Last year, Ethan Marcotte wrote a book that forever changed the way I made web sites. No longer would my designs be constrained to a boring fixed width. Away with panning and zooming. Now my designs will move, change and respond to the user’s device.

Responsive Web Design is based on three basic principals: a fluid grid, flexible images, and media queries. It’s an extension of progressive enhancement. (We’re all building our sites this way already, right?)

I hope to give you a clearer understanding of this new way of designing and developing web sites and answer some of the trickier questions such as: Is it right for my site? Will I need to entirely rebuild my existing sites to make them responsive? Is this the silver-bullet for mobile web design?

Responsive Web Design is the future. Let’s all make awesome, responsive web sites this year.

Please join the CWSA as we welcome Brad Colbow, Jonathan Penn and Randy Beiter for our first mobile panel. We will touch on such topics as designing mobile interfaces, developing for mobile devices and navigating the waters of getting your app to users.

The first half will be a moderated session, answering previously submitted questions, the second half will consist of a live Q & A session.

Submit questions for the panel to cwsainfo@gmail.com.

Since 2008, Larissa Itomlenskis has been teaching user-centered design classes to teens in the Cleveland public schools, through the local nonprofit Progressive Arts Alliance. Larissa’s goal is to transform the classroom into a design studio – to create an environment that encourages creativity, minimizes judgment, and provides structure for getting things done. She has found teens are really excited about design. By creating their own website or architecture project, design offers an outlet for students to build something relevant and unique.

Larisa will speak about her teaching process, and show projects from two architecture workshops. Student's projects tackle problems important to them, including violence, drugs, access to health care, and the bad economy. They include concepts for local businesses, clinics, day care centers, sports and fitness centers, and learning centers. Though young, the students present innovative solutions meant to affect real change.

For this month's CWSA Social we will be meeting with our friends from the Cleveland chapter of the IxDA at the Old Angle Tavern, a Cleveland favorite among neighborhood pub aficionados. Old Angle has a friendly staff, solid gastropub menu (if you're hungry) and plenty of elbow room for mingling as well as bar stools, booths and tables for taking a load off.

Everyone who attends (and wishes to participate) will be entered into a drawing to win a copy of the book, "Wired to Care" by Dev Patnaik. This book will be discussed at the next UX Book Club meeting (not yet scheduled). Look for for the event around late May/early June. You can visit the book page on Amazon for more details.

This is an informal event. Be prepared to witness laughter and people eating with fingers while standing up.

Join the CWSA and the Cleveland Ruby Brigade (CleRB) as we welcome Josh Walsh as he presents his thoughts on Getting Things Done.

“Three years ago my life was spinning out of control. I was making promises to people I couldn't keep. I was committing to projects I couldn't complete. Worst of all, I didn't know it until it was too late.

“I've got news for you, the bottom of the rabbit hole is not stacked with pillows, rather it's a cold and unforgiving granite floor. My tasks were piling on top of me, burying me in my proverbial productivity grave. My only choice was to dig out or die.

“I found myself at Borders, flipping through David Allen's Getting Things Done. I put it down quickly. Everything I read was common sense. "Write your tasks down and review them often." "Start a todo list and trust it." Blah blah blah, it had to be nonsense.

“It turns out that it wasn't nonsense at all. Common sense was the secret to it's power and David had put together a system so nearly perfect that it still holds true over 10 years later.

“Fortunately for me, I solved the puzzle. I've been a devoted GTD practitioner ever since and I would love to share some of the things with you that I've learned along the way.”

A mental model can increase the chances of your project’s success because it gives you an actionable blueprint for features and content that originated from your user’s goals, philosophies and motivations. A completed mental model can give you a solid framework for moving forward with confidence on content strategy, information architecture and user task completion.

When the time and/or money aren’t available for a full-scale mental model, which is often the case, you can still create an actionable blueprint that will provide a solid foundation for building onto.

We’ll present a fast-track version of Indy Young’s Mental Model methodology for use when there isn’t time or budget to do the full version. Originating from real- world examples, this run-through of key steps & tools used will give viewers the all the basic information they will need to pursue their own rapid mental model projects.

Who will benefit: Anyone responsible for, involved in, or interested in the overall user experience, design strategy, content strategy or information architecture of a project.

With the holidays behind us and most 2011 ahead, the Cleveland Web Standards Association would like to welcome everyone to join us for a social gathering to kick off the new year.

Rest assured we will be back in March with our usual format so stay tuned for more details.

The iPad has been the talk of the tech world this year but what does it mean for web designers in the trenches working on sites and apps for mobile devices. Brad Colbow talks about his experience as art director for Sideways magazine on the iPad and what the future of online publishing holds.

From system lockups and blue screens to diminished laptop battery life, the problems with a certain proprietary plugin are well known and widespread. The W3C is trying to alleviate these problems by allowing developers to embed video directly into the browser using the new video tag. This talk will explain the history behind HTML5 video, the pros and cons of different video encodings and the legal aspects of one encoding in particular that has received an unfair reputation. Joe will guide us through various code examples culminating with a demonstration of CSS and Javascript integration. If you have a website that delivers video or are interested in learning more about one of the most exciting features of HTML5 you won’t want to miss this.

Did you know that you can build applications out of HTML and Javascript that run on iPhone and Android devices? Not just "mobile web apps", but apps that run just fine when offline, use some device features like geolocation, can mimic the look and feel of native apps, and even be installed by users on their home screen. We'll look at the rapidly changing landscape of WebKit app development and pick apart a fully functional, open source example app. Bring your iPhone or Android device along and you can see for yourself how this works across the platforms.