Hard to believe it’s been 15 years since Blue Beanie Day launched on November 30, 2006.
Named after the blue beanie worn by Jeffrey Zeldman on the cover of his Designing with Web Standards book, Blue Beanie Day is when designers, developers, content strategists, accessibility advocates, programmers, anyone involved with creating content on the web celebrate the importance of web standards.
Read on to learn about Blue Beanie Day, how you can show support, and resources to learn more about web standards.
About Blue Beanie Day
For designers and developers who have worked on the web since the early to mid-2000’s, Zeldman’s book was their first introduction to web standards.
Along with a large group of designers, Zeldman was a member of the Web Standards Project: people who wrote, taught, and published websites as well as articles to raise awareness of the importance of semantic code and best practices to design usable, accessible sites.
When I took my web design, development, and user experience classes in the mid-2000’s, web standards was discussed in every course.
Now, I get the impression that’s not happening in courses. And I’m not sure why.
You need a foundation in web standards to create accessible, usable websites and web applications that work in every browser.
For many people, that means learning and understanding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
But as Eric Eggert explains in his video (listed in web standard resources), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) lists over 300 standards on their website.
Support Blue Beanie Day
You’ll likely notice this week many of your web colleagues are sharing photos of themselves in blue caps on their blogs and social media.
Here’s your opportunity to join them as well as share your support for web standards:
- Update your social media avatar or About page portrait to include a photo of you wearing a blue beanie, hat, or even a scarf
- Use the #BlueBeanieDay hashtag to share your support and show off your social media avatar
- Publish a post on your blog or on social media about web standards. Share what you’ve learned, or are learning, to create accessible websites and web applications.
If you don’t have a blue beanie or cap to wear, download the blue beanie Photoshop zip file (45KB PSD) to update your social media avatars.
Web Standards Resources
You can still purchase copies of Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards book (third edition), to get a background on web standards and practices used in mid-2000’s.
For more recent web standards resources, here are a few of my recommendations I’ve read/watched:
- Web History Chapter 7: Standards by Jay Hoffman is an excellent background on how web standards came to be
- The Web and Web Standards from MDN Web Docs (updated regularly by MDN contributors)
- Web Standards: The What, the Why, and the How from Smashing Magazine
- Web Standards & Happy Blue Beanie Day! [seven-minute video] from Eric Eggert
Won’t you join me in celebrating Blue Beanie Day on November 30?
