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Finally finished watching the TechCrunch50 presentations by 50 startup companies. It’s great to see all the UI/UX innovation coming from these startups, and interesting to find a lot of these companies spending their limited time and resources into creating pleasurable user experiences. It’s evident that attention to great UI design is essential to all businesses in today’s age…perhaps even more so to young companies vying to get a foothold in the market. 

Anyways, in honor of the recent Olympics, just wanted to hand out my gold, silver, and bronze prizes to my favorite TechCrunch50 companies as it relates to UI design. Congrats…you get a shout out on methink.com!

TOWNIZEN GOLD

Company: Swype (www.forwordinput.com)

On TechCrunch50: Company Details

Verdict: Impressive! The trend towards Mobile as the next big wave of applications development is huge. This company sets out to alleviate a big problem associated with mobile devices…their small screens and small inputs. Swype hopes to revolutionize the way text input is done on mobile devices. It will be exciting to see mobile hardware devices adopt such foundational technology…hopefully in the near future! 

TOWNIZEN SILVER

Company: FitBit

On TechCrunch50: Company Details

Verdict: A great example of the convergence of a physical hardware product and a web application. FitBit is a little device that helps people log their fitness levels throughout the day and track their results in the cloud. Great design in form and function! My only minor gripe would be that it could be totally wireless to communicate back to my computer…or just have an integrated USB plug that flips out of the device. Can’t wait to get my hands on one of these things!

TOWNIZEN BRONZE

Company: iCharts (www.icharts.net)

On TechCrunch50: Company Details

Verdict: Ok, charts…it’s not the most exciting thing. But this shows me how attention to user experience…to make it even easier for people to create something as mundane as charts…to create an experience to help people be more productive and rock…is worthwhile!

Charts aren’t new. Charts aren’t sexy. But this company aims to revolutionize charts by helping users create better charts…easier. I think they’re onto something.