Sweating the small stuff? If it doubles your website’s conversion then it’s definitely worth exploring. There’s always ways to improve the user experience of a website, and we always like to gear it toward making the experience easier and more convenient for the user, and boosting conversion rates while we’re at it. To see the latest and greatest of handy user experience funnels and tools, Little Big Details (www.littlebigdetails.com) is a great place to check in and see a gallery of goodness.

The world of mobile apps is constantly evolving and rapidly growing at a spectacular rate. More and more we are spending time with apps as they become more useful and purposeful for our individual needs. Apps tend to satisfy three main driving points to fulfill what the end user is seeking to accomplish; fun & entertainment, convenience, and learning. I asked some of the iPhone users around the office what their three favorite apps are, although some got excited and sent me quite a bit more. But hey, that’s the reaction we’re looking for when we want some solid recommendations. Check out the responses after the jump.

Russell Arden: Director of Operations

• Ebay – shop or list direct from iphone
• Amazon – shop for deals, scan barcodes at a store to see if amazon has a better price
• Flixster – movie info with rotten tomatoes reviews

Megan Ayala: Director of Search & Social

• Pinterest - entertainment
• Facebook - entertainment
• Fandango - entertainment
• Southwest - makes life easier
• Wells Fargo - makes life easier
• Sigalert - makes life easier
• PF Changs - makes life easier
• Starbucks

Tracy Reid: Account Manager/VP Finance

• Google Maps
• Shazam
• Pandora
• Redfin - when looking for houses

Matt Stallings: Creative Director

• Instagram – photo
• Fab - shopping deals
• Houzz - architecture and interior design
• Tap Hunter - find craft beer on tap at local bars
• Spotify - for all my music needs
• 8mm - for old school looking videos
• Color Effects - Change colors on your photos
• Craigslist - free listings section

Ron Weber: Vice President / Internet Marketing

• Trip It – Automatically searches email for upcoming reservations and places into your app. Also easy to check in, review flight times, etc. Amazing
• Avocado – Just for your & your significant. Send private notes, share “honey do” lists, and communicate secretly with one another
• Scramble with Friends – I’m hooked. I’m Addicted. Play me – sdmktgguy

Craig Wheeler: Senior Designer

• Snapseed – Great for editing photos
• Delicious – I can easily visit my favorite bookmarked sites and scan any new updates on a daily basis
• Surfline – Surf reports, forecasts, and real-time streaming video of my breaks. Worth the cost
• iFOUND! – a fun gallery of images to browse through and helps find inspiration for design

Ting Milaythong: Billing/Administrative

• Instagram
• Fotoru
• Reminder

Qualcomm proved a significant presence at the Consumer Electonics Show in Las Vegas this year. With CEO Paul Jacobs introductory keynote speech and three large booths throughout the convention, they created quite an impact with plenty of new technology to showcase. We’ve been working with Qualcomm to strategize a UX experience with design and development of two large scale touchscreen applications, both of them fully interactive and one of which is showcased on an ELO 55″ touchscreen monitor.

After on sight installation and testing, the applications were a shining success as eager onlookers flooded through the booths opening day. Checkout our facebook page to see some more photos of our time in Las Vegas, and why not give us a like while you’re there to keep up with our infinite adventures!

We shut down the office on Friday, Oct 5th and made our way down to Imperial Beach to help Habitat for Humanity build a few homes for families in need. It was a pleasant, end of summer day of manual labor for us and we couldn’t have been happier helping out. We had a blast, all while serving the local community – something we enjoy doing from time to time. Thanks to everyone who helped support the cause! Check out our Flickr page for more pics and keep up with all our events and activities on our Facebook page.

The Ninthlink Team is dedicating a day to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity… and we’re calling on YOU to help support the cause. Donate Today and Ninthlink Will Match 50% of Your Contribution!

This Friday, Oct 5th, the team will swing some hammers and get dirty, all to help put a roof over the heads of a family in need. Check out what we’re doing at www.ninthlink.com/habitat

Today’s announcement from Google is knocking our socks off with the idea that internet is coming to the masses with download speeds of 1000 mb per second. This is an astronomical step in buffing up bandwidth size and we can’t wait to try it our for ourselves and see what new goodness comes out of it. To get things started with Google Fiber, there’s a pre-registration process to get it working in your city. Today, Kansas City is the first to have it up and going. So, let’s get rallying San Diego and get our name on the list to give Google Fiber a go! And if we couldn’t be any more excited, the Google Fiber website is quite a winner with a top notch user experience complete with witty animations.

ISM Architect Award: by Aaron Kraten

This past Saturday, Ninthlink attended ISM’s 10 year celebration and accepted the ISM architect award for our contributions to the ISM Community non-profit. The anniversary festivities took place in Downtown Santa Ana at the Grand Central Art Center. ISM Co-Founder, Kevin Staniec, graciously remarked how “our arts non-profit has accomplished a lot in this decade and we couldn’t have done it without your (Ninthlink’s) support”. Ninthlink helped ISM take their primarily print based approach to promoting the arts and moved them to the web with a fresh, graphic and narrative driven website, equipped with a cms to give them full control. We couldn’t have been happier to use our passion and expertise for the web to help out ISM Community and support the arts.

I had the pleasure of attending MOPA last night for a talk with renowned photographer Chris Jordan. The event was much more than I could have anticipated, as it touched deeply into lessons in life and matters for everyone to awaken to. During the talk, he mentioned a huge inspiration of his is a well known western Buddhist practicioner by the name of Joanna Macy. The reference resonated with me wholly as I came across this quote from Ms Macy…

The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world — we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.

The Wacom Tablet here at the Ninthlink office has been in hibernation lately. But Jeromy awoke it from its slumber today by drawing up a tasty wave that would satisfy any goofyfooter. Quite a nice daydream in-between the biz.