“REDESIGNS REQUIRE STRATEGY, otherwise they are merely reskinning. We don’t do reskinning. We do strategic redesigns that help the people who use your website achieve their goals. Strategic redesign starts with research. The notion that a design is ‘dull’ and needs to be ‘freshened up’ by a ‘burst of creative inspiration’ reveals a lack of understanding of, and disrespect for, design.

via A Design Apart: Q&A with Jeffrey Zeldman | Sparksheet.

WALT DISNEY AND ME, a typical day, running Happy Cog, building An Event Apart, what’s next for A Book Apart, and more: DIBI, the design/build conference, presents An interview with Jeffrey Zeldman for your pleasure.

(I swear it’s a coincidence the last two posts have begun with inset photos of yours truly.)

“Mobile is huge. The iPhone, iPad, and Android are huge. On the one hand, they are standards-facing, because they all support HTML5 and CSS3, so you can create great mobile experiences using web standards. You can create apps using web standards. On the other hand, there is also the temptation to go a proprietary route. In a strange way, although the browsers are much more standards compliant, it seems like we are redoing the browser war. Only now, it’s not the browser wars, it’s platform wars.”

Video interview, plus transcript: Interview with Jeffrey Zeldman on the State of Web Design. Thank you, Michael Slater.

HEY, YOU WITH THE STARS in your eyes. Yes, you, the all too necessary SXSW Interactive attendee. Got questions about the present and future of web design and publishing for me or the illustrious panelists on Jeffrey Zeldman’s Awesome Internet Design Panel at SXSW Interactive 2011? You do? Bravo! Post them on Twitter using hashtag #jzsxsw and we’ll answer the good ones at 5:00 PM in Big Ballroom D of the Austin Convention Center.

Topics include platform wars (native, web, and hybrid, or welcome back to 1999), web fonts, mobile is the new widescreen, how to succeed in the new publishing, responsive design, HTML5, Flash, East Coast West Coast beefs, whatever happened to…?, and many, many more.

Comments are off here so you’ll post your questions on Twitter.

The panel will be live sketched and live recorded for later partial or full broadcast via sxsw.com. In-person attendees, arrive early for best seats. Don’t eat the brown acid.

Paul Ford is our guest on The Big Web Show, taped live before an internet audience at 1:00 PM ET tomorrow, 14 October 2010, on the 5by5 network at live.5by5.tv.

Paul is a freelance writer and computer programmer. He was an editor at Harper’s Magazine from 2005–2010, and brought Harper’s 159-year, 250,000-page archive to the web in 2007; the system now supports tens of thousands of registered subscribers. More recently he helped the media strategy firm Activate with the launch of Gourmet Live, a re-imagining of Gourmet Magazine for iPad, and co-founded Popsicle Weasel, a small company totally focused on microsites.

He has written for NPR, TheMorningNews.org, XML.com, and the National Information Standards Organization’s Information Standards Quarterly, and is the author of the novel Gary Benchley, Rock Star (Penguin/Plume). Paul programs in PHP, Java, and XSLT2.0, but lately is all about Python and Django. His writing has been anthologized in Best Software Writing I (2005) and Best Music Writing 2009. He enjoys both software and music.

He will teach Content Strategy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City starting in 2011. His personal website, started in 1997, is Ftrain.com. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife Mo and the obligatory cats.

The Big Web Show (“Everything Web That Matters”) is recorded live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Join us!

Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!

Update! Episode 11 featuring Nicole Sullivan on CSS optimization is now available for your listening and viewing pleasure at 5by5.tv.

If writing good CSS is tough, fixing someone else’s (or multiple someones’) bad CSS is a rarified art calling for the skill of a surgeon, the sensitivity of a Stradivarius, the patience of a saint, and the diplomacy of a Zheng He. Nicole Sullivan is one of the best and most successful of that small pool of CSS troubleshooters. Dan Benjamin and I are thrilled to have her as our guest on Episode 11 of The Big Web Show. Join us today, 8 July 2010, for the live taping at 1:00 PM ET.

Nicole is an evangelist, front-end performance consultant, CSS Ninja, and author. She started the Object-Oriented CSS open source project, which answers the question: how do you scale CSS for millions of visitors or thousands of pages? She also consulted with the W3C for their beta redesign, and is the co-creator of Smush.it, an image optimization service in the cloud.

Nicole is passionate about CSS, web standards, and scalable front-end architecture for large commercial websites. She speaks about performance at conferences around the world, most recently at An Event Apart, The Ajax Experience, ParisWeb, and Web Directions North.

The Big Web Show is taped live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards (often within hours of taping) via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.

I have known 37signals CEO Jason Fried since he was a young copywriter who reminded me of me, only smarter and more confident. Like many of you, with a mixture of awe and pleasure, I have watched him change our industry, along with book publishing and business generally. Dan Benjamin and I are delighted to announce the mercurial Mr Fried as our guest on The Big Web Show. Join us today, 1 July 2010, for the live taping at 1:00 PM ET.

Jason’s official bio is brief, but he can write at length when he wishes: see Rework, Getting Real, and Defensive Web Design, each a classic, and to each of which he was principal co-writer and guiding force. Besides saying no to meetings, contracts, and VC money, Jason and 37signals are famous for godfathering a speedy, iterative form of web application design; for gifting the industry with Ruby on Rails; for creating a suite of beloved (yes, really) business productivity web apps; for mastering and then abandoning client services in favor of making stuff; for somehow, in the midst of all that busyness, churning out tons of fine content on their popular blog; and for being roommates with the equally fantastic Coudal Partners.

Can’t wait to interview Jason Fried in front of a live internet audience today. Hope you’ll join us.

The Big Web Show is taped live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards (often within hours of taping) via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.

Photo © John Morrison – Subism.com

Today at 1:00 PM EDT, join Dan Benjamin and me live as we interview designer, developer, author, lecturer, and bon vivant Ethan Marcotte (bio | blog | Twitter) for Episode 9 of The Big Web Show.

Ethan is the author of an upcoming A Book Apart treatise on responsive web design; my co-author on Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition; and the co-author with Dan Cederholm of Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design.

Join us for a lively discussion as we talk about designing and coding for the likes of the Sundance Film Festival and New York Magazine, and the joys of responsive web design, working remotely, and swearing profusely on Twitter. We may even get Ethan’s take on Microsoft’s dazzling new IE9.

As always, watch and participate in the live broadcast by tuning to live.5by5.tv at the appointed time.

A few hours after the taping, the permanent, edited video and audio podcast will be available for your bliss at 5by5.tv/bigwebshow/9 and via the iTunes Store (iTunes audio feed | iTunes video feed).

The Big Web Show is a weekly video podcast on Everything Web That Matters, co-hosted by 5×5 network founder Dan Benjamin and yours truly.

The Big Web Show is a weekly video podcast on Everything Web That Matters, co-hosted by 5×5 network founder Dan Benjamin and yours truly. Here’s a roundup of recent shows:

• In Episode 2: HTML5, Dan and I talk with Jeremy Keith, designer, writer, featured An Event Apart speaker, and author of HTML5 for Web Designers. We discuss the goals and inspiration behind the book, as well as what HTML5 means for both web creators and those who consume the web, covering topics that range from structure to accessibility and implementation.
• Melissa Pierce’s new film, “Life in Perpetual Beta,” asks the question, “is the planned life worth living?” and sketches an answer via interviews with the likes of Baratunde Thuston, Irina Slutsky, and Twitter’s Biz Stone. In Episode 3: Re-invent Yourself, Dan and I interview Melissa about the unplanned life, Facebook privacy, and using the internet to re-invent yourself.
• In Episode 4: Content Strategy, Dan and I get down to cases with Kristina Halvorson, CEO, Brain Traffic and author, Content Strategy for the Web (New Riders, 2010), and Erin Kissane, content strategist with Happy Cog, and author of Incisive.nu.
• In Episode 5: Web Education, we talk with special guest Liz Danzico, author of Bobulate, and chairperson of the MFA in Interaction Design program at New York’s School of Visual Arts. They discuss web and interaction design education, user experience design, how to structure a program and teach a class, acquiring and editing content, and much more.
• In Episode 6: Mobile First, Dan and I chat with leading interaction designer Luke Wroblewski about designing for the mobile space, and learn why the mobile experience for a web application or site should be designed before the PC version.
• In Episode 7: Usability Testing, we schmooze larger-than-life user experience design guru Jared Spool about usability testing in the real world. Jared is the founder of User Interface Engineering, the largest usability research organization of its kind in the world, and has been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term “usability” was ever associated with computers.
• Most recently, in Episode 8: User Experience Design, Dan and I talk with Happy Cog’s senior UX designer Whitney Hess about social networking, getting clients, and user experience design—from research to wireframes to testing and beyond.

This Thursday 17 June at 1:00 PM EDT, join Dan Benjamin and me live on The Big Web Show as we interview Whitney Hess (bio | blog | Twitter) on on the ins and outs of user experience design—from research to wireframes to testing and beyond. Just what goes into making stuff online easier and more pleasurable to use? What kinds of projects (and clients) enable great user experiences, and which have bad UI written all over them? If a tree falls in the forest, will Whitney tweet about it? Join us for these topics and more.

24 June: Ethan Marcotte

Then on Thursday 24 June at 1:00 PM EDT, join us live as we interview Ethan Marcotte (bio | blog | Twitter), co-author of Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition with me and Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design with Dan Cederholm. We’ll talk about designing and coding for the likes of the Sundance Film Festival and New York Magazine, and the joys of responsive web design, working remotely, and swearing profusely on Twitter.

1 July: Jason Fried

And then on Thursday, 1 July, join us as we coax 37signals CEO Jason Fried (tiny bio | book | book | book | blog | Twitter) into telling us how he really feels about bells and whistles, contracts, meetings, buzzwords, software that requires training, and startups that need investors. The controversial Mr Fried is a true rebel and innovator and one of our favorite people on the internet. Tune in and find out why.

Turn on, Tune in

The Big Web Show is taped live in front of an internet audience Thursdays at live.5by5.tv and can be watched afterwards via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.

Update! Final audio and video are now available for your listening and viewing pleasure at 5by5.tv.

This Thursday, June 3, 2010, at 1:00 PM EDT, join Dan Benjamin and me for the taping of The Big Web Show Episode Six, as we chat with leading interaction designer Luke Wroblewski about designing for the mobile space, and learn why the mobile experience for a web application or site should be designed before the PC version.

Designing for 700 million people

Luke Wroblewski is an internationally recognized digital product design leader who has designed or contributed to software used by more than 700 million people worldwide. He is the author of Web Form Design (“That rare book capable of transforming the way an entire field does its business.”—Communication Arts) and Functioning Form, and an extremely popular speaker at leading web design conferences. After long stints as Chief Design Architect at Yahoo! and Lead User Interface Designer of eBay Inc.’s platform team, he is currently Chief Design Officer and co-founder of a stealth start-up.

Watch, Listen, Participate

Participate in the live taping by sharing your questions for Luke via chatroom or phone.

Soon after taping, video and audio versions of the Episode 6 podcast will be posted in the iTunes store and on our website and announced here and via Twitter. (The complete schedule of 5by5 podcasts is available for your pleasure.)

5by5 is an Internet broadcasting network, home to podcasts like The Pipeline, The Big Web Show, The Conversation, The Dev Show, and more, with over 120,000 downloads per week. The Big Web Show features special guests and topics like the future of publishing, art direction online, content strategy, web fonts and typography, CMS shootouts, HTML5 and CSS3, building an audience, and more. Previous episodes are available for your listening and viewing pleasure.

The final cut of The Big Web Show “Episode 4: Content Strategy,” recorded in front of a live internet audience earlier today, is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Hosted, as always, by Dan Benjamin and me, this episode features Kristina Halvorson, CEO, Brain Traffic and author, Content Strategy for the Web (New Riders, 2010); and Erin Kissane, content strategist, Happy Cog, and author, Incisive.nu. It’s 60 minutes of insights to die for! Brainpower like you’ve never! Don’t miss it.

Now online for your listening and viewing pleasure: in Episode 2 of The Big Web Show, Dan and I chat with Jeremy Keith—designer, developer, content creator, agency co-founder, speaker extraordinaire, and author of HTML5 for Web Designers (A Book Apart, 2010). In this hour-long video podcast, we explore the goals, process, and inspiration behind the book, and discuss what HTML5 means for web creators and consumers—from semantics to strategy, accessibility to implementation.

• The Big Web Show Episode 2: HTML5 For Web Designers
• The Big Web Show Episode 1: Web Fonts
• HTML5 For Web Designers by Jeremy Keith (A Book Apart, June, 2010)
• Bulletproof Ajax by Jeremy Keith (New Riders)
• DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith (Friends of Ed)
• Jeremy Keith’s Huffduffer (“Create your own podcast”)
• Adactio: Journal – Jeremy Keith’s blog
• Jeremy Keith on Twitter

Live today at 1:00 PM Eastern, watch Jeremy Keith, author of HTML5 For Web Designers, discuss markup and other matters with Dan Benjamin and me on The Big Web Show. Your live calls are welcome.

1. The Big Web Show
2. Episode 1: Web Fonts
3. HTML5 For Web Designers
4. Jeremy Keith

Calling all ears! Calling all eyes! The Big Web Show is coming! The Big Web Show is coming!

Hosted by Dan Benjamin (creator of The Pipeline) and yours truly and produced by 5by5 Studios, The Big Web Show will be a lively panel discussion on all things web.

It will feature the kinds of topics we discuss here and at A List Apart: topics like the future of publishing and the future of advertising. Art direction online. Content strategy. Content curation. (By the way, whatever happened to editing?) Women and the web. Web fonts and web typography generally. CMS/platform shootouts. HTML5. CSS3. Client services. Product development. Online education. Web design education. Creating independent content. Building an audience. And much more.

With all the guests you hope we’ll get, and plenty you’d never think of.

The show begins within the next two weeks. More will be revealed soon. Keep watching the skies.