Alexander Yougner - Febrary 24th 2012 - Design Lab

ALEXANDER YOUNGER
President and Founder at Design Lab

ABOUT ALEXANDER
Alexander's LinkedIn Profile
ay@designlab.net - email is the best way to contact

• Alexander has a history in fine arts and philosophy and economics education
• Started Design Lab about 20 years ago when the "web" wasn't really around
• Is a pilot - how cool is that?

ABOUT DESIGN LAB
designlab.net

• The company has changed a lot since it has opened because the business is constantly evolving
• The mobile market is hot and keeps growing - over 1.45 million devices are activated each day - that's more phones being activated than babies being born!
• Mobile apps have exceeded web apps in just under a year so Design Lab is doing a lot of mobile work now
• Design Lab encourages it's employees to go to conferences and to further their education
• Their employees average on about 5-6 years at the company
• The company is comprised of only about 20 people
• "Design Lab is about great design - not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also - and more importantly - we are about designing power strategies, solutions and technologies that support beautiful work. Our work has helped boost the bottom line for clients across many industries from banking to fashion retailing to aviation and beyond. " Excerpt from the Design Lab Website

BEST MOBILE PRACTICES

• Steven Krug is a big influence in all their work strategy and some of their guidelines are as follows:

1. Establish business goals - know your audience
2. Keep it simple
3. Get inspired
4. Go Social
5. Remember the Rankings
6. Measure -  The things that work are as important as those that don't

• Think about Angry Birds - what do you think their key business goals were? How do you turn a freebie into money? How do you make people actually want to buy it - want to buy the additional level. Then you build a phenomenon around the game and you can start selling t-shirts, birds and other deals like that.
• When you build an app its about everything around the app
• The key thing for angry birds was they thought about how can they sell it into the market after

THINGS USERS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT

1. Scroll bars and what they can select
2. Advanced functionality should be easy to find - short cuts should be OBVIOUS and so easy - people aren't as intuitive as you think
3. Labels - keep  them clear and consistent - you can never underestimate how important it is -if something works don't change it, standards are there for a reason
4. Icons should be obvious , not cryptic
5. Scrolling vs. Multiple pages
6. Usability - test it - one of the first place clients will try and cut the budget - this is critical to have customer feed back when building for the web

THOUGHTS ON AUGMENTED REALITY

• Creates a real wow factor - has to be on brand though

RESPONSIVE DESIGN

• In the mobile world its a nice thing
• Communicates with browser to say how big the window is so it re sizes and repositions
•  Refer back to Best practice #6 - Measure! - the things that work are as important as those that don't - things are always changing, things have to evolve
•  Some good examples of sites that use responsive design:
• www.barackobama.com
• foodsense.is
• smashingmagazine.com

DESIGN TIPS

• For mobile design - not controlling as much of the experience as you would like to - assuming that nobody wants to be using this interface - get them in and out - make it easy - you just want to know
• Look for ways to embed ads - most likely to buy into things if they are not banner ads but integrated

CASE STUDY
The Beer Store

• Alexander got a phone call about 2 years ago saying they wanted to talk to them about an app -First they had to look at their business strategy
• In theory they did not have a big enough market to have a successful app
• So they re-did the beer store website - kept it nice and simple - they needed a new site to begin with, so they started at basics
• The beer store mobile page they make it look like an app to make them happy - the president even referred to it as a mobile app and got in trouble with the press
• The downside is that it does not show everything all at once like the actual website
• But the mobile site actually represents about 33% of the traffic online

Now they have 3 options about how to approach building an app

1. They don't build the app - not reasonable
2. They create an app that skins the mobile website - not a great idea because why would buy something that's already free and will piss of customers
3. Build a full app - the key will be community and strong relationship with customers - to encourage sampling 

• This is in the process of being built now - "The Beer Passport" to encourage sampling - community building - store and beer finder  - its simple, single focus

BEST PRACTICES

GET INSPIRED

• Know what the competition is up to - get out there and s whats going on, download a ton of stuff
• Be on top of new innovations - make sure that your not duplicating someone else's work - sometimes you can ask the designer of the app they will sell you the code for certain functionality
• Good example of a mobile site is Epicurious, very clear buttons and easy navigation
• Remember the rankings - rankings are extremely important for apps - great apps get free promo
• Go social - invite users to write their feedback and ideas- make it personal

ADVICE

1. The best companies are looking for the best portfolio - make it simple and clean
2. Have a great attitude - folks with the great attitudes inspire you to go hire
3. Research the company and your interviewer
4. Ask lots of questions - challenge the interviewer - ask the questions about what kind of company they are - make sure you show your interesting and interested - ask how are you going to grow here - companies that want you to grow are the ones you want to be at
5. Push back, do the testing and research if you want to build something that will deliver results
6. Don't settle - life is short
7. Go with your heart
8. Remember to just have fun!