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Metablog

This is my final blog post that will be assessed for my Networked media production unit, it is designed to assess the success of my blog through the use of google analytics and will hopefully show my blogs success.

Over the course of the semester I made 43 posts, these were done during the months of February-mid May. My blog managed to achieve some success towards the end of the unit, achieving 20 views on one of the days.

Connectivity/traffic:

I found that little of my success was achieved throughout the meatier part of the unit, probably because I didn't chose to advertise the blog through conventional means. I didn't start following friends, liking other people's Tumblr posts, or re blogging until the end of the semester, however when I started committing to these things traffic has begun to come. One of the tricks to hosting a successful blog would be publication of new material followed by a brief "awareness campaign" that is simply liking more people's things in the community, in the hopes that they in turn like your content back. I did manage to achieve a bounce rate of 50%, I guess the content needs to be more grabbing for people to explore the site, not such a good point here but a lot can be taken away from it.

Content:

On the topic of content however when I reviewed my previous blog posts I noted that a lot of my content is text based. I don't think there's anything more intimidating to a web surfer than the classic wall of text, so it is possible that is where I'm having some trouble attracting new viewers, at the same time however if my blog was to become a photo journal I don't think I would be able to convey the core ideals of thinking about design, which involves a lot of reading.

One of the things I took the most satisfaction from in my blog was the opportunity it provided me with to publish my own content. I used it as one of the three platforms (moodle and typophile.com) to publish my online Zine about grids. I would like to continue to use it as a platform for self publication, as it is convenient to refer friends to. This would mean dropping off on the amount of posts per week, which is not necessarily a good thing, but it would increase the personable nature of the blog and allow users easy access to my publications that I think are smart design in a much more concise manner than weekly posts.

Audience:

If this graph is anything to go by my Audience seems to be spending a lot of time on my site. I can't remember the last time I spent 17 minutes on a website, let alone a blog, so possibly someone really, really likes my website or they really like drinking coffee and leaving the computers on. I suspect this traffic will be reduced over the course of my blogging experience, as users revisit my site there will be less need to spend so much time reading back logs of information.

If there's anything I should take away from this experience of blogging it's probably to rework my content structure. There should be more depth to my posts, encouraging users to look further into my site to reduce the bounce rate, however, the content seems to engage users well, keeping them on my site for a long time. Also putting myself out more would be a good idea, following more blogs and liking more posts to encourage more traffic to my blog. I would love to redesign the blog with a background that changes varying on the traffic of the day, which would be a really interesting way of engaging consumers. Google Analytics can lead to a lot of varying theories but the only way to create conclusions is to test out different approaches to content. Hopefully after analyzing these stats I can begin producing a more successful blog.

Thanks for reading

Andrew

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Google Map with Flickr Geodata (mashup)

This is a google map with geodata for good design. It features geofeed info from Design is a good idea, icograda 2010 and Dawghouse design studio's.

View Smart Design Groups! in a larger map

Cool move guys!

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This is a map showing geodata for tourists visiting the area. It shows all the hotspots to check out!

This is the future, I'd love to see something like this implemented on an ipad/iphone!

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Covered bike protectors in Delft - both weatherproof and relatively secure.

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Design firm Toyo Ito’s Mediatheque building in Sendai, Japan, whose foundation and supports resemble those of sprawling tree trunks, withstands the major shocks of the initial earth quake on March 11, 2011.

Footage of the building’s interior emerged Sunday. 

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Good design should be innovative. Good design should make a product useful. Good design is aesthetic design. Good design should make a product understandable. Good design is honest. Good design is unobtrusive. Good design is long lived. Good design is consistent in every detail. Good design environmentally friendly. Last but not least, good design is as little design as possible .

Dieter Rams

former Design Director, Braun

(via shoshanapisan)

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Awfully cheeky

This is a poster embedded using HTML for the week four workshop.

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Underground Map

I just posted the other day the current London Underground map. A piece of incredibly smart design!

Infosthetics.com posted this cool flash video of the map morphing from it's actual geographic counterpart, the new version is better, even the best maybe but it's intresting to see how much better it communicates than actual geography.

Check it out at: http://www.fourthway.co.uk/tfl.html

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Death of Bin Laden Reactions map

This was sourced from infosthetics.com

The death of Obama triggered many different reactions, whilst thousands celebrated on the street many felt a more sombre reaction more appropriate.

As an Australian I don't know if I have the right to say what is the correct response, but I can do a repost from the neighboring blog infosthetics. Check it out here:

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2011/05/mapping_the_mixed_emotions_after_osama_bin_ladens_death.html

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Need I say more?

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Nick bell's atmosphere exhibition

Nick Bell is a British designer with an interest in wayshowing systems. Coming from a background in print he recently gave a talk at the Australian festival agIdeas on the work he had done for the science museum. Aptly named Atmosphere the work featured a game floor that communicated with the ceiling graphic to create the idea of an ecosystem, users would interact with boards - their decisions influencing what occurred on the floor which in turn effected the ceiling (an abstraction of what the atmosphere was). This is playing with the concept of teaching the user through play the ideals of being Eco conscious.

When thinking about the project on it’s own we can see two smart ideas occurring, the idea of learning through playing and a visual representation of the atmosphere, however neither o these things are what make this piece exceptionally smart; instead it was the circumstance the team was faced with. During the period of the design process the world went through a rhetorical shift, with more people becoming climate skeptics, there were highly organized groups of climate change deniars ruining other exhibitions in the science museum and on top of all this four different studios collaborating on the project.

The final outcome even existing is a miracle, let alone one that is designed so elegantly and astutely, this surely give this work the mark of good and more so smart design.

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Per Mollerup

Per Mollerup spoke brilliantly today at AGIdeas.

Charismatic and humorous he talked about the ideal of simplicity, with a rational approach detailing how being too simple can destroy a message.

To open the talk he shared a story about a trip to Estonia he had once experienced. During this trip he needed to use the bathroom; there were two doors, one with a triangle with horizontal sitting to the bottom and one standing on a point. Mis-understanding the horizontal standing on it's point for female pubic region he entered the opposite door; upon discovering he had walked into the female bathroom Per Mollerup walked into the next door. The triangle standing on it's point represented the upper half of a mans body, the triangle on it's horizontal represented the womans dress. If only a circle were added, this symbol would be clear and the sign would transcend cultural barriers. The talk was mainly taken up by his disgust of pictograms and their ambiguities, say enough but not too much and less is more, but too little is too difficult to understand were the key themes of this talk and Mollerup was the ideal speaker for the event.

Be sure to pick up his seminal books; Marks of Excellence, the Brand Book and Wayshowing, they're all beautiful, articulate and inspiring.

Mollerup is truly a master communicator.

http://www.permollerup.com/