Denise Jacobs

Presentations

Advanced CSS Troubleshooting and Efficiency (or, How to be a Super CSS Detective)

This session is for students are have a good understanding of CSS, but who want to gain additional troubleshooting skills.

In this session, we’ll cover some advanced CSS investigative and problem-solving techniques, including tiny tidbits to lay the foundation for clean, informative markup; ways of dealing definitively with IE6, proactive coding practices for the “other” browsers’ bugs, new alternatives to using floats for layout, and creating and using the more esoteric css2 selectors and newer css3 selectors for true style targeting power.

The Age of Responsive Design

We are at a critical nexus point in the history of web design: the web is finally coming of age with respect to increasing sophistication of the structure and presentation of visual information, the standardization of technologies to more easily create and display this information, physical devices that make this information easily accessible, and finally growing social connectivity. The confluence of these factors creates an improved platform and foundation upon which to start designing user interfaces that create user affinity by being beautiful, easy to use and delightful -- and responsive to various devices through which users access sites and applications.

In this session, we’ll explore just how far we’ve come since the beginning of the web and how leveraging newer technologies is changing the face of web design towards emotional, experience, and responsive design, and how the lastest platforms are redefining how we use and experience websites now, and what we will expect in the future. It’s time to examine what we consider the “standard” web or application user experience and discover ways to transform a good user interface and experience -- on any device -- into a great one.

CSS3: Ripe and Responsive - (presentation) - [introduction to CSS3 properties and the foundations of Responsive Web Design]

Maybe you've wanted to dive in to CSS3, but have held back because you just didn't think it was ready. Don't be fooled, CSS3 isn't the future, it's the present, and is ripe for the pickin' and is ready to respond to display your sites in multiple devices right now.

This session will touch upon the gamut of CSS3 properties from colors, web fonts, and visual effects, to transitions, animations and the foundations of responsive design: flexible grids and images, and media queries. If you aren't yet using CSS3 and haven't wrapped your head around becoming responsive, this workshop will give you the inspiration and resources to go forth and implement the new properties and practices with confidence.

On-Demand Inspiration

As web industry professionals, we rarely experience a shortage of creativity itself. What tends to be elusive and fleeting is inspiration - often when we need it the most for important projects. Wouldn't it be great to be able to have a reliable method to evoke and tap into creative inspiration at will to spur the process of ideation and production?

This talk will explore the concepts around the sources of inspiration and ideas and practices for eliminating blocks and accessing the spark when you need it to develop and execute great work.