A beautiful spring morning and a quirky venue by the Thames played host to State of the Browser 2013 – or #SOTB3 as it was to be known online. The 1 day conference, by London Web Standards, took over the majority of Ravensbourne College on Saturday 20th April for a mix of talks, breakout sessions and networking.

Welcome & Keynote

The day kicked off with a welcome from the organisers, followed by a keynote from Molly Holzschlag of WC3 delivered via video on 3 giant screens. Molly highlighted that “A monoculture does not allow for discourse – which is bad for the open web” yet was optimistic with “Regardless of the engine wars, the future and direction we’re headed in is powerful” in reference to the ongoing debate over WebKit.

Morning Speaker Sessions

Following the video keynote; Alp Toker of WebKit delivered a counter argument (of sorts) titled “Monoculture Isn’t Breaking the Web: You Are” which suggested that WebKit – due to its very nature and organisational structure – is a multiculture rather than a monoculture or monopoly. The term monopoly has been used widely around WebKit of late, in some ways driven by its 47.6% market share in desktop browsers (Q1 2013), however, “WebKit is diverse, it can be plugged into other applications (browsers, rich app containers etc) which is exciting, ” explained Toker, of the project’s “collaborative” ecosystem. He also highlighted the positives of market dominance in facilitating innovation adoption: “Internet Explorer innovated and the web developed in a whole new way. It birthed AJAX and CSS”.

Martin Beeby of Microsoft took the stage next, to look at the exciting direction touch is taking the web. Martin explored what’s new and different in Windows 8 and IE 10; from responsive design to device orientation and the elements that created the most chatter; multi touch and multiple inputs.

He asked “Inputs are getting diverse: Mouse, keyboard, motion, touch, audio and video. What can you imagine doing with these?” Another interesting area was the idea of “the web in the living room” and the evolution of the humble family television. Not to mention the inevitable evolution of “social touch” where multiple users interact with a single screen at once.

This is when things got a even more interesting, as he explored the idea of UX around touch. “Tap “A”, tap “N” and your phone will increase the hit target around “D” on the assumption you’re writing “And” – Martin revealed, before adding, “Touch is a human connection. Make it feel magical, human and responsive. People have way better sensors than computers.”

Paul Kinlan of Chrome, delivered a talk on the State of the Mobile Web and there seemed to be a widely held consensus that this is a hugely exciting. Stats such as “10% of the world already access Facebook on a mobile device” not to mention the shift in accessible technology responding to the needs and budgets of emerging markets (in terms of device cost, and also data bandwidth) the split between mobile and desktop browser use could hit “50% within the next year or so”. Paul highlighted the growing set of features that are allowing mobile browser to deliver better experiences.

This theme continued in Andreas Bovens’ talk on bringing “the world wide web to the whole wide world.” Andreas, highlighted that “The browser landscape is still significantly changing,” explaining how there are increasing needs for browser modes for emerging markets (but also western bad connections or data roaming) that intelligently crunches content and delivers speedy but positive visual experiences.

Despite suffering through a few tech difficulties (it wouldn’t be a conference without them) Christian Heilmann of Mozilla, explored the idea of making your HTML5 efforts worthwhile and examined why we still haven’t made full use of this area. Christian suggested that “we didn’t manage to bring the desktop web onto mobile successfully (so far) because we didn’t get what we expected from HTML5 – which he likened to the packaging of Sea Monkeys, in terms of results being disappointing vs the exciting initial promise. That said, he was quick to state that “It isn’t the browsers making us produce rubbish experiences. They’re all excellent. They show HTML the same way,” instead it may by our own focus on building for the latest hot device and forgetting everything else, i.e. the devices that the majority of people will actually be using. Christian also spent time looking at emerging markets and ways providers are finally responding to huge barriers to entry such as credit card requirements (even for free apps) that have hampered smartphone adoption. The good news is that “by brushing up on your HTML5 solutions you can reach millions of new users forgotten or limited by native hardware but eager to be online,” explained Christian.

Lunchtime & Modern.IE

Lunchtime saw a good deal of networking and catching up, both inside the spacious foyer of Ravensbourne and outside in the sunshine beside the Millenium Dome.

When sitting down at the various tables, attendees discovered racks of Internet Explorer branded test-tubes which contained information on http://modern.ie which makes testing for browser compatibility fast and simple. They also contained info on getting 3 months free browser stack subscription which lets you instantly view your site across browsers, across platforms. Because testing doesn’t have to be testing, geddit!?.

Two of the test-tubes also contained a winning slip of paper and by the end of lunch; two attendees were the lucky winners of an ASUS VivoBook with touchscreen each.

Afternoon Sessions

After lunch the attendees were able to dodge, duck, dip and dive into a variety of more intimate “Breakout Sessions”. These featured a great selection of speakers such as Jake Archibald and Peter Gasston covering everything from typography and design to the architectural aspects of HTML5 and getting started with Web Components.

Once the breakout sessions were over, it was back to the main room for Battle of the Browsers with Seb Lee-Delisle, followed by a panel discussion. Last year Seb pitted the browsers against each other by making millions of particles, in an impressive feat of live-coding. This year saw Seb live coded (cue much hilarity and audience participation) a Space Invaders style game with the ship and aliens replaced by browser logos as he (without prior warning) invited all of the browser evangelists up on stage to battle for their browser’s honour.  Whoever obliterated the other browser logos in the fastest time was the winner. It’s was a close, tightly fought battle but Martin Beeby took the glory for Internet Explorer with the fastest time.

Panel Discussion

A panel discussion rounded off the day as the audience threw out questions to the panel of 6 experts, including Chris Heilmann, Jake Archibald and Martin Beeby. The panel shared their thoughts and experiences on where the browser has come from and what’s next in browser and web development. “No one can be an expert in all of the browser technologies anymore,” said Jake Archibald. Whilst the use of libraries vs raw coding was discussed: “Things like jQuery have increased the number of people in web dev these days – which is a good thing,” said Martin Beeby, however, all agreed with the perspective of Chris Heilmann that “people need to understand that using jQuery is not knowing JavaScript.” They covered a lot of interesting areas, including; “Native app developers can build something for the few. Web developers can build something for the many which everyone can access,” so why not watch a full video of the panel discussion here.

Until Next Time…

Once a successful and fascinating day was wrapped up, attendees headed to post-conference drinks as a nearby pub, perfect for a sunny April evening. If you’d like to try your luck at the Battle of the Browsers game that Seb made, you can here. If you’d like to find out more about testing your site’s browser compatibility visit: http://modern.ie

 Photo credit: Steve Workman

Industry Web Conference takes place on the 23rd & 24th April 2013 in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and kicks off on the 23rd with a Windows 8 workshop from one of our Microsoft Evangelists, Andrew Spooner. Andrew will be running this day long session to introduce you to the new Windows 8 OS and the design and UX patterns that exist in Windows Store apps. The content of the workshop will be split into two with the morning giving an overview of the Modern UI and explore the new Windows experience and design principles. You will also be able to familiarise yourself with the development environment so you can understand how to download and run sample apps. Whilst the afternoon will build on the essential idea for an app and hep guide you through the process of turning it into a Windows Store application that will stand out from the crowd. You can sign-up for the Workshop here and use the code “Ubelly” to get yourself a discount.

On the evening of the 23rd April, you’ll be able to chill out and network with a few drinks and some nibbles. The morning of the 24th sees an interesting a dynamic line-up of speakers take the stage in the awesome Turbine Hall; where you’ll be taking up comfortable residence to listen to the following 8 speakers throughout the day:

• John Allsopp
• Rasika Krishna
• Noah Stokes
• Christopher Murphy
• Josh Brewer
• Rachel Andrew
• Ashley Baxter
• Harry Roberts

It’s going to be a conference with a perfect mix of workshops and talks with catered breaks and lunch, which of course will feature the Ubelly Soapbox.

The Soapbox

If you’d like to get up on our Soapbox at Industry Conference and give a talk, there is still space to sign-up. What should you talk about? Well, that’s for you to decide! You’ll have 5-10 minutes and we want you to be passionate, with no sales-y product pitches. We’ll also be signing up people at Industry on the day, if there is space – so keep an eye out for The Soapbox!

Ticket Offer

As a proud sponsor of Industry Conf 2013 you can get 50% OFF on your conference and workshop tickets by using the code “Ubelly” when ordering tickets here http://industryconf.com/ - this offer is only available for the next 10 days.

If you’re coming along then, we’ll see you also for drinks and food at the end of the day at another local venue where it’ll be great to catch up with you all.

See you there!
Team Ubelly

Web Summit London 2013 took place in one of the best conference venues on the circuit; The Brewery. There was a real focus on start-ups this year and the mix of speakers, interviews and in-depth panels featuring a great selection of successful veterans, powerful investors and up-and-comers; made for an intense and passionate learning environment.

Ubelly was there to cover the goings on with some of the live tweeting action we’re known for. We heard from Matt Mullenweg (creator of WordPress & pictured below) – who revealed “The first WordPress funding round was $1m, the second was $30m…the second was way easier!” as well as Patrick Collison (co-founder of Stripe) and Danae Ringelmann (co-founder of Indiegogo). We also gained insights from Tommy Ahlers (CEO of Podio), who struck a chord with “You start a business because you want to change something. Want to get rich? Just get into boring real-estate.” Whilst Jeff Lawson (Twilio) inspired with his forward thinking talk on why the world will be changed by Software People – “Software is minimal, update-able and gets rid of as much hardware and hard-coding as possible,” he said, adding “We’ve done numbers, textual, media and now: we’re solving all the rest of the problems with sensors & actuators.”

These highlights are just the tip of the iceberg of what proved to be a day packed full of inspiration for entrepreneurs and developers. In fact, Investor and Co-founder of Techstars NYC Dave Tisch said SmartThings – who presented during the afternoon and are leading the way in creating “smart” every day devices (from forks to light switches) through the use of sensors and open software – is the most exciting startup he has seen in years. In fact, considering the talent that was on show throughout the event’s start-up contest – which eventually pitted 4 finalist teams against a well-respected panel of judges and saw Flubit take the top spot – the focus on inspiring and nourishing the next generation of tech entrepreneurs is a theme that looks set to continue to grow year on year.

We’ve created a Storify of our coverage below, so you can look over the highlights and absorb the very best Web Summit had to offer.

Web Summit London 2013 Highlights

During the event, we were working closely with the UK Bizspark team to spread the good word about the exciting opportunities they are offering for tech start-ups. Do you qualify for Bizspark support? Are you: developing software, privately held, less than five years old and making less than US $1M annually? If the answer is “yes”, then visit Bizspark to find out how they can help you succeed.

Got a great idea for an app? Visit dev.windows.com for all the resources you could need.

Main photo credit: Conor McCabe Photography

The Critters is back for another year, as you may well have read recently, and we’ve got some awesome plans for an amazing awards night. Drinks will be swigged, food will be munched, shapes will be thrown and awards will be dished out to the cream of the industry crop. We’ve even added some brand new categories this year, including; Indie Game of the Year and App of the Year.

We can also announce a cheeky preview of our confirmed judging panel which will include; Sarah Parmenter of You Know Who, AJ Grand-Scrutton of Dlala Studios and Remy Sharp of Left Logic.

There’s still time to get your nominations in and have an influence on who will be celebrated and awarded within the industry. So get nominating for The Critter Awards 2013 before nominations close on March 15th.

Stay tuned for more exciting announcements coming soon as we tease you mercilessly with more tantalising details about the award night.

Last year we saw 100 folks from web design and development in the UK descend on Cargo in London’s east end for our annual award ceremony The Critters. Some astoundingly brilliant costumes were on show, photo booths were fired up and shapes were thrown to The Critters’ resident DJs.

Oh yes, and we also gave out some awards to a host of very deserving web folk in categories ranging from Web Personality of the Year to Next Big Thing. A lot of fun was had on the night, as anyone can see by looking through the photographer’s snaps from the night or the photobooth photos.

The good news is we’re back with more Critters action this year, including brand new categories such as Indie Game of the Year and App of the Year. Without giving too much away, we’ve got some great plans for making this the best Critter Awards yet. Let’s just say, things are going to get a little fancy and you’ll need to crack out your dinner jackets, ball gowns and bow ties. So get nominating for The Critter Awards 2013.

We can’t wait to see you there.

We’re a determined bunch here at Ubelly and whilst we were trounced by festive date issues and the frozen polar conditions of January, our twice postponed Ignite event will happen. Oh yes! Come February 20^th, our awesome line-up of speakers will descend on Microsoft’s creative space, Modern Jago for a night of inspiring and exciting talks. We’ll also have drinks and nibbles to keep you all fuelled and networking for the whole evening.

If you previously signed up, rest assured all your tickets remain valid, and to apologise for all the changes – the phrase “third time lucky” springs to mind – we’ll be holding a prize draw on the night to win a Windows Phone 8. Terms and Conditions can be found here

So the new date for your diary is February 20th, 6pm (GMT) and if you still don’t have your tickets, this is your last chance – grab yours here – it’ll be classic Ubelly and you won’t want to miss it. Synchronise your watches, we’ll see you there.

Back for a third year and taking place from 23rd—25th January, Nottingham’s New Adventures In Web Design promises to be a great start to this year’s conference calendar. The event will see a great host of speakers such as creative coder Seb Lee-Delisle, Designer Jon Tan, Squarespace Interface Director Michael Heilemann and User Interface Designer Sarah Parmenter as well as a great mix of workshops and social events, classes and goodies. Whether you’re looking forward to the awesome speakers, the infamous bowling night or the 5-a-side football tournament, there’s a clear reason why this conference is a favourite in the web community.

Why not get on our soapbox?

If you’re heading along to the conference, why not put your name down to do a talk on the smallest stage at the conference; the Ubelly Soapbox. We travel around the UK’s design and development conferences bringing you interesting talks from just about anyone who has something interesting to say. We’re looking for people to get up on our Soapbox. You’ll have 5-10 minutes, we want you to be passionate, and no sales-y product pitches (unless you have lots of pictures of cats).

You can sign up here for a share of the action (and the glory) the Soapbox can offer you.

We’ll also be signing up people at the conference (if any of the slots are free by then); so keep an eye out for the Soapbox at New Adventures this year and pop over, say “hello”, get involved or just watch some great talks. Ubelly is well known for giving away awesome stuff, so you might just come away with some cool goodies too.

Photo credit:  Robert Sedovšek

Quartz is a news site aimed at business people that looks and behaves like a native app, without feeling strange to the web (in fact the layout looks fresh and engaging on laptops and desktops). According to editor-in-chief, Kevin Delaney, Quartz is “tailored to mobile and tablet devices” because it was vital to its creators to have “a site that was accessible via the free and open web.”

Interestingly, the site’s architecture was designed in what many would consider reverse order: “We started with tablet as the primary design reference and then, with the architecture in place, designed for mobile and desktop,” explained Delaney, adding “This worked well, and we’re likely to adopt it for future projects.”

It is well known that many sites that try to mimic native applications in the behaviour and appearance are often clunky and at worst pronounced dead on arrival. Yet, Quartz is an example of a site being built to feel more like an app than the classic site we are used to from web all the way to tablet and phone. However it’s still not a good approach to create the same value proposition for a user on a website versus a tablet versus a phone. It is still very important to understand the UX of different users using different devices, and why they are using them (often for different things) and specifically align functionality and content according to the experience and context of the device.

Do you think this type of site marks the first move towards mobile first designed sites?
Why not try out Quartz now and see what all the fuss is about.

The huge rise in popularity of one page sites over the last 2-3 years isn’t showing any sign of slowing down and is an area we keep a keen eye one – offering a great source or awesome ideas and clever uses of emerging web technologies. Oh yeah, and we do love a little Parallax scroll with our morning coffee.

As we’re nearing the end of 2012 we thought it’d be fun to do a quick roundup of some of our favourite one page sites for you to check out. It is by no means exhaustive, so please share your own favourites with us in the comments or via Facebook or Twitter, we’d love to check them out.

Creative9

Creative9 is a UK based full service development & interactive design agency. The site’s mix of smooth delivery and sci-fi epicness, not to mention; avoidance of cramming in too much information, make this site a winner.

http://creative9.com

Inception Explained

As big web and movie fans, a site that delivers on both fronts is hard not to love. This experimental site built around the plot of the hit movie Inception was made by Matt Dempsey and manages to take a lot of information, visually condense it and create a seamless, fun experience for the user.

http://www.inception-explained.com

in Tacto 10 Years

in Tacto, an interactive agency specialized in the creation of digital pieces, celebrates 10 years of adventure as their work and agency has expanded, along with the technologies they work with daily. A beautiful, visual trip that not only explores the agency’s timeline but that of the web itself.

http://www.intacto10years.com

Land Een Job

Created by digital agency Interacto for their recruitment process, Land Een Job takes users on a beautifully crafted journey in search of employment perfection (including a trip through the cosmos). It’s friendly craft-paper style aesthetic works well and little touches like the shadows and birds being killed by the pollution from the factory add personality.

http://www.landeenjob.be

Dangers Of Fracking

A scrolling one page infographic style site site designed and coded by Linda Dong to inform users about the dangers of the Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”. This is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside. There appears to be a lot of evidence highlighting the risks of water contamination, which this site serves to highlight. It’s a really smooth, rich visual experience for users exploring a potentially heavy and/or dry subject matter.

http://www.dangersoffracking.com

Want more?

If you like getting geeky about one page sites (like I do) then add onepagelove.com to your RSS, it’s a kick-ass place to find the latest and greatest examples.

Rebellion is one of Europe’s leading games developers and the studio behind hit games such as Sniper Elite, Sniper Elite V2 and Aliens vs. Predator. The studio was established in 1992 by brothers Jason and Chris Kingsley, with the aim of producing innovative video games that have solid links with comic, book and movie content.

We spoke to Jason (CEO) and Chris (CTO) about their backgrounds, what makes Rebellion tick and why they’re embracing the Windows 8 platform.

Ubelly: Can you tell us your background and how it led you to Rebellion?
Jason & Chris: We’ve both always been interested in games, and fortunately we’re two brothers with the ideal skill sets for making games – one of us is technical while the other is artistic. We started as freelancers working as part of a group of distributed developers, which we ended up effectively project managing without being paid so we thought we’d rather set up a company to do this for ourselves. It was a moment of “what do you want to do with the rest of your lives”, and the answer was “do cool stuff in games, comics, books and film”.

Ubelly: Can you give us an insight into what makes Rebellion the company it is and what you guys are all about?
Jason & Chris: For us, it’s all about having fun and being creative in lots of areas, combining science and technology with creativity and imagination. This company was set up by two enthusiasts for games and entertainment, with the aim of making the kind of games and products that we would like to have – we wanted to have at least some creative freedom to make things that we would like, having a talented team and an infrastructure around you makes that a bit easier and much more possible.

Ubelly: You’ve released some great titles – what has been your most successful game so far and why do you think that is?
Jason & Chris: We’ve had a lot of number one titles worldwide, from the one that launched Rebellion – the original Alien Vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar – to the recent Aliens Vs Predator game for Sega, and our World War Two shooters Sniper Elite and Sniper Elite V2, the latter of which went straight to number one in the charts in June. We like to think it’s because we concentrate on gameplay and producing titles that at their core bring something new to whatever genre they are in.

Ubelly: What is your process for developing a new game from concept to final product?
Jason & Chris: It varies depending on the project, as you might imagine. Some projects come from people outside and are based on a movie or book perhaps, so that’s the starting point. Others are wholly created at Rebellion and they come from any number of places – it might be a great set piece, or a great location, or a period in history. The idea then needs to be fleshed out with concept sketches and short bits of written work, and perhaps some technical prototypes too. The dev teams bring their own thoughts and the final product begins to take shape before the hard work of making it a reality begins.

Ubelly: Will you be porting over any of your existing games to Windows 8 and what informs these decisions?
Jason & Chris: Any launch of a new operating system is always exciting, but Windows has been the top OS for so many years that it’s fascinating to see how it’s evolving and how that will impact on games and games development. We intend to put as many of our games onto Windows 8 as we can, whether that’s previous projects or upcoming ones. It represents another shop window for us to put our games in front of potential customers. In some ways it represents a curated and safe purchasing experience, the flipside and the other way of looking at it is that it’s a controlled marketplace. It’s like the difference between a supermarket and a car boot sale – you can get some great stuff at a car boot sale if you know what you’re looking for, but most people prefer the convenience and safety of the shop. The business case has been proven by iTunes and Steam – people like the convenience, accessibility and security, so it’s interesting to see Windows moving in that direction. The advantage for us is that they’re going to put a lot of marketing behind the platform, and hopefully some of that will focus on the great games that are available. Media activity around games boosts sales of all games, so being at the forefront of creating and adapting games for this new platform is exciting for us.

Ubelly: What languages are you choosing to use for Windows 8 development?
Jason & Chris: All of our games are written in C++ using our in-house engine and tools suite, which is called Asura. It was specifically designed as a cross-platform engine, which means that we can adapt it to new platforms faster than anyone using middleware. From a business point of view this is absolutely vital because it gives us an edge over other developers that rely on third parties, and we can leverage decades of work.

Ubelly: What did you have to consider from a design and UX point of view?
Jason & Chris: New form factors are always a creative challenge and we need to be aware that there are things we don’t yet know about them, or indeed, that anybody actually knows. That’s part of the fun working in a new environment.

Ubelly: What do you enjoy most about developing games for Windows 8, for example the focus on content or the intuitive, customisable menus/bars?
Jason & Chris: First and foremost, it’s a familiar interface and environment for users. Operating systems are bound to change over time and for some developers there are new ways of doing things so it will be interesting to see how they adapt to the new interface which combines touchscreen with the traditional keyboard and mouse set-up. It’s a challenge making games that work well with both of these input methods. We’re used to working with different methodologies and they are all trying to provide a similar experience for their users. It’s early days, but we’re sure it will evolve, as indeed iTunes evolved, in response to developer and consumer feedback. The challenge is getting as high a rating as possible so that you build that critical mass of sales that drives further sales. Support from the format owner is the Holy Grail of independent games publishing, so it’ll be fascinating to see how it works on this platform.

Ubelly: What pricing model are you planning on using within the Windows Store and why?
Jason & Chris: It’s a new territory and it’s still early days, so we’re not sure we’ve worked this one out fully yet – but hopefully there will be lots of different business models which will allow people to create lots of different types of games. We’re looking at free to play obviously but we’re also interested in the more traditional payment model too. We may try both and see what our players think is best.

Ubelly: How will you approach promoting your game?
Jason & Chris: The distance between developer and customer has completely changed over the past few years. A developer would create a title, a publisher would publish it, gamers would buy – it was a very linear model. Now, however, gaming is all about community: creating a community, sustaining it, communicating with it. As a developer we have to be a lot smarter and a lot more open with those who spend money on our titles. We’re very proud of the way that we’ve supported the community who bought Sniper Elite V2 on PC, providing them with both paid and free DLC regularly since June, and also now being able to give multiplayer to console players too. In the age of social media, Steam and PSN, this is how you market a game – you talk to and support your audience.

Ubelly: What advice would you give aspiring game developers who are looking to turn their idea into a reality?
Jason & Chris: Find that defining idea, stick at it and concentrate on creating the best gameplay experience you can. Don’t over-complicate things because what gamers are looking for is good ideas done well.

Want to know more?

Visit rebellion.co.uk to find out more about the studio and their titles. Are you interested in developing an app for Windows 8? Click here for all the help and info you’ll need.