A few thoughts on Responsive Day Out 3

A few days ago, I visited sunny Brighton for Responsive Day Out 3 (subtitled The Final Breakpoint) which was the last of the Responsive Day Out one day conferences, organised by Jeremy Keith (and Clearleft). Nominally, the overarching subject of the day was responsive web design (RWD) (but more about that later).

If you don't know, the conferences are more informal than some others. Yes, there were tickets (a very reasonable £80) but no name badges or many other conference trappings. Just turn up, give your name, take a sticker (for getting into the venue) and that's all. Here are a few of my thoughts about the day.

Previously: I wrote about the first Responsive Day Out.

The day went like this

• Twelve speakers, each talked for 15 - 20 minutes, followed by a short Q and A session between themselves and Jeremy Keith on the stage. This made for a very fast-paced conference and the day went by incredibly quickly.
• The speakers were a mixture of well-known and (for me) unknown people. This didn't matter one bit (if it ever does). They were all very good!

What I thought

The day wasn't really about RWD at all!

Yes, the day's subject was RWD but the speakers covered different web technologies that are just, well, part of normal web development these days. There were talks about responsive images, the use of Flexbox, and style guides and pattern libraries, but these were the closest to RWD. The rest of the talks covered, for example, web accessibility, browser APIs, web components, progressive enhancement, web generalist as a career, and the future of screen technologies. The day wasn't really about RWD at all! It was about the web!

For me, this cemented what I'm sure others have said, that RWD is not a 'thing' any more, it's just a part of what we do.

There seems to be an upsurge in people posting and talking about web accessibility recently. I came away thinking that it's still important to keep doing the basics correctly (at the very least).

A few practical things that I can apply in my day job

It's easy to come away from a conference like this feeling that you don't know much in the grand scheme of things. There's so much to learn these days! Yet, I came away with a few practical things that I can apply in my day job (for example, more use of flexbox and SVG images, Clive!)

It was good to take a break from a normal working day. I don't do enough of that.

Fringe benefits

I met the team behind Perch CMS and talked with several other developers who use Perch. It was good to compare notes and I came away with a renewed belief in custom built sites. Now, I just need a get a few projects that meet these requirements (and have the budget).

Overall

A very good, informative and entertaining day. It's rare for me to visit a conference and come away thinking that everyone gave a great presentation. This was that conference. Nice one.

Update: Videos of the speakers from this and the previous two Responsive Day Outs.