Currently

• Planning our extensive lineup of Web Directions events for 2025
• Developing Conffab, our streaming platform for conferences and conference videos

I speak from time to time at events.

A short bio

With a background in computer science and mathematics, and a great deal of good fortune, my life collided with the web in the early 1990s.

For nearly 20 years I've developed software and written books, courses, tutorials, and articles for web designers and developers. I speak not infrequently on all things web in Australia and around the world.

I'm one of the founders of the Web Directions Conferences.

In 2000, I wrote A dao of web design for A List Apart. Described as "A manifesto for anyone working on the web" by Jeremy Keith, and cited as a key inspiration for Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte. It outlined the idea that the Web is its own medium, and we must embrace its characteristics, not criticise them as bugs. It's gratifying to have something written so (relatively) long ago still remembered.

Read my detailed bio for some more if you're interested.

Conferences

I'm the co-founder of Web Directions. Our conferences began as grass root events focussing solely on web standards and accessibility, but now cover the leading edge of development with web technologies including HTML5, JavaScript and CSS, as well as web, interaction and user experience design.

Currently our main conferences are

• Web Directions Code, Australia's conference for JavaScript developers and front end engineers.
• Web Directions Code Leaders, for engineering leaders and managers creating world class engineering teams and cultures.
• Web Directions Developer Summit, A world leading conference for the people building the Web.
• Web Directions Next, Product Design & development in an age of Agents and AI.
• Web Directions UX Australia, The conference at the heart of the Australian UX community.

Conffab

Conffab is our streaming platform for conferences, with live streams and on demand presentations. Much more than just watching videos.

Writing

For nearly 30 years I've written extensively on the web, technology, their intersection and impact.

A Dao of Web Design

The work I'm perhaps most well known for is 'A Dao of Web Design', published 25 years ago, in April 2000. It has been described as 'a manifesto for anyone working on the Web' by Jeremy Keith, and a foresaw responsive Web design a decade ahead of its time.

Books

I've written and contributed to a number of well regarded books, including:

Developing with Web Standards

Smashing Book 5, "Real Life Responsive Web Design", features a chapter I wrote on offline Web technology

A companion to Jeffrey Zeldman's legendary "Designing with Web Standards", Developing with Web Standards, published November 2009 is a deep technical dive into HTML and XHTML (including HTML5), CSS (including CSS3), the DOM, SVG, Canvas, accessibility and much more. Huge, detailed and comprehensive, for first timers, and web professionals alike.

Microformats

Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0 (yes, it uses the dreaded 2.0 phrase, but as I invented it, I can use it ok!).