Startups, this is how design works — The Numbers

by Wells Riley on May 15, 2012 in Design, Entrepreneurship with No comments
numbers

On April 2, 2012, I published a project to the web called Startups, this is how design works. I spent four months researching Designer Founders, interviewing some industry-leading designers, writing, researching some more, and designing the layout for this story. I wanted to explore the intersection of design and startups, and encourage people to learn more about designer founders and help them make their first crucial design hires. Forbes is calling this The Era of Design – I’m compelled to agree.

I want to be as transparent as possible with my data. I’ve seen a few people on Hacker News share numbers, and those people are awesome… I think it’s great to see the numbers behind things that work. Hopefully my Google Analytics data will continue down that path of shedding light on little successes and making web metrics a bit more transparent.

The project was, quite literally, an overnight sensation. At 1am EST on April 3, my phone went berserk.

I was getting about a dozen mentions per second via Tweetbot on my iPhone. I instantly checked my analytics, and was able to snap this screenshot showing the exact moment the website went viral. The inflection point was clearly on Twitter, but I can’t identify the individual tweet that caused it. Thank you, to whoever it was.

Totals

These numbers represent traffic between April 1, 2012 and May 15, 2012.

Visits: 384,550
Unique Visitors:261,826
Pageviews: 415,027
Pages/Visit: 1.08
Avg. Visit Duration:00:00:34
Bounce Rate: 93.62%
% New Visits: 67.71%

Goals

I’ll also be transparent about my goals. I set a goal of 500,000 visits within 14 days… it was incredibly aggressive. It basically meant that it ‘had to go viral’ otherwise I’d be looking at far less traffic, probably between 3,000 – 5,000 hits. It also meant that I needed to get a ton of press… something I had never been able to do before. Here’s what happened instead:

229,372 visits in 14 days. My personal goal was basically contingent on getting coverage from TechCrunch. I contacted them and Co.Design, but neither covered the story. That’s fine… maybe I’ll have better connections for my next project. I also wish that Leo Widrich‘s blog post “7 Steps To Get Press Coverage For Your Startup” had existed a month and a half ago. C’est la vie.

Awesome stuff happened

The story WAS covered by TNW (Thank you again, Harrison Weber), Graphic Optimism, The Industry, and was awarded an Awwwards Site of the Day (thank you, whoever submitted it?!)

I’ve received a ton of emails, twitter followers, and have had some great discussions with people. I’m so excited that the message is thriving, and that I played a part in reaching the non-designers. As more designers found and co-found companies, I think it’s going to seem much more ‘normal’ in the coming months / years. It’s great to see so many people psyched about it on Twitter… I read through pretty much every one of the  12,632 tweets. Thank you.

Not so awesome stuff happened too

My website was shared everywhere, including Hacker News, Reddit, and Metafilter. I invite you to read through the comments.

I’m all for constructive feedback… designers need to be able to thrive on it. It improves the thinking behind my work and anything that comes after… sometimes, it’s a pretty big pill to swallow. People saying “This is a disaster design-wise” and “This is shit” is never pleasant to read about your work. In the end though, I’m glad it happened. Who was it who said “If no one hates you, you’re doing something wrong”?

I did silently act upon the constructive feedback, though. The fonts I used really did look like absolute shit on Chrome for Windows. It’s something I didn’t adequately test before launching with Google Web Fonts, and that’s my fault. I switched to using locally-hosted fonts instead, and the problem was completely resolved. Good times.

Social engagement a go-go

Twitter was pretty instrumental to the virility of this site. 45 days later, and I’m still getting Mention notifications on my phone. I still haven’t turned back on the alert sound.

I came across a Wikipedia article about the “1% Rule” as applied to social engagement online.

The 1% rule states that the number of people who create content on the Internet represents approximately 1% (or less) of the people actually viewing that content (for example, for every person who posts on a forum, generally about 99 other people are viewing that forum but not posting).

Here are my results from the last 30 days (I wish I had screenshotted this 15 days ago)

Google Analytics
 Topsy social interaction data

Interestingly enough, it seems that only 0.25% of visitors engaged in social interaction on Twitter on the most active day. Overall, only about 0.50% of visitors engaged on Twitter. Compare that to Facebook interaction, 0.84% of visitors Liked my page. Seems pretty close to the projected 1%, but I wonder why my numbers were so much lower. Next time, I’m going to spend a fair amount of time thinking about how to better encourage social interaction to get closer to that 1%. KISSmetrics seems to have a few ideas… Get More Tweets: 5 UX Tips for Boosting Your Site’s Virality

Overall, I think it’s a good benchmark to see how well others are doing.

Sum up

I hope this kind of post continues to urge more people to be transparent about their numbers. It’s an interesting metric to compare, and usually held pretty closely to one’s chest. I like sharing, especially when I feel like I’ve done something right… I hope this helps someone else.

One day, I’m going to go to outer space

by Wells Riley on February 16, 2012 in Science Stuff with 1 Comment
Virgin-Galactic

I was watching Prophets of Science Fiction on Science Channel last night, and I saw some awesome renderings of Virgin Galactic‘s SpaceshipTwo and an animated video of the craft in action. I’ve known about Virgin’s celestial endeavors for ages, but haven’t really thought much of it. $200,000 for a single flight into low-earth orbit kind of puts a stop to any realistic hopes for space travel.

Seeing Spaceport America (the world’s first commercial ‘space airport’) currently under construction and Spaceship Two actually built, I couldn’t help but fantasize about space travel once again. I hadn’t really thought about it since middle school or high school, and I feel like now, more than ever, it’s no longer an unrealistic dream.

(Please forgive the horrible music… you might want to turn the sound off / down before hitting play)

I’m going to be alive (I hope!) for another 80-90 years (assuming medical science improves dramatically in the next 50 years or so, which I’m certain it will). In that time, commercial space travel will continue to evolve. I’ve never had a ‘bucket list’ and I don’t have any immediate plans for one, but I do know one thing. I’m definitely going to go into outer space before I die.

Man, just writing that down gives me butterflies. Can you believe that? Outer space. Capitan Picard would be proud, I think.

(Image credit Virgin Galactic. More images available at Discovery Channel)

Just thought I’d share that thought… If you were hoping for some design-related content, try googling “kerning”… can you see it?

Designers, 2012 is yours! Why I won’t let myself be left behind.

by Wells Riley on February 7, 2012 in Design with 2 Comments
designer_successkid

Every morning I wake up and scan my iPhone notifications. First I check email, to make sure I’m either 1) not at fault for some huge disaster or 2) that the world hasn’t ended. If there’s nothing mission critical, I move on to the other miscellany of Path, Twitter, and Hanging With Friends bleeps – whichever social network or needy app I happen to be into that week. Then I browse my RSS feeds on Reeder to gain perspective on the world as of that moment, and I’m not even out of bed yet.

How fitting that David Cole wrote just yesterday (emphasis mine):

The big narrative going around right now is that design has been crowned king of the solar system. A Braun-esque super-future is in the works for 2012, and by Thanksgiving we’ll be downloading perfectly cuboid turkeys with rounded corners and all will be well.

Woot! It’s the perfect storm for design, and everything is great! Right?

Well, maybe not. The precedent is there, but David aptly continues:

But to get there, we need to solve a really big problem: the huge demand doesn’t actually seem to be creating supply. Every startup needs designers but they’re nowhere to be found.

His proposed solution is a fantastic idea. He’s encouraging highly skilled designers and design teams to take on bright young designers in a mentor / mentee relationship. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m looking for in a startup out West. I really want to join a stellar team and learn from the most talented designers I could possibly gain access to. I want to be a master, and I know that would be a huge step in the right direction. There’s plenty of startups and tech companies hiring designers, so assuming we can find existing design teams to work with, we as an industry could start a great feedback loop training designers to create world-class work.

From my experience in academia and working with student designers, I see a big gap between where students are now and having the opportunity to be mentored by skilled designers. Many young designers don’t even know that great startups / companies hiring and the exquisite designers within exist. How could they possibly begin seeking them out?

College works really well as a vacuum, and it’s easy to “become a designer” without a clue to what exactly it means to be a designer in 2012. I can say this with a certain amount of conviction because I know I’ve been guilty of this through my years in college.

It’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve had any serious interest in other designers, their work, and design history. It started with a brief research project on Dieter Rams (whom I already knew about, but I didn’t understand his significance) and the interest grew upon being invited to be a player on Dribbble. I came to realize that there were tons of great designers that I didn’t know existed. It wasn’t like I thought they didn’t, I just never really thought about it to begin with. Suddenly I was actually interacting with designers like Louie Mantia, Rogie King, Matthew Smith, and Luke Beard (to name just a few) – I’ve seen work coming out of these guys for years… since before I ever even thought to call myself a designer. They were like idols, but suddenly I was Liking their work on Dribbble, tweeting at them (and getting replies back) and buying prints of their work. I’ve even spoken to one of them over the phone. Call me corny if you must, but it’s been an incredibly eye-opening experience for me. This kind of immersion is exactly what I think young designers need in order to take the next big leap.

And it’s a pretty big leap. It’s not easy to just ‘become’ a participating member of a community overnight. It has taken months (and will continue to take me months) to amass my list of designers to follow on various social channels. I just recently added dozens of blogs to my RSS reader, and I certainly still have dozens more to add that I’ve never even heard of. Every day I’m seeing retweets and blog posts and references to people I’ve never heard of. It’s almost a full-time job in itself.

David said how “designers [are] nowhere to be found” but I’m not sure if that’s the problem. If you look at portfolio networks, blogs, or college campuses, student designers are everywhere. David believes (and I concur) that seasoned designers have the opportunity to mentor young designers, but I wonder how that works if young designers don’t even know that someone like Jessica Hische exists? How do we build those connections? Do we even need to? Maybe students just need that drive to explore and learn outside of the classroom… it’s hard and takes time, but we’ve just gotta do it.

For some students, it’s a case of “You don’t know what you don’t know.” How do we get student designers to start asking the right questions? It started for me in my senior year (of a 5-year program) upon reading “Why Designers Can’t Think” by Michael Bierut, and I wish I had realized it sooner. Being thrown in during my senior year is jarring, and maybe if I had started exploring two years ago I’d be more confident entering the ‘design workforce’… if such a term even exists. I’m excited and super motivated to do it… but it’s still super nerve-wracking.

Would it be helpful for me to compile some of the resources, designers, and bloggers I’ve found inspirational or motivating? Maybe if I share great work on this blog, it’ll not only motivate me, but maybe motivate others? You tell me.

 (Edited 1:20pm on 2/7/12… I spoke with a mentor and I’m seeing things a bit differently than I did before.)

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