Ah, the highs and lows of SXSW. The conference sessions this year have been hit and miss, and honestly it’s been a 50/50 split in that respect. This year, there are two 30 minute tracks in the afternoon in what I perceive as a way to simply have more panels. While theoretically this is a good idea, it’s fallen a little flat as two of the best sessions I’ve been too have only been 30 minutes long when they really could have gone the full hour and still presented tons of valuable information.
The Highs
- Grids are Good
- Everything you wanted to know about Mobile Web but were afraid to ask
- Accessified! Practical Fixes for Web Designers
- Why we should ignore users
- Moving Corporations toward accessibility
- Uniting the Holy trinity of Web Design
The Misses
- Design Workflows at Work
- High class vs. Low Class Web Design
- Web App Autopsy
Web Awards
Last night they held the 10th Annual Web Awards, hosted by Ze Frank. He was by far the most entertaining person I’ve seen so far. In some strange coincidence, I was wearing my Vitamin t-shirt and was approached by Ryan Carson (the proprietor) who thanked me for wearing the shirt. Turns out, Vitamin won an award for Educational Resource. WooHoo! After the show, Gillian Carson approached me and thanked me for wearing the shirt. Turns out there were only 25 shirts made, and so far I was the first one they’d seen wearing one. How cool is that?