I recently attend a UX design event at UCLA, which included a presentation by Joselle Ho, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Miso Media, a music education company that got its start in mobile in 2008. It was a fun event as we got to hear Joselle's thoughts on design, and then a panel of judges critiqued some screenshots of real designs others were working on. Below are some of my notes and takeaways

Joselle

UI != UX

Focus on user's wants, assumptions, emotions.

Design for main use case, bury functionality.

Every excess click reduces engagement 90%.

Replacing "Sign up" with "Learn more" increases sign-ups 350%.

What you say matters.
When you say it matters.

Animations make a big difference (continuity and breaks).


UX critiques

Outside pages need to communicate 2 things: why and how.

Login/Sign up/Help in upper right corner

Call to action must pop out when you squint.

Photo-based navigation preferred over text in studies

Discovery of activity in app: make it a widget, reduce the content amount, make it like a ticker
"ppl who added XYZ also added ABC"notification indicator in menu bar

Tools mentioned:
Blueprint for iPad
Invisionapp
Keynote (has hotspot/click targets)
Axure

Explainer video as sole thing in homepage: not great