How polished UI (icon) helped my iPad app's downloads (stats inside)

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"?<p>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.

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.

Padgram, InstaPin.... --&#62; Instagram...<p>This is not really creative + the logo which is also copied

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

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.<p>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.<p>Keep up the great work!

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.<p>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.

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

Causation and correlation?<p>1) You redesigned your entire app<p>2) You updated your app icon<p>Downloads go up because of #2?

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.

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.

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

Correlation != Causation.<p>Too many variables.

The title font is horrible imho.

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

&#62; 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?<p>&#62; It costs us $50, but absolutely worth the money<p>&#62; Brush Script used as a logo<p>This is a fucking joke… right?