerful core experience. Accurate markup ensures base accessibility and device interoperability. Considerate CSS enhances this foundation for an improved user experience regardless of device, medium, or ability. CSS and HTML combine to produce lightweight content that renders progressively and provides a fast and productive experience. In this clean world, semantics combine with styling to improve everything from hyperlinks to form elements. The first third of this talk will introduce these technologies and describe key principles. With the balance of the time, we’ll look at real-world examples and best practices that are making a difference on the Web today.

Speaker:

Nate Koechley has been playing with computers since before the days of the first Mosaic Web browser. In 1999 he began working at Phoenix Pop, a San Francisco design, user experience, and engineering shop, where he helped incubate dozens of startups. Nate was a charter member of the Web Developer team at Yahoo!, and over the past three years has grown the department in both influence and size. He has been championing CSS with a focus on accessibility and internationalization. He passionately lobbies for modern, progressively enhanced development practices. Nate likes listening to blues, classical, and hip-hop music while he cooks.

 

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