

How polished UI (icon) helped my iPad app's downloads (stats inside) - paulyan
http://www.pinssible.com/blog/2012/09/how-ui-design-affects-padgram-downloads-stats-inside/

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digitalengineer
How can you seriously say this "And we hired a designer on Elance to design an
icon. It costs us $50, but absolutely worth the money" and then this:"Icon is
super important. Make sure you hired the right talent"?

As a designer I like the design, but 50 bucks? "worth the money"? I have no
idea why anyone would want to sell their design for just 50 bucks. Is this
designer your friend? One thing I do know for sure: If they ask 50 bucks for
an icon they'll be very bussy but out of business within a month.

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MatthewPhillips
The $50 icons are done by offshoaring companies. They make their money by
turning over designs very quickly, not paying their designers very much, and
reusing designs over and over (with small modifications). None of the designs
are built from scratch. Most are dreadfully ugly; this is the most attractive
Elance icon I've ever seen, and I don't think it's gorgeous by any stretch.

If you want a geniunely good designed icon just go to dribbble, be willing to
spend $500+ and you'll get something unique.

~~~
paulyan
as a young startup, it's important to balance between attractiveness and
expense, Dribbble is too expensive for me...

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digitalengineer
Dribble is too expensive for just about any startup ;-) I did my own design
(but thats sort of my job). It's no App but the logo involves a camera as
well. Doing something/anything with a camera is difficult as everything has
been done. Here's my take (upper left): <http://royaltyfreemodels.nl/>

~~~
paulyan
hmm, upper left has no camera, i think...

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nroach
How do you know whether the increase in downloads is due to "good design" vs.
confusion with an official instagram product? The new icon bears a strong
resemblance to the instagram icon (particularly at small sizes). Isn't it
possible that instead of good design you're simply seeing an increase in
conversions by unsophisticated buyers and you're gaining a benefit from that
confusion with a well-established brand? It sounds like you're probably not
US-based, but it might be worth considering whether there is any legal
exposure for trade dress infringement and/or trademark dilution.

~~~
paulyan
If you look at all Instagram apps in the store, you'll find there are many
Instagram apps designed with a 'camera' icon. We're definitely not the first
one.

Do you know 'Pinstagram'? They just changed the name to "Pictacular", and it's
based in the US. I dont want to say you're making discrimination over non US-
based companies. And I don't think it's right to infringe Instagram brand. If
i am not doing right, i am happy to change immediately.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"If you look at all Instagram apps in the store, you'll find there are many
> Instagram apps designed with a 'camera' icon. We're definitely not the first
> one."_

And this is supposed to mean something? The fact that there are other people
in the App Store capitalizing off of brand confusion and design mimicry
excuses... what exactly?

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JohnCastle
Padgram, InstaPin.... --> Instagram...

This is not really creative + the logo which is also copied

~~~
paulyan
hi @JohnCastle, for the top Instagram apps, the names are: \- InstaPad \-
InstaBrowser \- InstaMap

And web services: \- Webstagram

I think the problem is in nature in what we're doing. It's an Instagram app,
how can user recognize you without a perceptive name?

And see what's happening on Twitter is more persuasive. Almost all Twitter
apps' icon is a bird, but people still love Tweetbot to death.

I am open to constructive suggestions.

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reidrac
The icon reminds me of Instagram. Is it possible that something as simple as
that did increase the downloads?

~~~
paulyan
Hi @reidrac, i guess you're right. Anyway it's an Instagram iPad app, the
simplest way to make user accept an app is make him/her understand what the
app does at first glance. The new icon better conveys the info

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francov88
Great post, and I agree with the idea that good design makes a huge
difference, but I would have like to see more conclusive data. Seemed a little
superficial and also like you believe the $50 icon was the source all the
popularity.

I would have looked at how many people shared the app after the redesign, how
many people invited friends, how many more ratings and reviews you got, how
often users performed an "action" everyday, how many days elapsed between log-
ins (compared to before), the percentage of "active users" vs user base etc.

Keep up the great work!

~~~
paulyan
thanks for the comments, @francov88, i will keep up the work and keep sharing.
Up to now, I think Padgram still has potential to grow. Among all the
Instagram iPad app, Padgram has relatively good design and distinguishing
features. I will share more data as it goes.

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dthedavid
I find it a problem when you have 2 UI designers and cannot come up with a
great design on day one. Your new design isn't spectacular either. A great
resource is to look at the designs of all of your competitors and understand
what is great about all of them.

Also $50 for an icon is very cheap. At that price, I'm not sure how it would
motivate any good designer to spend even an hour on a design. I usually pay
$150-$300 per icon for my apps (smartieants.com) and I find it barely enough
to keep the designer motivated.

~~~
paulyan
looking at competitors or parent product (in my case "Instagram") is
definitely effective. However, i have to take the copycat name...

Designer is very expensive for sure. Which country are your designers from?
Mine is india, so relatively cheap.

~~~
dthedavid
My designers are from Europe and South East Asia.

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tathagata
When developing iOS apps, if you cannot hire a designer in your team, then you
or someone else in your team should try and learn some basic design skills. In
a market like the Apple App Store where there are a huge number of apps, the
easiest way to differentiate yourself is with the help of good design.

You are going in the right direction though with the design. Best of luck.

~~~
youtoutou
Thank you! It's hard and costly to find a full-time and suitable designer. So
a contract or part-time designer is a good idea.

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atlbeer
Causation and correlation?

1) You redesigned your entire app

2) You updated your app icon

Downloads go up because of #2?

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paulyan
I did both. I think people are more interested in #2 (because it's outsourced
and the icon itself is a 'camera'), but #1 is definitely one of the reasons

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sabret00the
Polished everything helps. I think some research was done the other day that
shows users look at Icons then Screenshots then Reviews or something like
that. Not enough devs/organisations understand the importance of showing the
latest design and the impact it has on their customers.

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ArekDymalski
I guess you could make more impacting decisions if you stopped "betting what
happens on user side". Anyway thanks for lessons learned post. These are
always inspiring.

~~~
paulyan
i definitely upvote this! We have been hesitating on what we did. We're going
to make something ourselves are happy with in next version. I will keep
sharing. stay tuned

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yehanyin
Thanks for the stats share. And the nice app too, :)

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onetwothreefour
Correlation != Causation.

Too many variables.

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grimborg
The title font is horrible imho.

~~~
paulyan
Appreciate for your comments, if you try it and provide more comments, that
would be perfect :-)

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54mf
Personally, I think the "Padgram" font is nice. Didn't work well for
"Instapin" - made the "I" look funky - but looks suitable for Padgram. I'd
tighten up the space between the "P" and "a", and between the "d" and "g", but
that's just my own nitpicking.

~~~
paulyan
Good thinking's, definitely worth trying...

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aresant
Highlights the need for some basic A/B testing platform within app stores,
though I see the complexity that prevents it being a priority.

~~~
paulyan
i dont think Apple would consider this, :-(, that's why i wrote and shared it,
as Apple is unlikely to figure out for us...

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89a
> Wooden texture is a fashionable design in 2012. It’s said to be good for
> photo viewing app. Our design combines wooden texture with transparent
> glass. It has the metaphor that your iPad is a wooden table, you put glass
> on it and photo over the glass. It’s good, isn’t it?

> It costs us $50, but absolutely worth the money

> Brush Script used as a logo

This is a fucking joke… right?

~~~
paulyan
Hey @89a, can you detail which is the joke? Maybe what we did is stupid. But
that's what we genuinely thought, tried and shared. We are serious to develop
a good enough Instagram ipad app as we're not satisfied with existing
solutions. And that's why people love our app even there are already dozens
out there.

