[watching] Creating responsive HTML5 touch interfaces

In another episode of “things Chris watched in the gym and you should, too” here is a great video from the BayJax event series normally held in the Yahoo offices in Sunnyvale, California.

In this presentation Stephen Woods (@ysaw) of Flickr talks about touch interactions and how they used them in the tablet version of Flickr. You can watch it on YouTube or embedded here:

The slides are available on Slideshare and there is even an updated version Stephen presented at SXSW that is a bit less Webkit centric.

Here is what I liked about the video:

• It is 24 minutes long – enough to burn 273 calories
• Stephen knows his stuff without showing off. There is no ego, just a very relaxed presentation and great info. No need for pep rallies or showmanship, get the info, use it as you think fit
• There are no “this works magical and is awesome” moments, you learn the good with the bad – it is a very realistic talk
• It is a great mix of UX concerns, performance explanations and technical info. As in – you see how things were implemented, not how they theoretically should work backed up by random benchmarks
• I found the first utterly sensible and necessary use case for CSS matrix transforms (simulating pinch to zoom)
• It has cats
• It never tries to show off with awesome knowledge or clever large words for simple solutions. Stephen openly admits to have come to the conclusions shown by trial and error

This is a great example that whilst everybody and their aunt will happily tell you that Yahoo is up a small polluted waterway without proper means of propulsion there is great talent and great work being done there. It also shows that when web technology information comes from people who have to deliver to users rather than push a certain product you can get wonderful insights without being hit over the head with them. I liked it. Great job, Stephen.

Tags: touchevents, video, watching