For those of you who haven’t heard, Voices That Matter was the 4th installment of a 2 day conference held in sunny San Fran featuring some of the most innovative speakers & writers of our industry. Topics ranged from HTML5, CSS3, mobile optimization, web typography, social networks, user experience, microformats, and more. I’d like to share an overview of the more memorable presentations of the conference.

Who were some of the speakers that killed it? Jesse James Garrett (The Obi-Wan Kenobi of User Experience Design) explored the topic that a quality web experience is much more than just a pretty design. Beyond the surface, constructing a website is a delicate balance of strategy, scope, and structure. Physical and emotional engagement are essential for a memorable online experience, whether it be on a laptop or a mobile phone. Designers are more of maestros orchestrating many moving parts in order to create a beautiful web symphony.

With many different devices and competing browsers emerging, a popular question in web design today has been: “Should all websites look the same to everyone?” The answer, Todd Parker insists, is “Nope.” Designers shouldn’t worry if their intricate jQuery image carousel works on Grandma’s old IE6 browser. The question then becomes: “Will my website still achieve the same goal if used in a less capable environment?” Basic usability & functionality can be built for all devices and browsers with carefully planned markup. When that is taken care of, a designer can then add the frills of progressive enhancement to their site, catered to those who are capable of it. State-of-the-art design techniques are rewarded to those who choose to be a little more modern.

My favorite presentation of the conference was Paul Adam‘s “Designing for the Real Life Social Network.” His points on the social web, human connections, relationships, influence, identity, and privacy hit close to home with the work we deal with every day here at Carrot. The web is shifting from data-centered information to social-centered relationships, and it is essential for designers to understand human behavior if they want to create in this space correctly. Through his studies with Google, he broke down an average Facebook user’s “friends” into different categories – strong ties, weak ties, and temporary ties. Each play a different yet important role in the lives of social network users, and interaction among these ties provides clues as to why we participate in the social web in the first place. Just like in real life, trust and privacy issues remain a huge concern every time a user uploads a piece of themselves online. I can go on and on about Paul’s fascinating studies, but I strongly recommend pre-ordering his upcoming book “Social Circles: How offline relationships influence online behavior and what it means for design and marketing” to learn more.

Thanks again to all of the speakers and the folks at New Ryders who made this inspirational event possible. Can’t wait to bring some of the California Love back to Carrot Creative’s east coast operations.

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So, will bringing on designers really matter, or does having your product or service “work” outweigh how it looks? Here are some insights from the discussion.

• Startup entrepreneurs seem to have 101 concerns before they start carving out their budget for color schemes and visual hierarchy. But how much emphasis should be placed on design? Kevin Kearney says that it all depends on how your team defines the importance of it. Good designers are not brought along just to make things pretty – they are an integral part of a successful, problem – solving team. They are concerned about the overall business strategy and make aesthetic decisions based on the improvement of the company. Designers should be there for you, offering suggestions and fighting for your ideas. Consider hiring a designer as hiring your own personal George Foreman of Photoshop. Your Rocky Marciano of Mockups. Your Mike Tyson of Face Tattoos…er, never mind.

• The topic of the Common Misconceptions of Designers brought along a warm, fuzziness inside because I could relate to everything that was mentioned. Stefan Lawrence brought up a common fallacy that all designers can get anything and everything done in less than 24 hours. Thankfully, he begs to differ. While it is our job to come up with design solutions, it doesn’t just come to us in an instant. Like any other line of work, time must be reserved for research, contextual insights, and necessary planning. Hasty designs with hurried planning often turn out to be nightmares. Startups allowing designers to contribute early on in the game can minimize the damaging effects of a rushed, impersonal project.

• Nicole Tecco Reece also tackled the misconception that all designers fear limitations and work best with 100% creative freedom. While we do love freedom to make our own aesthetic decisions, constraints and requirements are what drive us to be successful. It’s these limitations that help wrangle wayward creativity and help us zero in on what is best for the client, what is best for the target audience, and (perhaps most important of all) what is realistic.

IMHO, I feel that design is just as important as any other aspect of starting a new business. Allocating a reasonable amount of your budget toward a stellar designer/design team is an investment that can help will breathe life into your idea. Design is much more than a cute logo or strategic button placement – it is the ongoing communication of your brand and your target audience on a personal level. Stand out from your competition by making that experience memorable, carefully crafted by a quality design team from the start.

A huge thank you to Crystal for organizing this event, and to everyone who lead the conversation and offered their input. Look for me and more members of the Carrot Crew at future design meet ups all around NYC. We’ll also be planning an event ourselves so stay tuned for more information on that.

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Born from defiance; here we have our brand new office Flat Screen- fully equipped with Nintendo Wii (carrot style). We’re currently in a barn-burner of a match, pinning (pun completely intended) Mike, Bobby, Christian, Kyle and I in 10-pin showdown fully equipped with everyones Mii characters.

 

P.S isn’t that the coolest Wii-mote you’ve ever seen?

This article is copyright © 2010 

The first project that I worked on here at Carrot was to design the logo and website for TXT Communications. The logo has been approved by everyone, so here’s a sneak peak on what we are working on. I am very excited to be working with Carrot and posting more graphics on the blog.

My vision behind the logo can be found in the “x”. Arrows play a large role in the graphic in that it physically forms the letter while subtly reflects the strengths of the company. TXT Communications will be able to support both on-demand and outgoing information messaging, and the combination of arrows pointing in and out symbolize this. The four arrows also conveniently mirror the number of platforms it can run on (Internet, Mobile Web, Text Message, Mash-ups).

In addition, attached is the Mac widget logo that will be used with the release of the new iPhone.

Thanks to everyone who gave me their advice and support!

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