As web professionals we’re used to hearing about the virtues of shipping fast and iterating regularly in order to meet changing needs, but how do we ensure that the projects that we’re planning now are still as relevant and robust when they launch in the future... and beyond? How do we prepare for the unknowns and constant shifts in technology; what can we do to progress the evolution of the web itself; how do we, as individuals, ensure that our skills are as relevant as ever in this rapidly changing world? In this talk we’ll look at why the future is important, plus past visions of the future, including those from the world of science fiction. We'll explore what we can learn from these lessons, and how to apply this in a practical sense to the work that we do.

1. The web, the future, and us
Sally Jenkinson
@sjenkinson . sally@recordssoundthesame.com
All these moments will be lost in time

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The internet of 2021

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6. youtube.com/watch?v=8p0jmewhXeU @sjenkinson

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What challenges does
the future bring?

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What we plan now may
not be relevant in the
future

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Our project

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Our users
Our business
Technology
Wildcards
Our project

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15. http://opensignal.com/reports/2015/08/android-fragmentation/

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Disruption will only accelerate
Our existing standards, workflows and
infrastructure won’t hold up
Proprietary solutions will dominate at first
The standards process will be painfully slow.
Acknowledge and embrace
unpredictability.
Think and behave in a future-friendly way.
Help others do the same.
futurefriendlyweb.com

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Our choices can become
white elephants

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Keeping up vs getting ahead

21. “It’s all broken!”
@sjenkinson

22. “We have to
throw it out and
start again!”
@sjenkinson

23. “…be guaranteed to
meet the business
and customer needs
for the next 5-10
years at least…”
@sjenkinson

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Keeping up as individuals

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The future is hard!

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The future,
from the past

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31. “Short of figuring out real teleportation,
which would of course be awesome
(someone please do this), the only option
for super fast travel is to build a tube over
or under the ground that contains a special
environment.
!
This is where things get tricky.”
teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop
@sjenkinson

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Telling stories can give
human context to
technology

34. flickr.com/photos/randar/16862053922 @sjenkinson

35. goo.gl/8IKgEd @sjenkinson

36. flickr.com/photos/foam/9248390752/ @sjenkinson

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38. “a work kit useful for
parceling ideas into their
atomic elements”
@sjenkinson

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Interactions and
interfaces

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42. “We’ve seen repeatedly that if an interface
works for an audience, there’s something there
that will work for users.
!
Finding what that thing is and using it for
inspiration in our own work is part of how we can
use these speculative interfaces.”
Make It So (scifiinterfaces.com)

43. flickr.com/photos/blile59/3547072689 @sjenkinson

44. flickr.com/photos/frinky/2288705567/ @sjenkinson

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Using future thinking

46. 1. Better consider our users’ changing needs.
2. Identify opportunities.
3. Aid prioritisation.
4. Define what something is and what it will be.
5. More robust decisions - understand limitations and benefits of
choices.
6. React quickly/better to change by embracing evolution.
7. Make more exciting things and shape the future of the web!
Future benefits
@sjenkinson

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The future & our work

48. flickr.com/photos/oflittleinterest/8171299893/ @sjenkinson

49. Half-life
@sjenkinson

50. User interfaces & interactions
Features
Digital platform components (CMS, etc)
‘Non-digital’ systems (accountancy, etc)
Browsers
Hosting environment & languages
Third party integrations
Deployment tools
Different elements have different
half-lives
@sjenkinson

51. Choose technologies and
architect your developments
with half-lives in mind
@sjenkinson

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Separate concerns, loosely couple
Think in patterns, not pages
Modular CSS
Enhance!

53. “Zero UI is … taking us away from screens to a
more natural way of interacting with things”
Andy Goodman
@goodmania

54. Submit
doStuff()
@sjenkinson

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A practical approach
to the future

56. Start
thinking
about the
future(s) in
discovery &
planning
Work content
first
Separate content from
display to better cater
for new outputs (visual
or otherwise)
Where screens are involved, remember
to think from very small to very large
Prioritise your
requirements
Create a backlog
and strategic
roadmap & make
these visible
Balance problems now
& of the future
Consider future usage
patterns, interactions,
and behaviour
Embrace wider
trends (remote
teams etc)
Learn from the past
Don’t be
bound by
form
Create a set of high
level principles for
the future
Make no
assumptions
about usage
Stories and design
thinking
(workshops)

57. Example principles
@sjenkinson

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Frederik Pohl
flickr.com/photos/s-t-r-a-n-g-e/8292748067
“A good science fiction story should be able to
predict not the automobile but the traffic jam”
@sjenkinson

59. Embrace web
standards, semantics,
open formats
Progressive
enhancement
Create
incrementally,
release often
Track & manage
change
Think atomically, and
with patterns, not
pages
Allocate time to
improve the past and
the future
Lifespan of project
components
Separation, modularity,
loosely-coupled
architectures and
services
Embrace
automation
Document decisions
(not heavily, but
ensure the past is
captured for future
learning)
Prototype & test
Design and
build with
change as a
given
Responsive
design
Leave space for the
future
Draw a line - what do
you support? Why?
@sjenkinson

60. Share your
experiences
Specs &
upcoming
technologies
Measure, & use
your data
Better digital
preservation
Play more
Take inspiration
from the world
(watch more sci-
fi!)
Continuing
your
evolution
Accept change. It doesn’t mean you failed
Work to educate others,
to facilitate
improvements
Fix problems that you can see, and those that might be
Provide support (bleeding edge technology
users often have it rough)
@sjenkinson

61. flickr.com/photos/stevensnodgrass/4011568197 @sjenkinson

62. “Don’t plan for the future because there is no
future - just now and a series of next nows.”
Jon Gold
@jongold

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sally@recordssoundthesame.com
recordssoundthesame.com
Thank you!
My slides are mainly blue because according to Make It So, blue is
‘futuristic’ - it’s the most prevalent colour in sci-fi interfaces!
flaticon.com/packs/color-startups-and-new-business