I often attend industry events - as a freelancer it is a good opportunity to chew the cud with other designers, developers and UX specialists and keep abreast of our fast paced world.

Recent topics have been Progressive Web Apps which I touched on in an earlier blog post, Design Disruption and how it is influencing the growth of business and Accelerated Mobile Pages and how they too can aid beating the competition.

Lets start with accelerated mobile pages

Fast loading websites are hot topic at the moment which isn't of much surprise when not all of us are on 4G or super fast broadband but more and more of us are turning to Mobiles as our device of choice. Page load speed is also a real issue in an increasingly competitive marketplace, and if your visitors reasonably give you 10 seconds of their precious time to make an impact on them and 4 of those are taken up by loading, then that gives less time than even a goldfish is prepared to give you.

Slow page load speed has an impact on bounce rates, purchase funnels and repeat visits to name but a few. This in turn affects search engine listings and the simple fact that if those visitors are not coming to you they are therefore going to your customers.

To find out what Google's New 'Accelerated Mobile Pages' are about have a look at my article on the Infotex blog where am Consultant Creative Director.

http://www.infotex.co.uk/library/view/51degrees-accelerated-mobile-pages

Secondly, and more excitingly for me, is the continued growth of Design Thinking

This isn't necessarily about visual design but the process of problem solving through the methodologies of design using the practice of user experience research, design and testing combined with the quick iterative changes as pioneered by the the Agile and Scrum processes.

This Design Thinking at the core of a business is already prevalent with great effect in silicon valley style start ups and is aiding the revolution of Disruptive Innovation - unseating old school giants with an agile design lead process which benefits not just growth and return on investment, but employee and customer well being and satisfaction.