Presentations

I have given 60+ talks and keynotes in four continents (Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania), speaking on topics like component design, style-guide-driven development, agile, information architecture, CSS, PostCSS, Sass, and responsive design.

— Vienna

Imposter Syndrome's bigger, badder sibling: Shame

conference: Drupalcon Vienna 2025

So much of our lives is spent working. We talk about work/life balance. And sometimes we talk about harder things, like Imposter Syndrome, or burnout, or "mental health". But we rarely talk about mental illness or about how our emotions affect our lives and our work.

Shame is complex. How it starts. How we process it. How it manifests. How we heal from it.
— Vienna

Declarative Shadow DOM and the future of Drupal Theming

conference: Drupalcon Vienna 2025

For a frontend developer, Drupal is old-school. For the past decade, developers have been experimenting with JavaScript-based frontend frameworks that completely replace Drupal's frontend. But what if we could inject a fully modern JavaScript API into Drupal’s rendering system? Can Single Directory Components and Declarative Shadow DOM get us there?

Diagram of how Light DOM, Shadow DOM and slots relate
— Oakland

Declarative Shadow DOM and the future of Drupal Theming

camp: BAD Camp 2025

For a frontend developer, Drupal is old-school. For the past decade, developers have been experimenting with JavaScript-based frontend frameworks that completely replace Drupal's frontend. But what if we could inject a fully modern JavaScript API into Drupal's rendering system? Can Single Directory Components and Declarative Shadow DOM get us there?

Web Components with a 95% working live demo!
— Europe, online

The accessibility mistake our entire industry is making

conference: Drupalcon Europe 2021

The web development community has struggled with accessibility since we first began building websites with spacer gifs and tables. Even though it remains in our “top priorities”, it's clear our entire industry has been thinking about accessibility in a way that has fundamentally failed all of us.

JohnAlbin’s click-baity Drupalcon presentation — Now with Netflix recommendations!
— North America, online

Dissecting Tailwind: A design tokens tale

conference: Drupalcon North America 2021

Tailwind and utility-first frameworks have gotten a lot of buzz recently in the CSS world. Developers who dislike CSS love Tailwind since you don’t have to write any CSS, but why should frontend developers consider a tool that, at first glance, looks like inline styles?

Tailwindcss > Bootstrap
— Singapore, online

Using the CSS Nesting spec today

meetup: SingaporeCSS Talk.CSS #49

If you've used Sass, you know the advantages of nested rulesets. You may not know that there is an effort to bring nesting to the CSS spec. In fact, the CSS Nesting spec was upgraded from "Level 0" to a "Level 1" W3C Editor's Draft last year.

CSS Nesting spec is a "Editor's Draft" (Stage 1) of the CSS Spec Process (from crazy idea to your browser)