These are some of my most popular talks, given hundreds of times over the past decade, in countries all over the world. Each talk includes a video, slides, and a full transcript. Let me know if you want me to give a talk at your company or conference.
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Adaptive: Content, Context, and Controversy
What’s the difference between responsive and adaptive? While responsive design embraces an ethos of “One Web,” adaptive solutions aim to serve different information based on what we know about the person or the device. When people say they want to go “beyond responsive,” they often mean they want to implement adaptive solutions. In this talk Karen unpacks what people really mean when they talk about adaptive designs or adaptive content. She outlines scenarios in which it makes sense to target information to the device or context—and when it doesn’t. Read more
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Content in a Zombie Apocalypse
Friends, a zombie apocalypse is upon us: an onslaught of new mobile devices, platforms, and screen sizes, hordes of them descending every day. We’re outmatched. There aren’t enough designers and developers to battle every platform. There aren’t enough editors and writers to populate every screen size. Defeating the zombies will require flexibility and stamina—in our content. We’ll have to separate our content from its form, so it can adapt appropriately to different contexts and constraints. We’ll have to change our production workflow so we’re not just shoveling content from one output to another. And we’ll have to enhance our content management tools and interfaces so they’re ready for the future. Surviving the zombie apocalypse is possible. In this talk Karen will explain how: by developing a content strategy that treats all our platforms as if they’re equally important. Read more
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The Mobile Content Mandate
You don't get to decide which device people use to access the internet: they do. By 2015, more people will go online via mobile devices than on traditional computers. In the US today, one-third of people who browse the internet on their mobile phone say that's the primary way they go online — half of teens and young adults say they rely on their phone for internet access. It's time to stop avoiding the issue by saying "no one will ever want to do that on mobile." Chances are, someone already wants to. Read more
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I Suck! And So Do You!
Having compassion for our clients, colleagues, and co-workers has to come from within—it starts by having compassion for ourselves. Read more
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Adapting Ourselves to Adaptive Content
For years, we’ve been telling designers: the web is not print. You can’t have pixel-perfect layouts. You can’t determine how your site will look in every browser, on every platform, on every device. We taught designers to cede control, think in systems, embrace web standards. So why are we still letting content authors plan for where their content will “live” on a web page? Why do we give in when they demand a WYSIWYG text editor that works “just like Microsoft Word”? Worst of all, why do we waste time and money creating and recreating content instead of planning for content reuse? What worked for the desktop web simply won’t work for mobile. As our design and development processes evolve, our content workflow has to keep up. Karen will talk about how we have to adapt to creating more flexible content. Read more