Jen Simmons is an American graphic designer, web developer, educator and speaker known[by whom?] for her expertise in web standards, particularly HTML and CSS.[1][2] She is a member of the CSS Working Group and has been prominent in the deployment of CSS grid layout.[3] She worked as a developer advocate at Mozilla and later at Apple.

Jen Simmons
Simmons presenting at An Event Apart in 2015
EducationGordon College (BA)
Temple University (MFA)
Occupation(s)graphic designer, web developer
Websitejensimmons.com

Life

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Simmons earned a BA in sociology from Gordon College in 1991.[4] In 2007 she graduated from Temple University with an MFA in Film and Media Arts.[4] In addition to working on websites since 1998, Simmons is a designer for print pieces and live performance, including projection and lighting design work.[5]

She is a creator of Bartik theme for Drupal, which became one of core themes and a default in Drupal versions 7, 8 and 9.[6][7][8]

In 2013 she joined the Responsive Images Community Group one of groups of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).[9]

She was a designer and developer advocate at Mozilla since 2016,[10] where she designed the Firefox browser's Grid Inspector.[11][12] Since 2020 Simmons is a developer advocate at Apple for the Web Developer Experience team for WebKit and Safari.[13][10]

Simmons is a member of the CSS Working Group created by the W3C since 2016.[1][14] She joined CCS WG when working for Mozilla and continued as an Apple employee.[15][14] She helped prepare and communicate CSS grid layout specification (level 1 and 2),[16][17] CSS Containment Module Level 3,[18] CSS Cascading and Inheritance (level 5 and 6),[19][20] CSS Shapes Module Level 1.[21] She was an editor on CSS Box Sizing Module level 4[22] and on CSS Grid Layout Level 3.[23]

Significance

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Simmons runs the YouTube channel "Layout Land"[24][25] and coined the term "intrinsic design" to refer to her philosophy of web layouts that mix fixed, content-sized, and fluid layout.[26] She is a frequent conference speaker at events such as South by Southwest, DrupalCon and SmashingConf.[27][28][29][30][31][32][12]

Simmons has been on Twitter since 2007 and has more than 100,000 followers.[33] In 2007, she coined the term "fail whale" for the website's error message illustration that showed during outages until 2013.[34][35][36]

References

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  1. ^ a b Warren, Tom (2018-01-04). "Chrome is turning into the new Internet Explorer 6". The Verge. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  2. ^ Coyier, Chris (2019-03-04). "CSS Remedy". CSS-Tricks. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  3. ^ CaSE Podcast Team (2017-03-08). "Modern CSS with Jen Simmons". CaSE: Conversations about Software Engineering. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  4. ^ a b "Monday Profile: Jen Simmons". Web Directions. 2016-06-20. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  5. ^ "Jen Simmons - An Event Apart". aneventapart.com. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  6. ^ "Core Themes: Bartik". Drupalize.Me. 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  7. ^ "Bartik". Drupal.org. 2010-02-22. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  8. ^ "Bartik". Drupal.org. 2016-10-27. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  9. ^ "Use Cases and Requirements for Standardizing Responsive Images". www.w3.org. 2013. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  10. ^ a b Notarianni, Mauro (2020-06-03). "Jen Simmons, la specialista degli standard web ora lavora per Apple". macitynet.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  11. ^ Huijing Chen (2017-12-04). "Debugging CSS Grid Layouts With Firefox Grid Inspector". Smashing Magazine. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
  12. ^ a b "Jen Simmons Bio". talks.jensimmons.com. Archived from the original on 2019-08-30. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  13. ^ Mearian, Lucas (2022-02-10). "Apple wants to know why you hate Safari". Computerworld. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  14. ^ a b "CSS WG members". www.w3.org. Archived from the original on 2023-03-01. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  15. ^ "CSS WG members". 2017-05-19. Archived from the original on 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2023-03-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  16. ^ "CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1". www.w3.org. 2020. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  17. ^ "CSS Grid Layout Module Level 2". www.w3.org. 2020. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  18. ^ "CSS Containment Module Level 3". www.w3.org. 2022. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  19. ^ "CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 5". www.w3.org. 2022. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  20. ^ "CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 6". www.w3.org. 2021. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  21. ^ "CSS Shapes Module Level 1". www.w3.org. 2022. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  22. ^ "CSS Box Sizing Module Level 4". www.w3.org. 2021. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  23. ^ "CSS Grid Layout Module Level 3". drafts.csswg.org. 2021. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  24. ^ Slefo, George P. (2019-07-18). "CSS Grid is finally starting to live up to its potential in web design". adage.com. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  25. ^ "The 15 best new podcasts for web designers and developers". The Media Temple Blog. 3 August 2018. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  26. ^ "The Web Layout Revolution: An Interview with Chen Hui Jing". The Media Temple Blog. 14 May 2019. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  27. ^ "Jen Simmons on Speaker Deck". speakerdeck.com. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  28. ^ "Mozilla Developer Roadshow: A Day Working on CSS Grid Layout with Jen Simmons". generalassemb.ly. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  29. ^ "Jen Simmons - An Event Apart". aneventapart.com. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  30. ^ "Jen Simmons's schedule for CSS Dev Conf 2014". cssdevconf2014.sched.com. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  31. ^ "Web Directions hover 2022". webdirections.org. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  32. ^ "Jen Simmons - SmashingConf SF 2019, April 16–17". smashingconf.com. 2019. Retrieved 2023-03-01.
  33. ^ "Jen Simmons (@jensimmons)". twitter.com. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  34. ^ "La vera storia della balena di Twitter" [The real story of the Twitter whale]. La Stampa (in Italian). 24 January 2015. Archived from the original on 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  35. ^ LaFrance, Adrienne (2015-01-08). "The Story of Twitter's Fail Whale". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  36. ^ Simmons, Jen [@jensimmons] (2007-09-02). "Oh, fail whale, you are making my website fail. No more wordpress-twitter-crossposting" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
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