Intro
This post aim to analyze, strategize and deliverize a new path for the ~Design territory. Yeah... short into as gona be pretty long post!
~Design analysis
Let's start from the basics:
# design verb & noun
Composed by de, "out" + signare, "to mark" --> from signum "identifying mark, sign", "to make, shape". In essence, to create. Etymologically:
- from Latin designare "mark out, point out; devise; choose, designate, appoint";
- from Italian verb disegnare senses "to contrive, plot, intend", and "to draw, paint, embroider, etc.";
- from 1540s as "to plan or outline, form a scheme";
- from 1580s, "a scheme or plan in the mind,"
- from 1630s; the meaning "plan and execute, fashion with artistic skill";
- from 1660s meaning "adoption of means to an end".
- from 1703 as "to contrive for a purpose", Transitive sense of "draw the outline or figure of," especially of a proposed work;
- from 1704 in French desseign, desseing "purpose, project, design", especially "an intention to act in some particular way," often to do something harmful or illegal; compare designing.
Apart its origin, evolution, and current meaning, it's worth to note the description ~design initially aimed to have in SN context:
The process of creation of a plan, or convention for the construction of, an object or a system; so not to necessarily focus on the visual appeal, but design as process of creation, aimed at solving a functional purpose with an act of creativity and innovation in any industry or application.
in essence:
Design as an intersection between functinalities and aesthetics.
overview
Started with a welcome post, the ~Design territory was created circa one month after territories were released as a feature on SN. Initially everything was only about ~bitcoin and ~tech, expanded later to ~meta and ~nostr, and in Dec 2023 the release of user generated subs was finally announced. At that time there was a boom, territories popped up uncontrollably and many of them from that time still here, month after month, trying to figure out ways to expand the community of stackers, together with the topics of conversations covered.
Today I see territories like ~econ by @jeff with #448054 and recently ~alter_native by @DesertDave with #687032 finding ways to collectively crowdfund the monthly cost. It will be interesting to see how these initiative will evolve, especially with the recent release of the new sybil fees distribution. It's just great to see such collective effort, not only for creating the satsraises but also stackers actively engaging and supporting on these initiatives. Anyhow, satsraising isn't the goal here, stay with me!
~Design is one of those 17 territories out of 51 that today have been funded for life. It is one of those that are here to stay and actively contribute and support SN, its initiative providing Bitcoin and more specifically each sat, a new purpose through the value4value model. A new use case that, either already explored at protocol level on nostr, has here on SN been successfully tested for the web, someone may want to call it web3... watch out!
previous approach
SN is working but ~Design still not catching up, floating in the abysses of the top territories list. Lately I have not given it much attention because busy with other projects that aren't directly design related, and being honest, this is my first experience curating and maintain an online community. Likely I'm not the only one, nor the first and least the last! So here I am trying to steer the weel in a more productive direction. Someone suggested to look into redd.it to gather data and see how things are achieved over there. I probably missed out a lot not being an active r/user and I feel that's not the type of noise I want to bring here, together with all the restrictions, rules, and limitations each sub has over there.
Here on SN things are different, free speach is a thing and we could ideally post anything. All this freedom open up possibilities we are not yet aware of and that why a space to squize brains feels more than needed. The first to squize was mine, buying this territory I did not really know what I was doing, but I love SN and I wanted to contribute somehow. So at certain point was like "Now I have the territory, now what?"
I started putting in place few initiatives like ODCs and FUCs. Latest one JABBBs is currently in pause and planning to restart it next Wed on a weekly schedule as @spiral team continue to unveil new stickers... we must use them all!
Another initiative was to have a daily post, different for each weekday, rolling on a weekly schedule. If not for the Monday Muse set up with a bounty to feed creativity, in general the idea did not get much traction either, it ended up discontinued. Trying things, I slowly recognized myself doing things as other territories are. Fully ignoring the basic principle that the ~design strategy, like for any other territory, has to be tailored to fit the unique mission the territory has been set with and aligned with values and objectives t drive it forward.
As a community of creativity lovers, we share ours, like others, favorite concepts and masterpieces. As well as adult, substantive and constructive conversations and feedback about design, innovation, creative people and thinkers of the past, present, and future.
This territory description only sat the tone, but isn't really defining and value or objective, isn't it?
Researching Territory Participants and Behaviors
data
The good fact until now is that the territory has some data I can analyze in the meantime am waiting to get access to the API (already requested) and dive deeper in the hidden information. I'm eager to know more and the data will be the real source of truth. I really enjoined @supratic post Decrypting SN KPIs to define the "worthiness" of posting in the right territory and decided to take those KPIs to see what's happening in ~Design, below compared with two similar territories:
- Engagement: Average Number of comments per post
- Profitability: Total amount of sats stacked divided the amount of comments generated (will be nice to have this metric also for posts)
- Revenue/Post: self-explanatory
Profitability of each post, Engagement, and Revenue/Post are great metrics that should be somehow available for other territory owners and why not, for stackers too. Another one I'd add is some kind of Value4Value metric that could be defined as average number of sats per comment per post. When I compare with other top territories, the ~Design line is pretty flat, however is a good starting point to keep track of progress and see how future changes will perform when applied.
personas
Another important aspect I fully ignored was to understand the type of users reaching the territory. This could be achieved defining the current personas as though by the best UX practices. After scraping existing data, and generating some images1, this are the stackers floating on ~design:
| BESTROWER | RANDOMER | SNOOPIER | LEARNER | VISITEUR | GHOSTER2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active in the SN community that actively contribute posting and-or commenting in the territory. | Probably the majority in this territory, that come for a specific topic and never or sporadically come back. | Stacker that often create posts in the territory after landing on SN | stackers that visit territory posts, ask questions and comment to learn from others. | Landing from external sources, either unsatisfied leave elsewhere for an answer, or finds the information and registers to comment/question on posts. | I'm here, but you cannot see me! I could be, but most of the times I'm not @anon. |
contents
Let's have a look at what has been working until now, so we can maybe have a better idea of the type of contents and design topics stackers and cowboys love to comment and zap.
Design Questions
I'd personally like to see more of these conversations tackling design principle in real life:
- #406903 What are the best BRANDS in Bitcoin? by @birdeye21
- #680582 What To Improve On The Design / Functionality?! by @Fabs
- #616634 What's your dream car? by @k00b
- #430607 Rant: Stacker News is full of garbage. Let's fix that (?) by @MattInTech
Design Tasks (bounties)
Task base post with bounties are useful and fun in a design environment. They fully embrace the main idea of Open Design and collaboration between stackers. A few great examples are:
- #465262 PHOTOSHOP REQUEST: Bitcoin logo laser-screened on Palace of Culture in Warsaw by @itsTomekK
- #455428 Bounty: ideas for logo by @phaedrus
- #404713 MM: Monday Muse - yes, that's one of the weekly scheduled posts making it to the top, I'll touch on this later.
Design Discussions
- #484916 Do you use a framework when coming up with creative ideas? by @cryotosensei
- #597154 On User Experience Ideals - k00b strike again
- #636966 It might be a silly idea, but I need your help by @proofoftaste
- #553515 Keeping your house cool by @Satosora
Design Tools (links)
- #505833 A tool to clean and convert any webpage to Markdown by @nym
- #495028 Iconbuddy — 200K+ open source free svg icons by @joerodgers
- #449957 Layers - A Home for Designers by @kr
Design posts outside ~Design
- #417342 The Design Pattern 🦅 by @mallardshead
- #277852 Humane by Design - A set of patterns that respect human beings by @NoStranger
- #445622 When nature inspires design by @birdeye21
- #273333 Designed with ♥️ Stacker News Community by @satoshiplanet
- #260961 Our GoodStr's New Design: A Revolution in Online Shopping Experience! by @ @02a0eb55b5
- #433114 Stacker News Homepage + Profile Design Ideas - Mr kr again
- #153228 Astro - Nostr Marketplace Design (work in progress) by @Karnage
- #192644 Wanna play a 1982 game designed by Hal Finney? by @Bitman
uncovering real motivations
It’s not easy to find the real stackers needs and motivations on this space. In an ideal scenario, interview or survey are the way to go, unveiling mysteries behind screens and stackers unconscious. As isn't easy and is a time-consuming exercise, I might need to incentivize this research a little.
Could 2.1k sats do it for your time on sharing opinions and thoughts? Participate on the pools below and I'll reward the more exhaustive and valuable comments on the following polls:
- Which PERSONA best describes your relationship with the ~Design territory?
- Overall, how do you find the current state of the ~Design territory?
- Which of the following ~Design topics are of interest to you?
- Do you have any preference on the type of content offered in ~Design?
- Where else do you presently go to get help and learn about Design?
- Do you feel ~Design territory should be renamed with something else?
- What's the more important aspect the ~Design community could offer to you?
These polls will stay up for a week, hope will be enought time to get some votes and insights from it.
In the meantime, I'll continue sharing the process behind the scenes of the ~Design territory in more posts (as this one has taken a long enough scroll to have you reading it until here. Thank you very much if you did! ) covering the mission we want to have as design and creative community, the values that will drive us, together with a draft for an effective strategy to define and reach some comon objectives.
I'd like this process to be insightful fun and entertainingly educating for everyone here, I'll try my best! Until now it has been, and I'm sure that it will continue to be thanks to your contributions.