Standards from the Field

Web developers are constantly pushing the boundaries of the web’s standard capabilities, and that’s by design: our languages are meant to be composed and extended to build websites that do exactly what we need. Sometimes though, our custom solutions highlight deeper challenges with performance and usability that limit us all, and reveal an opportunity for the web’s native capabilities to grow. How do we know when we’ve stumbled upon a common solution, and what does it really look like to move from patterns that work on one website to features that are built into our browsers—particularly if that sort of work is not your main gig?

In this talk, Scott will share examples of how he and his teammates not only build with web standards, but sometimes help propose, specify, and build those standards themselves. Along the way, he’ll highlight upcoming and newly shipped features that you can use today to deliver faster, more accessible websites, and illuminate the process of how those features came to be.

Scott Jehl

Squarespace

For over two decades, Scott has worked at the intersection of design and front-end technology, leading projects for some of the Web’s most iconic brands. Scott is best known for his work within the web community, advocating for practices and building tools that enable websites to reach the broadest possible audience, and contributing to the specs and implementation of several web standards.

These days, he is an engineer at Squarespace in New York City, where his team oversees the performance and accessibility of millions of websites.

Scott is the creator of the Web Components Demystified online course (2024), author of Responsible Responsive Design (2014, A Book Apart), and co-author of Designing with Progressive Enhancement (2010, New Riders).