Schedule for Breaking Development Dallas 2012

Mobile computing as we know it today is just one application of wireless technology, and a fairly limited one at that. The iPhone—perhaps the most advanced piece of consumer electronics ever created—is going to look like a fax machine compared to what's coming. Mobile is a warning shot—the coming wireless wave will profoundly change every aspect of society and potentially redefine what it means to be human. Please join Jonathan for a look at the past, present, and future—and what we can do to prepare for the revolution.

Fragmentation is the curse of the mobile software world. 10 operating systems or so (we've lost track), plus cross-platform development environments like Java and HTML5, make mobile a nightmare for developers. But what about design?

In this talk, we'll dissect together the basic interaction elements of the main mobile software platforms to bust, or confirm, the myth of mobile fragmentation. We'll talk about why design fragmentation matters to the third-party mobile services community, and why I think they hold the key to the future of mobile design.

The US presidential race is heading into full swing, and the candidates will soon be intensely debating the country's hot-button issues. The web design world is entrenched in its own debate about how to address the mobile web: should you create a separate mobile site or create a responsive experience instead?

It just so happens that the two US presidential candidates have chosen different mobile web strategies for their official websites. In the red corner is Republican candidate Mitt Romney's dedicated mobile site, while in the blue corner is incumbent president Barack Obama's responsive website. Which will prevail? Sit back, crack open a cold one, and watch the battle unfold as we dissect the candidates' sites to uncover best practices and common mobile web pitfalls.

The patterns & practices team at Microsoft set out to learn just exactly what it meant to develop an app for the mobile web. They began with an existing web application built for a previous project and were given the task of making it "mobile friendly". Along the way, they climbed a mountain of devices to test, slayed the bugs of browser inconsistencies, and eventually triumphed over their own old misconceptions about the "way web development is done".

In this talk, Christopher tells the story of what they had to do, how they did it, and what they discovered along the way.

Native applications are a remnant of the Jurassic period of computer history. We will look back on the next 10 years as the time we finally grew out of our desktop mindset and started down the path of writing apps for an infinite number of platforms. As the cost of computation and connectivity plummets, manufacturers are going to put 'interactivity' into every device. Some of this will be trivial: my power adaptor knows it's charging history. Some of it will be control related: my television will be grand central for my smart home. But at it's heart, we'll be swimming in world where every device will have 'an app'. What will it take for us to get here, what technologies will it take to make this happen?

This talk will discuss how the principles of the open web must apply not only to prototocols but to hardware as well. How can we build a 'DNS for hardware' so the menagerie of devices has a chance for working together?

We keep saying 'mobile is different' yet we take 'the browser as a mobile app' as a given and only celebrate improvements to CSS or JS access to hardware. Do we really want a browser that is nearly identical to the one on the desktop? What does it mean to really be a mobile browser? Is there anything unique about mobile that requires the browser do (or be) something different? This panel will explore alternative, forward looking directions from multiple directions in the industry, suggesting possible directions the mobile browser could go.

More and more is expected from today's web designers. Visual design is just one small part of the job. Those designs also need interaction. They need to work across loads of devices of varying shapes and sizes. They need to be fast and easy to use. As a designer, you need to be able to communicate and share code across a team. You need to be familiar with lots of differnet technologies.

Don't panic! This is all fun stuff. There are loads of amazing tools these days to help things along. Together we'll go through the lineup of all these tools and discuss what does what.

The ongoing explosion of devices accessing the web presents a whole new challenge for every single company that wants to deliver quality user experience to their visitors. This change is unprecedented and the complexity shows no signs of abating. If anything, fragmentation is on the increase. In today's world, one size most definitely does not fit all. In tomorrow's world, everyone will need to have some system in place to deal with this new reality. Ronan will explore the options and present some example case studies of how to navigate an increasingly complex device landscape.

The mobile web is too hard. Its chaos sends us scattering about, chasing down obscure browser bugs, making daily pilgrimages to the CSS Flexbox spec, checking in on the four JavaScript frameworks that have been released since we went on our coffee break (and wondering how everything could possibly fit together). Often in desperation we end up seeking the lowest common denominator, sacrificing the creativity in our projects in favor of the safely dull. What if, instead, we could find the most common denominator: straightforward, big-bang-for-buck patterns that treat our long tail with respect without banishing snazzier clients and devices to the Great Sea of Lame? Let's curate the vast sea of options and examine some winners that get us further, faster, with less mind-numbing testing and brokenness.

BBC News relaunched its mobile website this Spring. Built using responsive design techniques, it will eventually be used to provide BBC News to mobile, tablet and desktop. The new architecture is built around giving users as fast an experience as possible, and supporting all types of devices while giving a tailored, app-like experience for smartphones.

In this presentation you will learn how a tier-1 website like BBC News (6 million pages, 20 million users a day, 40 types of content pages) has decided to go responsive, and all the steps it took to get to launch. You'll also learn about the ongoing work that is happening to push the responsive product completely onto the desktop.

President Obama recently directed all government agencies to optimize their content for mobile, saying "Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device." Government has a responsibility to make its content available to all Americans equally. What about your organization? If the government has mandated its agencies to develop a content strategy for mobile, isn't it time you did too?

In this session, Karen will discuss why it's important to think holistically about publishing your content in whatever channel or device your customer wants to consume it ? and what the risks are in not making content accessible to mobile users. Already convinced it's important? She'll also explain how to get started with your mobile content strategy, defining what you want to publish, what the relationship should be between your mobile and desktop site, and how your editorial workflow and content management tools need to evolve.

Following in the tradition of Command Line, GUI, and NUI interface paradigms, first person interfaces continue to reduce the layers of abstraction between the digital and the real. With first person interfaces we can allow people to interact digitally with the real world as they are currently experiencing it. This allows people to:

• Navigate the space around them
• Augment their immediate surroundings
• Interact with nearby objects, locations, or people

First person interfaces enable people to interact with the real world through a set of "always on" sensors. Simply place a computing device in a specific location, near a specific object or person, and automatically get relevant output based on who you are, where you are, and who or what is near you.

The technology to make this happen is here today but these interfaces are in their infancy-they need our help.