The overarching theme was progress. Butterick’s passionate and inspiring speech posed a simple question to designers: Are you maximizing the possibilities of the medium? With the web serving as a medium for creators, he believes it is now or never for those creators to strive for design excellence.

Matthew took us on something called “Butterick’s Quest for Design Excellence.” We took a look at the websites of the best newspapers in the world. Garbage. Next, it was magazines such as National Geographic and Reader’s Digest. More garbage. What about magazines that were nominated for design awards like GQ and Wired? More of the same. Butterick even presented the websites of publications about designers, for designers. AIGA, Eye Magazine and PRINT did nothing to impress. It appears we have an epidemic on our hands and Butterick thinks we should have a sense of urgency to develop a cure. And it starts with the designers.

He recognizes the current state of the web is dominated by advertising. 80% of the top 50 websites in the world rely on advertising revenue. And as the possibilities for the web shrink, so does the same for design. It is time, Butterick believes, for a web revolution and it involves a little pushback and encourages open-mindedness.

Be curious about programming and “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” Make common cause with book authors to create books that look beautiful on the web. Refine what we mean by standards-based web design so it’s easy to design for different browsers and platforms.

But despite the many design shortcomings on the web, Matthew Butterick is still optimistic that progress will be made.