Wow, what a great day to be had.
I had attended the web developer stream of DIG London which started off with a Keynote by Jeffery Zeldman. Jeffery had shown us the importance of responsive design and suggested a few ways to look at it.
Later one I had the opportunity to attend two talks by Derek Featherstone and a talk by Emma Hogbin. The theme of the conference based on the talks I attended; seem to be mostly on accessibility and responsive design. I mention accessibility and that is mostly making our designs accessible through other devices. I went home and tried my personal site on my iPad and Android; iPad was fine, the Android was just OK. I will be making some obvious tweaks to my site to ensure it will be compatible for both small screen and screen readers like JAWS.
The conference was an excellent opportunity to rub shoulders with companies and developers in our industry and for the most part in your backyard. It was a day that all developers should have attended and a day that employers of the developers should have supported.
I had learned a lot and reminded of a lot that I had forgotten. When Derek Featherstone spoke in his accessibility session, he mentioned CNIB, visual impairment which I had encountered design issues when I was building a e-store for a former employer. He had also mentioned other accessibility issues which hit home to me because my lovely wife works with children who are trying to adapt to our websites that we create. After yesterday I sat down and looked at some of my resent projects. I think I will issue free updates to some of them based on what I was seeing yesterday as I know I made some of the common mistakes.
I was cheap and only paid the $99 for the full day, but part of me wished I had paid the extra for the Keynote, reception and the dinner. I had a full day as it was, but I was having a good time learning and meeting people.
If the opportunity for DIG comes around again, I will certainly hit it for all it has to offer. If you missed this one, do not miss future events.
Excellent job to all those involved!
visit: www.diglondon.ca
