8. The Vocal Minority

25. The Emperor’s New Clothes
@ J and Beyond
May 2012

30. The Tonight Show: Top 10
• Responsive Design is Irresponsible
• Why Free is too Expensive
• Browse Crappy
• Why you have to be High to use HTML5?
• Justified: Why you’re the client from Hell
• Basic != Standard
• Good developers don’t make good Jedi Knights
• Upgrades of Mass Destruction
• Lies, damned lies, and Open Source Statistics
• The Kobiyashi Maru

34. Lets get ready to Rumble…
Which depending on your age means…

35. (if you’re over 30)

36. (If you’re under 30)

54. Ch… Ch… Ch… Changes
• Humans hate change
• In order for any change to take place, there needs to a
Return on Investment.
• This only occurs when the cost to change is less
than the cost of not changing.
• Lack of change is not Laziness or Fear
• Change decisions are all about Context

58. HTML5 for XP .com
• Rounded corners, gradients and drop shadows without
graphics
• Rich graphs and visualisations using Canvas and SVG.
• Games that don't ask you to install plugins.
• 3D graphics and support for any font
• Drag and drop and touch support for tablets.

62. Group Exercise !
• What POSITIVE reasons can you give your GRAN to
convince her to upgrade her browser?

67. Group Exercise !
• What NEGATIVE reasons can you give your GRAN to
convince her to upgrade her browser?

98. Premise
• Responsive Design is the ability to apply different CSS
styles based on media queries
• e.g.

99. Why this appears awesome:
• Mobiles
– Responsive Design allows designers and front-end
developers to react to mobile devices.

105. Call a spade, a spade
• When we say “responsive”, what we are really talking
about is, “Mobile”.
• Or specifically, “same content, different design”.
• It works on the premise that the ONLY difference
between a desktop and a mobile browser is screen size.
• Non-Desktop users:
– rarely use a Human-Computer-Interaction device
– are almost always looking for different information
– are rarely on broadband

107. Proof of Paradox
• It’s not about Screen Size, it’s about Context.
• We had Screen Size specific 10 years ago, so it’s
definitely about Context and not Screen Size.
• Except, the only way to test for Context is to test for
Screen Size.
• So in order for it to not be about screen size, it needs to
be measures and identified by screen size.

111. Who you gonna call?
• These companies, say that their users don’t like to be
treated differently unless it’s in their best interests.
• Not with a visual, but a data & architectural change.

112. So…
• in order to change the visual elements under the
premise of it being about Context and not Screen Sizes,
we have to map Screen Sizes to our predefined
Context, and then use Screen Sizes to decide what to
display – which was exactly what we said it wasn’t
doing.
• It’s also exactly what our users don’t want.

114. Irony in Images
• Responsive Design was invented for designers/front-
end coders to not be reliant on developers for multiple
versions of websites.
• One of the major downfalls of RWD is Images.
• Inline images work best for responsive design, using
the code:
– img.className { max-width: 100%; }

115. • By this method, the same image is on all site versions.
• Do you load an image that’s high quality, and destroys
your bandwidth on a mobile?
• Or do you load a low quality one that looks poor on a
desktop?
• Or do you attempt to load multiple images and
display/hide the correct one as needed?
• None of these work well. So you have to use a technical
solution to request the right type of image.

117. Conclusion
• Responsive Design = “same data, different display”.
• But it can’t take into consideration:
– Bandwidth
– Platform
– Device
– Purpose
– Context
• It wants to, but all it knows is Screen Size.
• Those require decision making processes, something
that CSS simply isn’t built for.

118. • It has to be about Information Architecture.
• It can’t be done by CSS alone.
• CSS wasn’t intended nor built for that purpose
• We need to stop shoe-horning shit into the CSS specs
• We’ll end up at a place where each browser supports
only the code they want to and in the way they want to

131. Agile? More like Fragile
• Work started in earnest in 2004
• First Draft published in 2008
• 4 years later, still no definitive spec

154. HTML5, it’s not ready.

158. Justified
• CLIENT: “I don’t like the type.”
• ME: “What don’t you like.”
• CLIENT: “I don’t like how it goes all to one side.”
• ME: “You mean ranged left.”
• CLIENT: “Yes, yes, arranged left.”
• ME: “How do you want it?”
• CLIENT: “To be the same on both sides.”
• ME: “Justified?”
• CLIENT: “I don’t have to justify anything! I own the fucking company.”

160. • Jargon free isn’t enough
• We still treat people as if they have what WE consider
to be a base level of knowledge.

175. Premise
• What makes a good developer?
• What makes a good Jedi Knight?

176. In the real world…
• What makes a good Project Manager?
• What makes a good Tester?

195. Premise
• I can’t see the word “free” in “Open Source”
• There’s a growing sense of entitlement that software
should have no cost.
• Worse, we now expect people to give support and
updates for free… forever!
• We’ve stopped looking at the business cases around
the software we’re hoping to use.

196. • We favour the cheap option over expensive software
that aligns better with our needs.
• “premium” and “freemium” plug-ins are decried
unless their cost is so small and their features so great
that the Return on Investment is insanely large.
• That’s not a business model that can continue to
perpetuate itself in the long run.

197. How often have you thought this?
• I can’t believe that plug-in costs money!!
• I could do that myself 2-3 hours!
• I mean, look at the other free versions, they haven’t
been kept up to date, but appear to do the same thing.
It’s a rip-off !

199. Listen to Bowie
• How much do you charge an hour?
• How long do you think it would take you to plan, code,
test and deploy your version?
• Divide the cost of your purchase by how long you think
it would take you to develop. Which is more?

200. • Open Source is not yet taken seriously as a viable
business model, and we need to make a mental shift.
• We need to accept that “Open Source Software” does
not contain the word “free”, and that my time, your
time, and other people’s time is worth more than
“nothing”.
• Don’t value free over not free: it’s an oxymoron!

205. • A change that results in no net increase is not an
upgrade
• A change that is neither forward nor backward
compatible is not an upgrade
• A change that alienates a percentage of users is not an
upgrade

220. Every week on Star Trek
• Kirk: Mr. Scott, How long until X?
• Scotty: 3 weeks captain.
• Kirk: I need it in 4 minutes
• Scotty: I just cannae do it captain
• Kirk: I need it Mr.Scott
• Scott: Oh you need it? let me just flick this switch

221. Star Trek management perspective
We have generations of managers who have been
brought up to believe:
• Management is always right
• Authority trumps Expertise
• Delivery is always the most important KPI
• Any issues can be overcome in Any time period

231. Every week on Star Trek
• Kirk: Mr. Scott, How long until X?
• Scotty: 3 weeks captain.
• Kirk: Why so Long Mr. Scott
• Scotty: Well I want to code this right by using OOP,
and it’s a good chance to try out Ruby on
Rails and if we upgrade to Apache…
• Kirk: Can’t we just use our existing Framework?

232. Star Trek engineering perspective
We have generations of engineers who have been brought
up to believe:
• Management are idiots
• Expertise trumps Authority
• Quality is always the most important KPI
• It’s more important to do it right than do it fast

255. • Ensure your team has the right balance
• Listen to different people at different stages of projects
• Remember why Spock is second in command
• Remember why Bones can take control at any time
&
• ONE WOMAN ON YOUR TEAM IS NOT ENOUGH !

258. Hicks 3:16
• Some people believe they are Napoleon
• That’s fine.
• Beliefs are neat.
• Cherish them
• But don’t share them like they’re the truth !