Aaron Gustafson

How an idea becomes a specification at the W3C.

The definitive guide to progressive enhancement, completely revised and rewritten. In this brief book, I chronicle the origins of progressive enhancement—its philosophy and mechanisms—and reveal the countless practical ways you can apply progressive enhancement principles in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. By understanding progressive enhancement and how to apply it properly, you can craft experiences that serve users (rather than browsers), giving them access to your content from anywhere.

Smashing Magazine’s books are legendarily epic and, clocking in at 498 pages, this is no light read. That said, it is chock full of some of the best and most important writing about the world of web design out there. I contributed a chapter on planning adaptive interfaces.

Users want content. But first you need to ensure they can locate it, whatever their device type. In this month's issue standards expert Aaron Gustafson reveals top strategies to adapt your navigation to smaller screens.

Aaron Gustafson explains how to build a progressively-enhanced, CSS-based dropdown that works as part of a responsive design.

Half the battle with adopting any CMS or framework is to figure out how to best organize your content within it. Aaron shows how Norwin Alliance might approach a CMS migration.

In Chapter 1 of his much acclaimed book, Adaptive Web Design, Aaron Gustafson explains what progressive enhancement really means, how it works and what it's got to do with the Galapagos finches and peanut M&Ms. Think of the user, not the browser!

The web is an ever-changing medium whose scope, application, audience and platform continue to grow on a daily basis. If you’ve worked on the web for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard or even used the term “progressive enhancement.” Since the term’s inception, it has been considered a best practice for approaching web design. But what is it really? And how do we reconcile its meaning with the rapid evolution of the languages and browsers we rely on to do our jobs?

In this brief… Show more

The web is an ever-changing medium whose scope, application, audience and platform continue to grow on a daily basis. If you’ve worked on the web for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard or even used the term “progressive enhancement.” Since the term’s inception, it has been considered a best practice for approaching web design. But what is it really? And how do we reconcile its meaning with the rapid evolution of the languages and browsers we rely on to do our jobs?

In this brief book, Aaron Gustafson chronicles the origins of progressive enhancement, its philosophy, and mechanisms, and reveals the countless practical ways that you can apply progressive enhancement principles using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. By understanding progressive enhancement and how to apply it properly, web practitioners can craft experiences that serve users (rather than browsers), giving them access to content without technological restrictions. Show less

Responding to Worldwide Lighthouses’ request to help them speed up their gallery pages, Aaron discusses file ‘munging’, compression and organization to improve performance.

Showing and hiding content using JavaScript-based page manipulations for tabbed interfaces, collapsible elements, and accordion widgets is a common development pattern. Learn how your choice of hiding mechanism can influence content accessibility in assistive technologies like screen readers in an excerpt from Adaptive Web Design.

Aaron unearths code consistency issues at American Express, and shows how we can use fieldset and legend more effectively in the markup of web forms.

Twitter.com’s redesign was much welcomed and rightly so. Aaron explores its most prominent feature: the tweet box, and looks at how it can be made more accessible with just a few minor adjustments.

You may remember when JavaScript was a dark art. It earned that reputation because, in order to do anything with even the teensiest bit of cross-browser consistency, you had to fork your code for various versions of Netscape and IE. Today, thanks to web standards advocacy and diligent JavaScript library authors, our code is relatively fork-free. Alas, in our rush to use some of the features available in CSS3, we’ve fallen off the wagon. Enter Aaron Gustafson’s eCSStender, a JavaScript library… Show more

You may remember when JavaScript was a dark art. It earned that reputation because, in order to do anything with even the teensiest bit of cross-browser consistency, you had to fork your code for various versions of Netscape and IE. Today, thanks to web standards advocacy and diligent JavaScript library authors, our code is relatively fork-free. Alas, in our rush to use some of the features available in CSS3, we’ve fallen off the wagon. Enter Aaron Gustafson’s eCSStender, a JavaScript library that lets you use CSS3 properties and selectors while keeping your code fork- and hack-free. Show less

Create a beautiful website employing adaptive layouts and optimised for the latest mobile devices. Aaron Gustafson, founder of Easy! Designs, explains how.

Our introductory series on progressive enhancement and the ways it can be implemented concludes with a look at the mindset needed to implement PE in JavaScript, and a survey of best practices for doing so.

Organize multiple style sheets to simplify the creation of environmentally appropriate visual experiences. Support older browsers while keeping your CSS hack-free. Use generated content to provide visual enhancements, and seize the power of advanced selectors to create wondrous (or amusing) effects. Part two of a series.

Steven Champeon turned web development upside down, and created an instant best practice of standards-based design, when he introduced the notion of designing for content and experience instead of browsers. In part one of a series, ALA’s Gustafson refreshes us on the principles of progressive enhancement. Upcoming installments will translate the philosophy into sophisticated, future-focused design and code.

Applying 1980s’ fast-food logic to JavaScript and CSS separation: techniques for keeping your presentation out of your scripts.

Forms make or break the most crucial online interactions: checkout (commerce), registration (community), data input (participation and sharing), and any task requiring information entry. In Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski draws on original research, his considerable experience at Yahoo! and eBay, and the perspectives of many of the field's leading designers to show you everything you need to know about designing effective and engaging Web forms.

For seven years, the DOCTYPE switch has stood designers and developers in good stead as a toggle between standards mode and quirks mode. But when IE7, with its greatly improved support for standards, "broke the web," it revealed the flaw in our toggle. The quest was on to find a more reliable ensurer of forward compatibility. Is version targeting the answer?

JavaScript is one of the hottest web development technologies around, and DOM Scripting is a very important subset of JavaScript, which specifically allows developers to add dynamic functionality to their web applications.

Interest in this subject is proven by sales of the book "DOM Scripting" from friends of ED (1590595335,) and Pro DOM Scripting adds to that knowledge base by providing a Pro level resource aimed more at developers/programmers than designers. Pro DOM Scripting provides… Show more

JavaScript is one of the hottest web development technologies around, and DOM Scripting is a very important subset of JavaScript, which specifically allows developers to add dynamic functionality to their web applications.

Interest in this subject is proven by sales of the book "DOM Scripting" from friends of ED (1590595335,) and Pro DOM Scripting adds to that knowledge base by providing a Pro level resource aimed more at developers/programmers than designers. Pro DOM Scripting provides a thorough walkthrough of all the fundamentals you need to know for effective dynamic web applications (OOP, events, Ajax, JavaScript libraries etc.)

It then hits home with 3 complete real world case studies detailing complete dynamic web applications. This is the first DOM Scripting book aimed at the experienced web developer. Show less

Laying out images consistently within a design is difficult, especially when you hand the keys over to someone else to fill in the content. ALA Staffer Aaron Gustafson demonstrates how a little clever JavaScript goes a long way toward resolving inconsistencies in image layout.

DOM Scripting is a vital technique for web developers and designers to learn and master in the modern web development arena, for adding dynamic effects to web applications such as animations, maps, drag and drop, and more.

At friends of ED, we kick-started the interest in this subject with Jeremy Keith's acclaimed book DOM Scripting (friends of ED 1590595335.) And now, with AdvancED DOM Scripting, we're aiming to take the reader further—AdvancED DOM Scripting starts where the original… Show more

DOM Scripting is a vital technique for web developers and designers to learn and master in the modern web development arena, for adding dynamic effects to web applications such as animations, maps, drag and drop, and more.

At friends of ED, we kick-started the interest in this subject with Jeremy Keith's acclaimed book DOM Scripting (friends of ED 1590595335.) And now, with AdvancED DOM Scripting, we're aiming to take the reader further—AdvancED DOM Scripting starts where the original DOM Scripting left off, assuming the reader has already mastered the basics, and taking them further, with countless real world tutorials. It is the first book to exclusively cover advanced DOM Scripting techniques, and reads like a wish list of must have dynamic web application features, including visual effects using JavaScript libraries, Ajax, Mashups using APIs, and much more. Show less

Anticipating your users' needs is the key to making a good impression; it's the little things that matter most. ALA technical editor Aaron Gustafson explains why progressive enhancement means good service.

If there’s one element I think doesn’t get enough respect, it’s gotta be button. It’s played second fiddle to input in tutorials and form examples for as long as I can remember.

In this excerpt from O'Reilly's Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition, ALA's production editor would like to take you aside for a little chat about the birds and the bees. Or maybe about Ajax.

Web Design in a Nutshell contains the nitty-gritty on everything you need to know to design Web pages. Written by veteran Web designer Jennifer Niederst, this book provides quick access to the wide range of technologies and techniques from which Web designers and authors must draw. Topics include understanding the Web environment, HTML, graphics, multimedia and interactivity, and emerging technologies.

This may just be the year of Jeremy Keith. Hot on the heels of his packed presentation at South by Southwest 2005 with fellow Brit-packer Andy Budd, Jeremy published his first book, DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model, while working full-time as a freelance Web developer. As if that wasn’t enough, he also established the DOM Scripting Task Force at the Web Standards Project (WaSP), created domscripting.com and managed to make some great music to boot.

Some time ago, Eric Meyer showed you how to add URIs to the printed version of your pages using print styles. Sometimes, though, too many inline URIs can make pages hard to read. Aaron Gustafson comes to the rescue with a JavaScript add-on that'll have you loving your linkage again.

Mac users are spoiled. It’s a fact we Windows folks have to live with—when it comes to usable interfaces, Mac applications are far ahead. Even Microsoft makes better products for OS X than for Windows.

A growing debate pits accessibility against usability. From our point of view, it’s like pitting peanut butter against jelly. This article helps you create a page that is both usable and accessible, saving readers the trouble of scrolling with a little help from JavaScript and the Document Object Model.