Sometimes inspiration comes as a serendipitous lightning bolt, arriving through a programming trick from a book, a color scheme seen in a restaurant ad, or an online chat with a colleague.

More often it comes from experience—the well-earned lessons from past mistakes, put to good use for current and future projects.

However, experience can sometimes be a handicap. Time-tested, well-used advice can become glaringly obsolete in an instant, especially in an industry in which communication happens as rapidly across the ocean as across the office.

The maturing of browsers led developers to move away from Web pages bloated with way too much presentational HTML and toward semantically lean, elegantly marked up pages.

The late arrival yet quick distribution of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 for Windows finally allowed CSS developers to broaden their designs.

Google Maps showed programmers that JavaScript could be used to redefine surfing habits. With Ajax-enabled sites, gone are the days when a quality Web experience involved a full-page refresh after every click of the mouse.

Developments like these prove that the Web design industry has matured but, by nature, is never static.

Professionals must continually learn and relearn their trade, casting aside old Web development dogma when it becomes necessary to do so. As the set of Web standards becomes better, so too do the designers and developers improve their craft.

Web professionals like you and the people featured within these pages, helping to create the shape of Web standards, are the true inspiration. Keep up the fantastic work.