Edge Conference 3

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I had the great opportunity to attend Edge 3 last Friday and contribute to the accessibility panel alongside awesome accessibility folk. The session video is available, with captions, on YouTube. As well as Sarah Lewthwaite, our moderator Christian Heilmann has also ‘blogged about the conference.

Edge as a whole was varied and insightful; I learnt loads on a variety of topics, from developer tools and build processes to web components, pointer events (which featured my colleague Patrick Lauke) and performance.

The day involved seven panel discussions, with several questions pre-proposed by delegates via Google Moderator. Each slot was an hour long and began with a ten-minute presentation on the topic, from one of the panellists. I found this format refreshing, particularly the discussions between panellists and the audience (helped along by onslyde), as it gives a much ‘rounder’ picture of the issues involved. It was also encouraging that accessibility (as well as security and performance) cropped up many times throughout the day; not just on their respective panels.

I’ve come away from Edge benefiting from the perspective and experience of great developers, motivated to continue learning and having met loads of talented and engaging people; many thanks to the organisers, hosts, panellists and delegates!

Update (2014-03-31)

Following feedback, Andrew Betts’ write-up of Edge 3 provides a great summary and analysis. It was rewarding to learn that the accessibility panel was recieved so well and I was really pleasantly surprised to have been considered one of the ‘stand-out’ contributors (our panel had a great showing as Derek Featherstone, who really made ARIA fun in his presentation, was considered as such too). But, really, everyone at the conference rocked and the ‘egoless approach’, as Andrew succinctly puts it, and insightful exchange of ideas was refreshing and addictive.

Captions were added to the videos; excellent! I’ve updated the links I was using.

Tags

web, accessibility and conference