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Update: publicartfound.com

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I decided to take my project to the same name as my twitter account. I think this is a good name for what I want to accomplish. I bought publicartfound.com to continue this.

Im at 357 github commits and counting.

I built out some major features today:

  • The user ‘activity feed’ is up. This is a feed that shows a users contributions on the site. For example, if they submit a post or make an addition/edit to an exiting post, they will have a record.
  • Users can also now comment. This will be a contribute function, but for now, the ability to add text on the site is important.
  • I re-added the “graffiti” or “piece” feature. I initially took out the ability to have a page on a single piece of art. I thought it was unnecessary with the focus on locations and artists. After the debacle with the “white flag” on the brooklyn bridge, I thought it was too good of a story to pass up. This feature could be used to track a press worthy piece, so people can discuss and share the various points around this.
  • I integrated a instagram feed for “location” pages. The feed is a way to showcase the types of paintings that are currently coming out of the area. The feed’s last picture is an image that goes to a follow page for the @publicartfound twitter account.

This have a long way to go in regards to style and design. This is not a problem for me. I want to get the function out of the way before I get too caught up in the details.

Post note: I wrote this 5 days ago and placed it in the Queue. I didnt realize it took so long to process. Since then, Im at 421 commits and counting.

Analyzing user behavior with Google Analytics

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I ran a brief experiment on my single ‘piece’ page this week. I used the news coverage on the Brooklyn Bridge White Flag incident as a catalyst topic. I created a quick location page for the Brooklyn Bridge, a ‘piece’ page for the White Flag, and a ‘artist’ page for the unknown group. I added an image, tagged the address, and put together the page. It looked like this:

I noticed the Brooklyn Bridge White Flag topic trending in the /r/nyc group. I noticed after a Google search that many news outlets were writing articles on the topic. I gathered the links and submitted them as individual “comments” to the post. This is a bit of an experiment to see whether having the press coverage on a piece is valuable. I dont actually have a function for this, so the test method is the comment submission.

After a day, the reception to the link was positive. No one commented on the Brooklyn Bridge White Flag page and no one commented on the Reddit submission link. Currently, the Reddit posting has a 86% upvote rating with 7 votes

Google Analytics shows the traffic shows me that I had 159 visitors as of two days ago. About 50 visits are a result of the Reddit posting. Im surprised to see that the page views of visitors is reflective of a ‘exploring’ visitor. The bounce rate of people coming to the Brooklyn Bridge White Flag page is high, but this is normal for Reddit links.

The pages viewed on the day I posted the Brooklyn Bridge White Flag link shows that Brooklyn Bridge White Flag page viewers did view multiple pages. Im surprised by the length of time the visitors stayed on the page. The average was 43 seconds, showing that users did read some of the page before leaving. There is very little content on the page, so this is a sign of interest.

Based on the on-site behavior, I gather people are interested in the service. Rather then having a high bounce rate (+80%), a number of people tried to visit other parts of the site. The highest trafficked page, after the Brooklyn Bridge White Flag page, was the graffiti index page. The best way to get to that page is the top navigation link or the back button at the end of the Brooklyn Bridge White Flag page. If the ‘back’ button was the driver, Im not sure if this is people trying to get back to Reddit, or whether they intended to go to the graffiti index page.

I could better track my pages to know the exact cause. For now, no one is registering and commenting. This is okay because the website is still error prone. I am refining this user flow. I’ll run an experiment to see if I can get visitors to register.

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These guys have worked out how to measure the โ€œbeautyโ€ of specific locations within cities and then designed an algorithm that automatically chooses a route between two locations in a way that maximises the beauty along it. โ€œThe goal of this work is to automatically suggest routes that are not only short but also emotionally pleasant,โ€ they say.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/528836/forget-the-shortest-route-across-a-city-new-algorithm-finds-the-most-beautiful/

This service looks at mapping and directions and seeks to find the most beautiful route. The first day of @orbital, Gary mentioned the shift in techniology’s value. He said we are no longer shooting to be the most dependable, but rather strive to provide the highest quality. This is a great example of a tried and true product that can have it’s user experience significantly improved.

/2014/07/08/these-guys-have-worked-out-how-to-measure-the/