Meat app clicks in New York

The Webby awards are as close as we get to a Internet Academy Award, and although sequels are common ( or the same site gets a gong if they win in their class each year) the list of winners can teach you a lot about why the Web won’t go away and how to do it well. It can also waste a whole lotta time. Look at it as an investment in research (that helped me justify it).

There’s a growing section for Mobile and  Apps and the site explains why

The Mobile Web has finally outgrown its infancy to become one of the most exciting avenues for content, services and commerce. The Webby Mobile Winners, Nominees, and Honorees have shown the foresight and ingenuity to excel within a quickly changing and increasingly fragmented Mobile Web universe

The awards are a mix of content and device/technology based. But under the catgegory of Lifestyle (handheld devices) there’s the  Beef Essentials iPhone app made by Australian developer Reactive for Meat and Livestock Australia. There’s a page built for the Awards that gives the background, talks about the brief etc. and I’ll quote some bits.

MLA  identified a gap between beef products and cooking knowledge among its customers- particularly the younger, tech savvy generation and they wanted to bridge the gap using technology the audience uses at their fingertips.

How they went about it…

To appease the foodies, we focused on large, finely crafted visuals and minimised copy whenever possible.

The design of the app includes:
– High-quality photography of cuts of meat
– Step-by-step processes and delicious meals to ensure following the instructions is as simple and easy as possible
– An approachable user interface that’s simple and icon-driven
– Textured and tactile to encourage touch navigation
– A drawing of a cow that shows where the different beef cuts are found.

So if you need large images of meat with ‘minimised copy’ have a look on the Apple App store, or follow the link on the MLA Main Meal website. I can’t tell you how it works because I’m an Android user and they haven’t built a version of the app to appease young nerdy foodies yet.  ( I can borrow my wife’s iPhone but she gets cross with all the new icons I add on her screen and, as an experienced cook, she’s outside the target market).

Australian developed MLA iPhone app wins a Webby Award.