We’ve responded by creating a lot of tools that help us collect this information. We can easily store quotes, snippets or even full articles in any one of a hundred different sites and services. We can save links to the videos and recordings that moved us on some level. RSS feeds make it incredibly easy to consume massive quantities of online articles and blog posts. Tools like the incredible Ifttt help make our many online services interact with each other, further easing the process of collecting information.

But what happens to that information after it has been carefully tagged and stored away? The more new information we collect, the more old information gets buried. That post we read that sparked an idea, that quote that stirred something deep within—lost and buried. Forgotten amongst the piles of all the other information we’ve collected.

Certainly this is nothing new—the issue has merely been amplified. Technology, though, is supposed to work for us. It’s supposed to help us solve issues we’ve had in the past. Why not push our tools to not merely collect, but to remind us what is already there?

We need more services like the Kindle Daily Review and Timehop. Kindle’s Daily Review delivers “flash-cards” of a book you’ve read in the past. It displays notes and highlights that you made. It’s fantastic! I love seeing a passage from a book that I had forgotten all about, but that still sparks something within me. Timehop is similar—it lets you know what you posted on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or Instagram a year ago. I’ve only been using that service for a short time, but already I’ve found several articles and conversations that I had forgotten about.

Why is this important? Because serendipity is a stimulant. In his book, “Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work”, Douglas Coupland had this to say about Marshall McLuhan, one of the most prescient minds of the last century: “For Marshall, the fun of ideas lay in crashing them together to see what emerged from the collision.” When you rub two stones together, you can make a spark that starts a fire. Put two seemingly unrelated ideas next to each other and the effect is the same.

Searching, for the most part, eliminates those kinds of serendipitous discoveries. It’s a more or less direct path to the very specific type of information we are looking for. A service like the Kindle Daily Review, a service that provides automated nostalgia—that’s the kind of tool that encourages the mixing of ideas, the friction that causes the spark.

We have enough piles. What we need are more shovels.

And of course, it’s responsive. That adds another level of loveliness. The navigation adjustments in particular are kind of interesting to watch. My favorite layout is the last one to kick in before you hit 1020px. It’s clean, easy to read, and the ads are not yet there.

But….

There’s a catch here. For as lovely as the site looks, there’s a lot going wrong from a technical perspective.

Performance

For starters, the size. Even on my phone, the site weighs in at a massive 1.4MB. A large part of the issue is that those ads, the same ones that don’t display below 1020px, are still being requested and loaded on smaller resolutions. They’re just being hidden with a little touch of ‘display:none’.

When I tested, the site also made about 90 requests. That’s an awful big drag on page load time—no matter what device or network you are viewing the site on.

Advertising

Another potential concern is the advertising. I’m not sure exactly on Smashing Magazine’s business model, prices, etc., so it’s hard to criticize their advertising efforts too much. I do find it interesting that their ads are all hidden below 1020px though, leaving their ads visible to only a portion of their audience.

One reason for this may be the high number of ads they display. In their sidebar, I count 16 ads. They are distracting at large resolutions, so I imagine they got to be very overwhelming on smaller resolutions. Having to re-orchestrate 16 ads onto a small screen layout would be a very tall task.

Again, we’re talking business model here so there’s obviously much more at play than what an outside perspective grants, but I would love to see fewer ads. Not just for Smashing Magazine, but across all sites. Less ad spaces, more money per slot. (Roger Black talks about this in detail in his posts The holy grail, part 1 and part 2.) The result would be three key improvements:

1. You would have a lighter, cleaner experience.
2. The ads would provide more value to the advertisers—less ads competing for eyeballs per page.
3. The smaller number of ads would be much easier to manage across resolutions.

Bigger picture

Now, having said all that, I could be guilty of premature condemnation. Perhaps this is the interim solution and a fix to these issues (performance in particular) is forthcoming.

Jason Grigsby put it nicely in two tweets:

When I have guests and don’t have time to clean, I shove things in a closet. No biggee. Everyone does it. But the house isn’t really clean.

The key is following through and cleaning the closet as well. Let’s hope others are better at it than I am at home. :-)

Of course he’s right. In fact, I have a few messy closets myself. (Both literally and metaphorically.)

And I don’t mean to pick on Smashing Magazine. They are far from the only site making these kinds of mistakes on the technical side of things and from a business perspective, the discussion about how to handle advertising is far from being resolved. And again, from a visual perspective I think they did an awful lot of things right.

We simply need to ensure that the discussion broadens. Responsive design is a fantastic approach, one that brings us closer to taking advantage of the inherent flexibility of the web. But simply being responsive is not the destination. To maximize the potential of a responsive approach, we need to focus not only on the visual components, but on the technical execution and business ramifications as well.

To say I’m excited is a bit of an understatement. I love sharing what I know, and writing a book has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m not sure of the exact publication date yet, but it looks like the book should be out sometime in the second half of the year.

Uh…there’s already an awesome book on responsive web design

Why yes, there is, and I wholeheartedly recommend buying a copy. Like, now. Ethan’s book is a brilliant read. I even wrote a glowing review shortly after finishing it. In that review, I said I was pining for a sequel—something that would build on the core principles Ethan discussed. When Michael Nolan of New Riders got in touch a few months ago and asked if I was interested in writing a book, I saw it as an opportunity to get that book written.

More info, please!

The book will be an exploration of how a responsive approach can be integrated into the workflow—from planning and early mockups through to the actual development of the site. In addition to fluid layouts, media queries and fluid images, the book will discuss topics such as design deliverables, structured content, feature detection and server-side enhancements.

If you want to keep up with the progress, your best bets are to follow me on twitter, stay tuned to this blog, and sign up for the mailing list at responsiveenhancement.com.

I’ll keep you posted!

One interesting trend—at least to me—is that I returned to reading a lot more web related books (10!) this year. This is in no small part related to the A Book Apart series. If they keep churning out quality books like this, that count is likely to stay very high.

As always, if the book made this list, then I enjoyed it on some level. There are far too many good books out there to suffer through one that doesn’t interest me. If I’m not enjoying it I set it aside.

If you’re looking for specific recommendations, “The Invisible Man” (which I had read before and will read again) and “The Demolished Man” top my (short) list of fiction. “Obliquity”, “Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work!” and “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” are at the top for non-fiction (excluding the web-related ones).

1. Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
3. Linchpin by Seth Godin
4. Pull by David Siegel
5. The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch
6. Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun
7. Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
8. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
9. Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
10. HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith
11. Obliquity by John Kay
12. Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte (See my review)
13. Adaptive Web Design by Aaron Gustafson
14. CSS3 for Web Designers by Dan Cederholm
15. The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane
16. Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
17. The Invisible Man by HG Wells
18. The Filter Bubble by Eli Parson
19. Big Deal by Robert Hoekman Jr.
20. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
21. The Information by James Gleick
22. Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski (See my review)
23. Designing for Emotion by Aaron Walter
24. Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halverson
25. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
26. Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! by Douglas Coupland
27. Mindfire by Scott Berkun
28. Simple and Usable by Giles Colborne
29. Loose by Martin Thomas

This year’s post is an overview of how inconsistent mobile networks are, as well as a plea for more communication between carriers, manufacturers and developers. If you’re interested in mobile performance, please give it a read.

Be sure to check out the rest of the articles there as well. As usual, there’s lots of good content already posted with more sure to come. In particular, I recommend Stoyan’s post on asynchronous snippets, Guy’s look at when you should and shouldn’t inline resources, and a post on localStorage performance by Nicholas.

Luke argues that you should design, and build, your mobile experience first. He hits you (gently) over the head with data point after data point making it increasingly obvious that this mobile first technique not only makes sense, but should in fact be the de facto standard for creating sites on today’s web. He makes his case carefully, succinctly and convincingly.

After he has you sold on the importance of this approach, he spends the rest of the book arming you with the information you’ll need to start creating better mobile experiences. He walks you through how to organize your content, develop appropriately sized touch targets, embrace new touch gestures, simplify the process of input on mobile devices and more. Amazingly, he manages to do this in only 120 pages.

All of this knowledge is described in very clear detail. The book is interspersed with subtle humor that makes the book not just educational, but entertaining as well. I was particularly fond of the revelation that anchor tags are part of HTML 0 which works in most browsers except Internet Explorer.

If you pair this book with Ethan’s ‘Responsive Web Design’ (the last book published by A Book Apart) you are arming yourself for the future. Combine these two approaches and you are well on your way to creating more bulletproof sites (if there is such a thing on today’s web).

Needless to say, I highly recommend Luke’s book. As with the rest of the A Book Apart series, it succeeds brilliantly at fulfilling their goal of arming you with the information you need quickly so you can get back to work. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not adding it to your library.

After months of planning, the second ever Breaking Development conference came to an end the other week. To say that it was fun and inspiring would be selling it short. To some extent, I am still recuperating but I thought I should post my thoughts while things are still fresh in my mind.

The Speakers

The speakers did an absolutely incredible job! There was plenty of pragmatic information to take back and apply right away, but there was also a lot of talk about the future: where we need to be and what we can do to get there. We’ll get video posted of all the talks at some point in the future, but for now, be sure to check out all the decks at Lanyrd. Scott Jenson recorded his presentation off his laptop, so his deck includes accompanying audio. I can’t recommend his presentation enough. It was a call to arms: a forward-thinking and inspiring talk to conclude the first day of the conference.

Every once in awhile I hear a question or two about the timing of the release of the conference schedule (not just in regards to our own event, but in regards to web conferences in general). There are two general routes to take for choosing topics for a conference. One is to do it early. That way attendees know what to expect early on and it helps to sell more tickets throughout the registration period. The other is to give the speakers a bit more time and wait until closer to the event to finalize all the topics. It means you have to hope the attendees will have enough trust in the speakers and the conference to spring for registration without knowing all of the topics. It also means, however, that the talks will be timely and something that the speaker is passionate about now—not something they were passionate about 4 months ago. We opted for the latter, and I believe we were a stronger conference for doing so.

The Attendees

As great as the speakers were, what really makes these events fun are the attendees. I wonder if people realize just how great a difference an exceptional group of attendees can make in the quality of the experience at a conference. It simply cannot be underestimated. There was no shortage of excellent discussions taking place in the evenings and during lunch. The quality of the beer conversations were incredible.

In fact, I consider those side conversations one of the most important ingredients in a conference experience. The speakers set the stage with inspiring and informative presentations, but the real fun is seeing everyone start to talk about how this information can be applied to create better mobile experiences: both for today and for the future.

The feedback was incredibly kind. As tiring as it can be to organize an event, the adrenaline rush you see from people enjoying it is mind-blowing. There is nothing that gets you more ramped up than seeing people talk about how inspired they are to go back to their companies and create something amazing. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

I’ve never felt so much energy and geekery under one roof in all my nerdy life.—Elizeo Benavidez

This was simply the best conference I have attended. Every session had real-world, immediately applicable techniques and ideas.—Jen

The Breaking Development conference is wrapping up here on spacecraft Opryland One. It’s been a wonderful experience. The conference itself was superbly curated—a single track of top-notch speakers in a line-up that switched back and forth between high-level concepts and deep-dives into case studies.—Jeremy Keith

“If you’re the most talented person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room” #bdconf is the RIGHT room people.—Luke Wroblewski on Twitter

I’m hitting that point in the conference where I just want to lock myself in room and finish hacking on related projects. INSPIRED #bdconf—Lyza Danger Gardner on Twitter

And perhaps my personal favorite:

One thing blowing me away about #bdconf the talks with attendees, let alone speakers! Tough questions being addressed with incredible zeal—Kevin Griffin on Twitter

Kevin’s might just be my favorite because I think he pin-pointed what I felt made the event so special: the absolutely ridiculous amount of smart, passionate and inspired people all coming together to try and make sense out of this rapidly changing and increasingly complex ecosystem of devices we find ourselves working with.

A huge thank you is in order to everyone who made the event so awesome. The speakers for all their hard work, the sponsors for all their help supporting and promoting the event, all the awesome people I get to work with on the Breaking Development team (Jeff Bruss, Erik Wiedeman, Paul Thompson, Derek Pennycuff, Michael Lehman and Matt VanSkyhawk) and in particular, the attendees.

I can’t wait to get to do this again in April!

If you think about it, responsive layout is not a new thing. Open a simple HTML file in a web browser, and the content automatically adapts to fit the width of that browser. The web is responsive on its own—by default. It’s us that’s been breaking it all these years by placing content in fixed-width containers.— Responsive by Default

Ethan doesn’t present RWD as an end-all-be-all approach. He simply presents it as a potential solution (a good one). In his own words:

…more than anything, web design is about asking the right questions. And really, that’s what responsive web design is: a possible solution, a way to more fully design for the web’s inherent flexibility.

He does discuss the three main ingredients he laid down in his original article (flexible images, media queries and fluid grids) but he goes beyond that and acknowledges some of the initial concerns people had about the approach, and introduces some methods to potentially fix those trouble spots. Rightfully, he cautions “these aren’t problems with responsive design in and of itself—we just need to rethink the way we’ve implement it.” In his own delightfully humorous and approachable way, he challenges you not just to take a more responsive approach to your design, but to do so with a great deal of care and thoughtful consideration.

The final chapter is chock-full of topics I would like to see discussed in a bit more detail: responsive assets, context, and mobile first (which will be fleshed out in more detail in Luke’s upcoming book) for example. That’s not intended to be a slight in anyway to this book—the excellent A Book Apart series is intended to be concise and get you back out and working with your newly acquired knowledge and the content Ethan covers fits the book, and the spirit of the series, perfectly. This is just me being greedy and pining for a sequel of sorts.

It’s a bit sad to think about, but after all these years, we are just now starting to really embrace the web for what it is—a truly flexible and malleable medium. I don’t think it is out of line for me to suggest that Ethan’s book will soon be viewed in the same light as books such as Jeffrey Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards—as a book that challenged the way we practiced our profession and helped to push us forward.

To make a long story short, you would be doing yourself an absolute disservice by not buying this book. It lives up to the hype and then some.

Thinking ‘mobile’ web is a big, fat red herring. Just like ‘apps’ was a few years ago. Next year, it’ll be something else.

While I’m not willing to go quite as far as that, I do think the term has become loaded with historical assumptions that are no longer true.

Originally, it worked out alright. ‘Mobile’ came to encompass both the device and the context of use in one fell swoop. It could do that, because their wasn’t a lot of diversity in the kinds of devices you could call ‘mobile’. In addition, those devices lacked the capability of offering a full-web experience. ‘Mobile’ use was pretty clearly defined because to be quite honest – the devices weren’t capable of offering much more.

Fast-forward to today. Now, using the historical definition of a ‘mobile’ device, we have smart phones, tablets, even netbooks – all of which are substantially more capable of providing a rich, full-web experience than their ‘mobile’ ancestors. As a result, there is much more variety in ‘mobile’ – both in terms of device type and use case. The device and the context no longer go hand-in-hand, they must be decoupled.

The problem, though, is that we can’t just eliminate the term. An earlier tweet by Aral Balkan is just as accurate:

I feel there’s a real danger that the “no mobile web” meme will translate to “we don’t have to rethink interactions for mobile”

There is a difference in how you use the web on these new devices and there is a ‘mobile’ context out there somewhere – it’s just not as clearly defined as it once was. We can’t ignore the differences in use. We owe our users the best browsing experience possible, regardless of context or device and that means that we have to find and embrace those differences.

So what term should we use? I have no idea. This is something I’ve been wrestling with for a few months now, and I have yet to find a term that I feel is sufficient – a term that accurately portrays this new medium without implying too much, or too little.

If this seems like I’m quibbling over semantics, well, I guess I am. As the saying goes though, “Words have meaning and names have power.”