I’ve attended An Event Apart four years running now. It is, hands-down, the finest web conference around, and if you work on the web at all, whether you’re a designer, developer, copywriter, or client-services, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Reviewing my notes from previous conferences, I noticed that there were some running themes. Each year, I’ve come to expect that Jeffrey Zeldman will discuss how to manage relationships with clients who sometimes have little or no respect for what we do. Eric Meyer will talk about a currently hot topic in the CSS arena (usually one he is at the forefront of), and a bevvy of talented designers, copywriters, usability experts and other roles will share their insights.

So, here is my take on the running themes of the conference, as well as my individual key takeaways from each year. Naturally, these reflect my interest in front-end code, so you might have gotten more from different speakers than I did, but I think it will still help give you an idea of what you can expect from An Event Apart.

Running Themes:

Sell ideas, not pixels: Every year, this message comes up in one form or another. Simply put, if you just show your clients comps, without explaining the reason behind them, they’ll get hung on little details like “I don’t like orange,” or “that font is ugly.” Instead, be clear about the theme behind your comps, and then they will discuss the ideas, like “The corporate one is too impersonal, but we really liked the human one with all the photos.”

Avoid bad clients: After sharing horror stories of clients who were a bad fit for him (or vice-versa), Zeldman always hammers this point — working with problem clients is rarely worth the effort it takes. Cut them loose and focus on the ones that mesh well with your organization.

Start with the user: Always strong advocates of user-centered design, this point has come up again and again. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if the designer and client are happy — it matters whether the users are happy. If your site doesn’t start by asking what the user needs, you’ll have troubles.

Start with the content: I include this because Zeldman changed his slides around this year, and now says to start with the content and end with the user, but I think the point is ultimately the same. Design should be driven by the content, which should be driven by the user’s needs.

Seattle 2009

• Jeffrey Zeldman says “Research produces achievable goals and makes you a credible partner.”
• Eric Meyer says “HTML 5 allows interesting new patterns, but there are still limitations.”
• Tara Hunt says “Use your competitor’s tools until you love them.”
• Kristina Halvorson says “Repeat after me: I will never again say Launch. Instead, I will say Life Cycle.”
• Dan Cederholm asks if IE6 is the new Netscape 4 (to wild applause). Concludes with a quote from Eric Meyer saying that you can stop supporting IE6 only when your site’s stats say you can. Stats from other sites are “worse than useless.”

San Francisco 2008

• Zeldman says good web design starts with the user — focus on their needs, not the client’s.
• Eric Meyer discussed CSS Frameworks, and how they grew out of reset stylesheets. He recommends avoiding other people’s frameworks except as a jumping-off point. Ideally, you should be creating your own.
• Dan Cederholm says “Progressive Enhancement means really cool stuff that doesn’t work in IE.”
• Tantek Çelik discussed microformats.
• Eric Meyer talked about reset and debug stylesheets.

Seattle 2007

• Eric Meyer illustrated that the default behavior of all HTML elements is defined by the browser, and each browser defines things slightly differently – especially font handling – which is why he advocates the use of a reset stylesheet.
• Zeldman says that content drives traffic, freshness counts, and language is the main interface on most sites, which is why all sites have large writing and editorial budgets. When everyone laughed, he asked for raised hands if you have a writing budget or a copy czar. When only a few people raised their hands, he said “In conclusion, get a writing budget and hire a copy czar.”
• Khoi Vinh discussed grid-based layouts.
• Shaun Inman discussed progressive disclosure of information in Mint.
• Eric Meyer recommended Dean Edwards’ IE7 scripts to make IE6 behave.

Seattle 2006

• Eric Meyer discussed CSS bar graphs and child selectors.
• Jeffrey Zeldman says “The client is not an idiot. This is very important, and I want you all to write this down. To put it another way, Don’t choose clients who are idiots. To put a marketing spin on it, Choose good clients.”
• Jeffrey Zeldman says “Copy is a precious opportunity to define your brand. It’s also the cheapest and easiest thing on your site to fix, generally.”
• Eric Meyer discussed the One True Layout, saying “Alex published this technique last year in October 2005, nine years after the CSS1 rules were published. As far as I can tell, no one else thought of this before him, including me, which is why I hate him.”
• Kello Goto recommended user testing.

“This isn’t a super-fun conference where you come here to be entertained and then forget everything and get drunk.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, An Event Apart: Seattle ’09