1 What's Old is New Again...

Some great perspectives and insights, but you can really tell who’s been around for a while vs. those who’ve only been working a few years.

Designing for different browsers has been an issue since 1995 (and moved off the desktop years ago). Things have never been as consistent as they are now; even mobile has been more standardized with the spread of WebKit and HTML-5 on the top phones.

The idea that “the bosses just don’t get it” and the need to justify smart and beautiful design has always been and will continue to be a struggle for creatives/designers; anyone who thinks that’s been conquered in the last year will surely have a rude awakening, probably with their next client.

I think the most important thing is to be open to ideas around you, whether they come from more senior designers, managers, or technology co-workers. You don’t know everything, there’s a good chance someone has dealt with this problem before you, and the best ideas often come from collaboration not individual perspiration.

posted at 08:21 am on December 13, 2011 by mrmambo

2 What a treat!

Being allowed to peer into the things industry leaders were thinking, learning and doing during the year was a total treat. I’ve loved many posts at A List Apart over the years, but this is my absolute favorite. I’m sure Aarron could explain exactly why. I hope this becomes a tradition and we get a post like this every year.

posted at 11:26 am on December 13, 2011 by Virginia DeBolt

3 I learned the love for the web.

I had the pleasure to attend to various conference of people that I read or followed by years through website like A list apart, and I made a greateful discover. They are just people like you and me. I could talk with them, ask question, and they were incredibly polite, gentle and helpfull, it was a great surprise that they were so approachable.
I learned that the passion that drives me to learn every day about communication and web design, it drives them as well. I felt on the same level and passion. And it just gave me a second wind of desire of being able to talk about what inspire me, what drives me and what I find great way to communicate. With some friend from Barcelona we started to make some small free conference and the result was that more people wanted to share and grow together.
The 2011 for me was this discovery, that there is a world of people behind the screen of my monitor that are passionate as I am about this wonderful medium, and that we all share the same dream. Be a better designers, comunicators and above all a better man.

posted at 11:57 am on December 13, 2011 by Alessio Carone

4 Great stuff

Definitely a banner year for the “internet of things” and great to hear industry professionals recognize that we are in transitional time for design and development.

posted at 03:07 pm on December 13, 2011 by johnReading

5 Two more things missed in the list (Personal opini

Death awareness. All we do, or what we wold do, all our art, design, decisions, at the end of the days will disappeared. Something new will be invented, some other person will come. It’s not about to get success, it’s about to choose life that make you happy. And if you get lucky, it would change some other peoples too.

New things. All things around us was invented by peoples. Hopefully, everybody have a chance to invent something new. Even with web design.

posted at 02:18 am on December 16, 2011 by blackliteon

6 Nice Compilation!

I enjoyed hearing thoughts from all these web superstars. Thanks for building the list.

—
[url=“http://www.danielelmore.com”]Daniel Elmore[/url]

posted at 04:05 pm on December 18, 2011 by Daniel Elmore

7 Great reflections on an amazing year.

Awesome read. It’s so nice to read stuff that reflects the every day experience working in web. Its been an exciting year with so much happening on all fronts.

posted at 06:14 pm on December 19, 2011 by asecondwill

8 Emotion in Web Design

Emotion is at the heart of every decision we make – I also learned that.
Web design should be created for people, cause positive feelings, including esthetic.
Do not be afraid to experiment – it’s a great experience, a professional web designer learns from his mistakes and successes.
You have to think about people, not about design.

posted at 07:27 am on December 20, 2011 by CheapWebDesignSEO

9 Animals are taking over the internet!

I learned that apparently animals are taking over the internet (Pandas especially). I just have to say I love animals, so maybe the Pandas will take it easy on me and my websites. It has been a fun year, and I have learned a lot.

posted at 08:26 pm on December 20, 2011 by peedeefish

10 The Good and the Bad

More than apps, it has been the death of “inter” as in inter<—>net. Remember the day of geocities and similar services! Remember how you could connect to any email from any email : for example, to write to someone hotmail you could write from yahoo without needing to be hotmail member. The giant and evil monopoly and blatant data-miner FB has changed the scenario and killed a lot of the interent. It is now cookie-cutter stuff allover with a massive “slave” population following. Anybody once could write simple html and create their pages – it was open and easy protocol, and sadly we killed it in favor of meaningless apps and allowing just a few sites to rule : so that internet is now = FB + Apple + G + Amazon. Unfortunate so much that even Tim Lee has lamented. I wish there were more players, at least a dozen like FB. I wish they come soon and fast.

Apps can be just killed by good mobile browsers : there is a sign of this as Opera and others bring on more improvements. Apps, among other things, restricts the wide exposure of www. At max you can have 100 or 500 apps to interact regularly. The browser is the best app that exposes you to a million sites every second, and once this crazy app craze dies down and more html5 pours in apps can be in-browser stuffs.

Internet of today was made by the common mass who did a lot of simple html and php, but the most bad part is that now things are moving or have moved to intricate and costly money-needing expert skills, huge stinky commercialization unthought of in the 90’s, a few monopoly sites, and other sites just slave to FB using FB icons, FB shares, FB comments – none of their own. It not even matters to them that they are not being original ( FB do not use their icons) and thus are actually losing more users who value independence, uniqueness and freedom.

What we need now : – do not let the simplicity of html and php get lost – apps no, browser yes : browser can do from one window all app stuffs – at least a dozen more sites like FB – revival of services like Geocities

Who will be the champion for these causes? These are much more important than SOPA, of you understand what I/we mean!

posted at 01:09 pm on December 24, 2011 by riza