Opening Keynote Speech: Notes from the Edge

presented by Simon Collison

Craftsmanship and communication are at the heart of everything we do on the web. With our ability to understand and overcome challenges, we should deliver engaging experiences without compromising our integrity or failing the end user. Still, we're often naive and we make the same mistakes over and over. We get hung up on our tools and confuse our goals. It's time to think and talk smarter, get our priorities straight, and learn from our mistakes.

Real World Accessibility for HTML5, CSS3 and ARIA

taken by Derek Featherstone

You've heard of ARIA, HTML5 and CSS3, but you need to know what they can do for you, how to do it AND how reliable they are. Does HTML5 have any new accessibility implications? What about CSS3 features like transformations and transitions? How well is ARIA supported, and what do you do when it isn't?

If you're asking these questions, then you need to spend this full day with Derek Featherstone. You'll be better prepared to deliver accessible solutions now and in the future and walk away with a set of planning worksheets that can be used to integrate accessibility from the start, regardless of what technology you use.

The Age of Awareness

by Lisa Herrod

Inclusive design.  It might sound like a rebranding exercise from the Web Accessibility Marketing Team, but it isn't. For years inclusive design and research practices have been applied to a wide variety of disciplines from industrial design to the arts, the built environment and more.

What can we learn from this? And how can we apply it to the digital environment in which we work?

Social innovation, service design and even augmented reality are now presenting real and interesting opportunities for us as traditional web practitioners. Combined with inclusive design practices, this opens up a fantastic world of change for both us and the people for whom we design.

So starting with the web, we'll reinvigorate our passion for diversity and inclusion. Let's declare this The Age of Awareness!

Get your hands dirty with the Google Maps API

taken by Luke Mahe and Chris Broadfoot 

We’ll be getting down and dirty with the Maps API. In this lab we will take you from the basics of creating a map, to presenting useful information to your users. Come prepared with your JavaScript skills and the text editor of your choice — we recommend vim, of course.

The lab is split into exercises — so you can work ahead if you’d like, but we’ll also be walking through code for those that are less familiar with the Maps API.

More than a Marker: Mapping about with the Google Maps API

by Luke Mahe and Chris Broadfoot

Pretty maps make users happy, fast maps keep users engaged. Visualise spatial information and enhance your user experience with the help of the Google Maps API. Come and find out the secrets of creating fast, fun and pretty Maps applications for the mobile and desktop.

Exploring the edges of HTML5, HTML.next and CSS3

by Michael Smith

The frontiers of HTML5 and CSS3 are a wild and exciting place, and beyond them lie the mysterious undiscovered country of HTML.next -- where some even crazier things may be poised to start happening. Mike will be your guide on an exploration through the edges of HTML5 and CSS3 and HTML.next, looking both at game-changing technologies that are only just now starting to get implemented in browsers, as well as technologies still in the works that have not been implemented at all yet but which have potential to push the Web platform into becoming even more powerful application environment.

Some of the cutting-edge Technologies you may encounter and learn more about in this exploration include:

• WebGL
• Web Audio API
• Web Notifications
• Web Sockets
• Web Workers
• IndexedDB
• History API
• Touch Events
• Device Orientation API
• File System API + Drag and Drop
• Adaptive Video Streaming over HTTP
• CSS Animations, Transitions, Transforms, and Gradients
• CSS Variables and Mixins
• CSS Flexbox

Give Your JavaScript Apps Some Spine with Backbone.JS

by Lachlan Hardy

Lachlan looks at how Backbone supplies structure to JavaScript-heavy applications by providing a Model-View-Collection architecture that connects to your existing application over a RESTful JSON interface.

"When working on a web application that involves a lot of JavaScript, one of the first things you learn is to stop tying your data to the DOM. It's all too easy to create JavaScript applications that end up as tangled piles of jQuery selectors and callbacks, all trying frantically to keep data in sync between the HTML UI, your JavaScript logic, and the database on your server. For rich client-side applications, a more structured approach is helpful."

Introduction to Google App Engine

by Gianni Mariani

This will show you how to quickly create and deploy web properties using Google's data centres. This talk will cover the App Engine basics and some of the more recent features in the latest App Engine release. Experience the demo of creation of an application to the live deployment as I speak.

Is everything we used to do wrong?
A discussion on the shifting landscape of "best practices" in web development

by Russ Weakly

Many developers used to believe that class-free, lean markup and descendant selectors were the answer. Many developers still build websites for a single resolution, or a small range of devices. However, these practices are now being questioned. Where do we stand? What is best practice web development today? Russ Weakley will explore these topics and more... or possibly less...

Web accessibility in Australia: a perfect storm for developers?

by Scott Hollier

For people with disabilities, the Web experience has often been seen as challenging and frustrating despite its many benefits. This has mainly been due to the need for consumers to purchase expensive assistive technologies, and for developers to implement complex and redundant Web standards.

Yet in recent times, the situation has changed significantly:
consumers now have the ability to choose built-in or open-source assistive technology tools, developers can make use of new and emerging W3C accessibility-related standards, and the Federal government has provided support through its National Transition Strategy (NTS).

As a result, the key question remains: will the combination of affordable assistive technologies, new W3C standards and a government initiative finally remove key Web accessibility barriers for people with disabilities, or is it all simply too hard for Web developers to implement? Dr Scott Hollier from Media Access Australia will explore the three elements of the Web accessibility storm by examining the benefits and barriers of free assistive technologies, the WCAG 2.0, HTML5 and WAI-ARIA Web standards and the Federal government's NTS.

Visual perception and the design of forms

by Jessica Enders

Thanks to many decades of research, we know a lot about how the human brain translates bits of light hitting our retinas into a cohesive image of the world around us.

In this fun, enlightening and practical session, take a tour through the principles of visual perception that are directly relevant to the way people see and work with forms. With the help of a great mix of both good and bad real-world examples, you'll soon have the tools to make informed decisions about how your web forms should be laid out.

PDFs and accessibility: can they really be made accessible?

by Gian Wild

PDFs have always been an issue when it comes to accessibility. With the advent of WCAG2, it becomes the decision of policy-makers such as AGIMO and the Australian Human Rights Commission (formerly HREOC) as to whether PDFs are deemed an 'accessible technology' and whether they can be on a site without an accessible alternative. AGIMO has underaken a review of PDFs and their capacity to be made accessible, concluding that PDFs are not an accessible technology and therefore should always be included with an alternative format (HTML, Word, text or RTF). This was followed by a talk by AGIMO and Adobe on educating people on using PDFs. The feedback from many attendees is that now PDF is accessible.

Changes to the AHRC Disability Discrimination Act

taken by Gian Wild

For the first time since 1999, the Australian Human Rights Commission have updated their Disability Discrimination Act: Web Advisory Notes.

There are a lot of changes, the most important being of course, the endorsement of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Version 2.0. However there are many other interesting additions. In this half-day workshop, Gian will go through what's changed, what's been added and what you need to know.

"e" is for "everywhere": email in the mobile age

by Mathew Patterson

Learn how you can design and build your emails to take advantage of the explosion in mobile computing on smartphones and tablets. Find out what works, what doesn't, and why you should care.

Services, Sites & Snake Oil

by Miles Burke

Ethics; who needs 'em? In this talk, Miles will discuss why we as an industry need ethical guidelines, and what we can all do to ensure that our profession isn't considered snake oil salesmen.

What can we learn and how can we apply this to our businesses? Miles will share some of the horror stories over his 16 years in the game, and discuss why we need to love and respect our clients and suppliers.

Building Mobile Web Apps

by Myles Eftos

There is no denying that the mobile app market is huge, but we are web developers - who wants to have to deal with learning Objective-C or Java? Thankfully, technologies like PhoneGap allow web developers to work in languages they know (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) while still making them look and feel native. It also allows us to sell our apps on various app stores, which means real income, right now.

PhoneGap currently targets six different phone and tablet platforms, including iOS, Android, WebOS and Blackberry so is a perfect way to hit up many devices with minimal code. This session will look at the complete life cycle of building a "native" mobile application using PhoneGap - from building widgets using HTML5, triggering actions using JavaScript, simulating transitions using CSS3 animations to testing your app on different phones and finally getting them up on the respective app stores. It's the quickest way to get started with mobile phone development.

WA Govt and Accessibility

Perth Web Accessibility Meetup Topic

Lots of exciting things happening in the Accessibility world. As of the 30th June 2011 the Public Sector Commission (WA govt) announced it's joining the National Govt Transition to WCAG2 has made it a requirement for all sites, extranets, intranets be WCAG2 A compliant. The implications of this are going to be massive.

RSVP: www.meetup.com/Perth-accessibility/events/22528351/