after taking the day following to recover, today i’ll take a bit of time to recount my experiences at An Event Apart Boston 2008. you can find other notes and views rounded-up by Jeffrey Zeldman if you’d like to get even more information.

this conference series could be summed up for those lacking any patience as simply: do the right thing, here’s why, and this is how. the organizers, Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer, are known in the website profession as stalwarts for holding ourselves up to the very best practices.

the lineup of speakers each brought a different perspective, backed by a wealth of industry experience and successes at major companies and projects.

lineup and themes

Jeffrey Zeldman started day 1 by focusing our attention on empathy, and the pursuit of excellence in our work.

Eric Meyer was up next, offering us a thorough examination of available CSS frameworks, and each ones strengths and weaknesses.

Jason Santa Maria showed us how conveying content in a meaningful way to an audience via the web is not so new a concept; telling a story is something we’ve been doing for ages.

Luke Wroblewski talked to us about how to convey information on the web in the most effective manner by closely managing web application heirarchy.

Doug Bowman shared a perspective on how we serve our customers better if we start, from the beginning, to design for scale, in all aspects of the word.

Christopher Fahey talked to us about Style; what is style, where it comes from, how it affects us and when it  is good and bad.

Jared Spool closed out the official itinerary for Day 1 by teaching us about the “Scent of a Web Page” and how users intuitively find (or fail to find) the information they seek.

sound like a lot for one day? it sure was. but it wasn’t quite over yet.

the evening’s activities

Scott Fegette is a product manager for Dreamweaver at Adobe, and he talked to us about Dreamweaver CS4 Beta and the new features that should appeal to designers and developers alike.

then there was an opening night party at a club in Boston sponsored by Media Temple.

as long as i’ve been making websites (2008 makes 14 years) i’m constantly learning, and conferences like this give me the opportunity of getting the best advice, straight from the foremost practitioners in the industry.

when i recap day 2, i’ll reflect more on the takeaways that i will incorporate into my own workflow and efforts.