Pushing Forward

One of the tenets of our “Interactive” culture at HCK2 is staying current with the latest trends. Even if these trends have no immediate benefit to our clients, we do our best to make sure nothing slips past us. In keeping with that tradition, Scott and I attended An Event Apart this week.

Billed as the event “for people who make Web sites” An Event Apart is put together by Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer. Probably the best way to describe Eric and Jeffrey’s impact on the industry is to say they created standards when the Web industry had none. Most of what we do today is connected to their work in some way.

The two-day event was a whirlwind of 15 speakers covering all aspects of website design and development. The discussions did validate a number of thing we’ve already discussed here at HCK2. “Websites do not need to look the same in every browser,” and better SEO through Microformats. The real benefit came from speakers looking at existing ideas from a new angle. Topics such as the seamless evolution of user interfaces, designing with psychology in mind, and ways to improve accessibility and findability within your site. While you can expect a number of posts from me in the future discussing these topics in detail, I wanted to take time to put forth one unified theme from this event.

“Don’t be afraid to try things”

Unlike print media, a quick fix on a Web site takes a matter of minutes. Why then, is everyone so hesitant to try new things on the Internet? With the improved analytics tools we have today, a decision on how viewers respond can be made in a matter of days. The Internet was built to be fluid, and it’s time to take a step back and treat it that way. There are no re-printing costs, no shipping delay’s, and no worries about 5,000 inaccurate brochures floating around.

In a panel about making Web interfaces more accessible, Derek Featherstone said “I have no idea if this is useful, but we’ll never know unless we try.” That’s exactly what we need to do. Try things, experiment, evolve strategies, push the Web forward.