Danielle Alderman: Alexander Younger

Alexander Younger
President and Founder
Design Lab
ay(at)designlab.net

Today we were joined by Alexander Younger, President and Founder of Design Lab. Design Lab doesn't only focus on the aesthetics of design, but more importantly, strategy, solutions and technologies. Design Lab is a truly green company that creates it's own power through solar panels.

The only constant in the industry is the continuous change. It's important to stay on top of technology.

The big focus for our presentation today was "mobile" and how the world is evolving towards mobile devices, the adoption rate and how to leverage mobile for marketing. This infographic, credit of www.lukew.com shows the relationship of how many new babies are born a day, to how many mobile devices are being purchased and activated.

Visit www.lukew.com for more on the article of reference.

Best Practices for Mobile Design and Development

Establish business goals and know your audience
Keep it Simple
Get Inspired
Go Social
Remember the rankings
Measure

Case Study - The BeerStore

Alexander shared some of Design Labs experience with the BeerStore and how they dealt with updating their website, adding a mobile site and their future plans for a BeerStore mobile app.

One of the big lessons with the BeerStore is not backing down. It would have been easy to just throw together an app as per the clients wishes. But by getting to better understand their business goals, learning about the market and listening to the audience they have been able to make stronger marketing choices. The research data gave them the support that they needed, so that it wasn't just a matter of saying "we don't recommend an app", but more about "you're going to miss out on your audience without these other measures in place"

QR Codes

Alexander briefly spoke about QR Codes, which is something I've been investigating a lot lately. His findings mirrored mine. QR Codes are neat, but they're not for everyone. The software can be inconvenient, and there is a slow adoption rate. So use them wisely if you use them at all.

Responsive Design

Responsive Design appears to be a newer trend in the web/mobile world. It has to do with technology/code that is built into a site that allows the site to recognize the browser dimensions and adjust the design accordingly. More or less making a single site automatically friendly to any browser window dimensions.

Sample sites that use Responsive Design include:

www.barakobama.com