Unbe­liev­able but true — but a mere six months after the first effort (mind the sar­casm), Perth are hav­ing another Web Stan­dards Group meet­ing. We may not be able to get speak­ers every sin­gle month, but Vicki and I are def­i­nitely doing our best to have some­thing worth com­ing out for a lit­tle more often in 2006!

So what’s on the agenda? Firstly, Alexan­dra Gra­ham from Cad­mium will be pre­sent­ing “Acces­si­ble Busi­ness Online” — relat­ing some of her expe­ri­ences build­ing a web devel­op­ment busi­ness based on acces­si­bil­ity. Alex has received recog­ni­tion for her work, includ­ing a “Site of the Month” award from GAWDS (Guild of Acces­si­ble Web Design­ers), so she really knows what she’s talk­ing about. I’ve been hound­ing Alex to present for the Perth WSG for quite so time so I’m really look­ing for­ward to her session.

Keep­ing to our aim of hav­ing a business-related pre­sen­ta­tion and a tech­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion at each meet­ing, the sec­ond pre­sen­ta­tion will be Nick Cowie’s “<but­ton>: The For­got­ten Ele­ment”. Nick has spent some time (he would prob­a­bly call it a really long time) research­ing acces­si­ble forms. In his “adven­tures” he re-discovered the but­ton ele­ment, a use­ful form ele­ment that many web devel­op­ers seem to be unaware of. Nick will be giv­ing the low down on what this ele­ment can do to help build styl­ish and acces­si­ble forms, includ­ing of course cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility.

The meet­ing is being spon­sored by Edith Cowan University’s School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mul­ti­me­dia, who are pro­vid­ing us with a venue and nib­blies. Many thanks are due to Arshad Omari and Joe Luca, and espe­cially to Harry Leith who helped organ­ise everything.

Event details

See the Web Stan­dards Group web site for offi­cial details. If any­thing changes this is where it will be posted.

For those who’d like a sum­mary, it’s at the tav­ern of ECU’s Mt Law­ley cam­pus (Build­ing 12) on Thurs­day the 30th of March, 2006. Drinks and net­work­ing from 6pm. Pre­sen­ta­tions between 6.30pm and 7.30pm, then more drinks and net­work­ing for those who feel like stick­ing around and talk­ing shop with like-minded web-heads.

Venue and park­ing information

Edith Cowan has down­load­able cam­pus maps (in PDF for­mat) and also a quite impres­sive inter­ac­tive cam­pus map.

RSVP

If you’re think­ing of com­ing along, please let Vicki and I know by email­ing perth@webstandardsgroup.org. Hope to see you there!