Behind the Authors

Eric Meyer

Eric A. Meyer, a renowned expert in HTML, CSS, and web standards, has been active on the web since late 1993. He is internationally recognized for his contributions to the field and has also served as the technical lead at Rebecca's Gift, a nonprofit dedicated to providing healing family vacations to families grieving the loss of a child.

Early in 1994, Eric was a visual designer and campus web coordinator for Case Western Reserve University, where he created a highly regarded series of HTML tutorials and served as project coordinator for bringing the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History and the Dictionary of Cleveland Biography online — marking the first time an urban-history encyclopedia was fully and freely published on the web.

Eric is the author of Design for Real Life (A Book Apart), Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly & Associates), Smashing CSS (Wiley), Eric Meyer on CSS and More Eric Meyer on CSS (New Riders), CSS2.0 Programmer's Reference (Osborne/McGraw-Hill), and CSS Web Site Design (Peachpit). His work has appeared in A List Apart, Net Magazine, Netscape DevEdge, UX Booth, UX Matters, the O'Reilly Network, Web Techniques, and Web Review.

He created the classic CSS Browser Compatibility Charts ("The Mastergrid") and led the development of the W3C's first official CSS Test Suite. In addition to writing, he has delivered custom training to numerous organizations and spoken at conferences around the globe.

In 2006, Eric was inducted into the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for his internationally recognized contributions to HTML and CSS and for advancing excellence and efficiency on the web. And in December 2014, he inadvertently sparked Slate's "Internet Outrage of the Day."

In his personal time, he volunteers to supervise the "css-discuss" mailing list. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his family. He passionately supports the Oxford comma, argues that "GIF" has a hard G, and defends everyone's right to use whatever number of spaces they prefer after a full stop. He loves music.

Sara Wachter-Boettcher

Sara Wachter-Boettcher is a leadership coach, speaker, and author, as well as the CEO of Active Voice, a company focused on developing courageous leaders and healthier workplaces in design and tech. Since 2020, she and her team have guided people to better understand themselves and their leadership style, empowering them to speak confidently, strengthen their teams, and handle challenges more effectively.

Active Voice grew out of her nearly ten years running a content strategy and UX consulting business, where she gained a close look at the challenges within tech, product, and design teams. She now spends her time coaching leaders, hosting workshops, and developing growth programs.

To date, she has authored three books: Technically Wrong, Design for Real Life (co-authored with Eric Meyer), and Content Everywhere. She's also an active speaker, with appearances at major conferences like SXSW, DrupalCon, UX Week, Confab, and Lead Dev.

She has taken the stage around the world, opening Vancouver's Design + Content Conference, closing UX Copenhagen, and keynoting for 3,000 Drupal developers in New Orleans. She has held conversations on ethics with design leaders in Melbourne, and on period-tracking tools with startup founders in Amsterdam.

She loves spicy, thought-provoking ideas, hard but important discussions, and absolutely any small animal. She's put off by pretentious hype, people on power trips, and green bell peppers.

She doesn't spend much time thinking about her setup. During the first year after leaving her previous job, she worked at a tiny dinette table on a laptop with no external monitor. For years two through four, she used the least comfortable IKEA desk and chair imaginable, and still no external monitor.

Even now, she'll work sitting up in bed with a lap desk from Target or at the kitchen counter. She enjoys working in a field where her setup can be minimal, yet she can still be productive.