
How I Data Mined the top 300 paids apps to create Tehula's icon - duck
http://friggeri.net/blog/data-mining-color-analysis-tehula-icon/
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powrtoch
For a self-identified "data scientist", this is a pretty naive approach to
"finding out what worked for others". The methodology doesn't distinguish in
any way between "colors that help make apps successful" and "colors that are
just used often by everybody".

It could be that _there really are_ some colors that will help an app to be
successful in the app store, but without comparing the data from successful
apps with that from a control group, there is no way to identify them. If the
goal is simply to make an icon that wouldn't look out of place in the top 300,
this is a good formula. But that doesn't strike me as a very interesting
problem.

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friggeri
I'm the "self-identified data scientist". I agree that there are quite a few
holes in my analysis, but I was not aiming for an actual increase in sales
just by designing the icon this way. I however wanted to have an icon which
looked good enough and could blend in, at least from a color point of view.

So I guess it might not be an interesting problem to you, but I actually had
quite some fun thinking about it. Which is the most important for a side
project, right? ;)

~~~
mnicole
Confused about the blending in part. One of my biggest gripes is continually
missing an app icon because it's blue (or otherwise similar to another, but
generally blue). We just had a conversation in a similar thread the other day
- "Make Your App Icons Boring" - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4219164>

You also don't show the icon at the small size that we'd see on our devices.
Does it translate well?

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astrodust
If you want to develop camouflage then this would be a good way to go about
doing it. If you want to develop a brand identity that stands out, this is
_precisely_ the wrong way.

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petercooper
_Distribution of hues of the aggregate of colors present in the top 300 iOS
apps icons._

What would be more interesting is if this were compared to the distribution of
hues in a large collection of _unsuccessful_ apps too. If the histograms were
somewhat similar, then the hue is probably of little significance.

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alainbryden
Funny enough, the same two colours dominating movie posters lately:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4279845>. Teal and orange:
[http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.ca/2010/03/teal-and-orange-
hol...](http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.ca/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-
please-stop.html)

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swang
Couldn't you argue that _not_ having the most widely used color would be a
great differentiator for your app? People have been complaining for the
longest time how pages and pages of apps on their iPhone are just pure blue
icons. Why be another blue icon lost in a sea of iPhone apps?

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mc32
I can't comment on approach or validity, etc. I do have one observation
though, the icon looks masculine. I would either make it androgynous or add a
feminine addition to the icon so that people don't pigeon hole it as a "guy's"
app or something like that.

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p_sherman
Remember when data mining used to mean 3 000 000 records....

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Locke1689
In some ways, a smaller data set is harder to deal with than a larger one. For
example, the surprising effectiveness of Bayesian statistical analysis is
mostly due to the huge amount of data you have to throw at it.

~~~
p_sherman
On the other hand, with 300 records you can grab a pad and a pencil, and
manually tick blue, yellow, blue...

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nathan_long
So, starting from an icon that was 90% designed, the OP determined what colors
to use from looking at popular app icons.

~~~
syassami
I was kind of disappointed as well. I would love to see a much more complex
approach to this same title.

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boogahsmalls
In the words of Neven Mrgan, "Huh. You made the app icon _blue_? Interesting
choice…"

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tuacker
Oh, it's blue. I seem to be the only one bothered by it but starting any iOS
or OS X device for the first time bombards you with a lot of blue icons. I'm
starting to equate blue icons with brown video games, more of the same.

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ipince
Interesting, but did you compare with the colors used by plain non-top apps?

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mikeevans
Just a nitpick unrelated to the content:

First sentence of the article has a grammatical problem, "lets the user ask
_there_ friends". Bugged me, so I thought I'd let you know.

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FireBeyond
Aside from anything else, really? Your app allows a user to send regular,
scheduled text messages to friends saying "Where are you?" so that you get the
benefit of knowing where they are? That sounds horrible for the recipients of
these messages that I effectively have no way to opt out of, without telling
my friend to knock it off. I could choose to ignore the request, sure, with
the potential for passive-aggressive drama to follow.

What are the use cases for this app that "Hey, where are you?" won't suffice
for? "Here, click on this link and I'll see, on a map, verified by your phone
- and this website will also get to know."

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yogrish
Good job. My thought is after Facebook came to limelight, most of the icons
are made in cyan-blue. No wonder your result, as well as your icon is towards
that.

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damian2000
So you data mined the color? That's a little underwhelming ... from the title
I thought you meant the shape...!

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wildtype
Boring icon. Oh, all iphons app's icons are boring.

