Barcamp Omaha 2016 Notes

Andrew Yolland on UX and Game Design

Barcamp 2016 was held at The Kaneko in downtown Omaha, organized by the tech and design community, largely AIGA, Flywheel and Agape Red. My friend, Ben Stevinson, seemed to be integrally involved in the coordination of the event. It was a great time to reconnect with some people and see new people who are interested in sharing their thoughts and experiences. Plus, it reminded me of how much I love living in Omaha, especially so close to the downtown. For $15, I was able to hang out with cool, smart people who are interested in making their communities and themselves better, have breakfast and lunch, good coffee and snacks, and get a t-shirt. Plus, it reaffirms just how varied and strong is the creative community here in Omaha.
The following are my sketchy notes on the event.

Dylan Baumann (@dylanbaumann) on CSS Grids, a new specification (video)

This is like a much better version of flexbox. It is not ready for implementation yet, but is an enhancement to web design that will make laying out pages much easier and logical.
I’ll definitely keep track of this now that I know it exists, but it’s not ready for production environments yet.

Will Riley (Split Infinities) on new web technologies (video)

Riley’s list included a lot of new ideas and terms that I need to follow up on.
HTTP/2
Web Sockets
<picture> and <img srcset>  
    We use these on Drupal pages at work, but I don’t know exactly how to implement them
Shadow DOM, specifically for scoping CSS to specific elements
HTTP Live Streaming (HLS)
    Vimeo supports this
Mix Blend Modes and Filters
    Doling live image filters like instagram
Flexbox
    This one I’ve used
Type Features
    Anti-aliasing
    System Fonts
Functional CSS Design
    Tachyons
    Bass CSS
Web Sockets
Cache API for URL
React and Choo.js
Sensor APIs
    To use light, accelerometer and force touch  
Web Audio
    Developed by Firefox
Developer Operations
    Webpack
    Guip
    Codeship
    Deploy HQ
    Github reviews

Sandi K. Barr on Flux/Redux

Andrew Yolland on UX and Board Game design (@ayolland)

Bad Ideas with Beth Haubert

Beth introduced some of her bad ideas: amputated leg lamp or Fecesbook, but also challenged us to not neglect our own bad ideas.

Craig Hughes on the importance of objects

Craig is a design anthropologist who asked students who were in their first year of college if they could only take one thing with them to college, what would it be. The irreplaceable value we place on objects in which we have imbued with meaning or value through use.

Zach Leatherman on separating fact from fiction

With lots of examples from The Flat Earth Society, Zach showed how nonsense can take root and spread on the web and how people might avoid being taken in. As for convincing others? Yeah, good luck with that.
 
People I talked to:
Steve with the pi and i shirt
Ben Stevinson
Jeff Spiehs
Ben Leuders from Fruitful
Ben from Bench
Dave Burchell from Creighton
Justin Duster from UP
Zach Leatherman (who was also at Dylan Baumann’s talk about CSS Grid}