For the second time, I was able to attend An Event Apart, a great “two-day conference for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design.” The conference was founded by, and includes presentations by, Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman. Both have authored essential books for any bookshelf sitting beside someone who works on Web sites.

This year’s AEA in Seattle was held at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center. This was a very hospitable venue on Seattle’s waterfront, between the cruise terminal and Anthony’s Pier 66 restaurant.

There was a fantastic mix of web standards advocates, user experience gurus and content specialists at this year’s conference. Some of the highlights for me was the form design session by Luke Wroblewski, the passionate presentation by Kristina Halvorson on the need for a web content strategy and Dan Cederholm‘s presentation on why you shouldn’t worry about making sites look EXACTLY the same in all browsers.

• Think Brownstone has a nice writeup on the vibe of An Event Apart.
• Luke Wroblewski has some sweet AEA presentation summaries on his blog.