Presentation by Josh Higgins (Former Creative Director at Obama for America) and Daniel Ryan (Former Director of Front-end Development for Obama for America) on how design and development collaborated to help win the 2012 election.
WHO WE ARE Josh Higgins Creative Director Daniel Ryan Director of Front-end Development • Previously a freelance developer • Started developing in 1998 • Advisor to 48 Hour Launch • Mentor at Create-a-thon on Campus • Advertising & Branding Chair for YPAC • Thirteen years in the industry • AIGA San Diego Board of Directors • Founder of The Haiti Poster Project, and the So-Cal Poster Project • Founder of Phonography
BUILDING THE PROCESS • Creative projects aren’t built on an assembly line • Collaboration from conception to launch • Constant communication and feedback • Define “success” from the beginning
CASE STUDY: ACA TOOL The challenge: Represent the benefits of Obamacare to every household 600 different user input combinations resulting in 2 dozen possible outcome Collaborate with project managers, designers, developers, policy experts, press staff, researchers and senior staff Make it responsive and embeddable on any website
FUNDRAISING: WHY WE WENT RESPONSIVE 0 5,000,000 10,000,000 15,000,000 20,000,000 25,000,000 30,000,000 Apr 2011 Jun 2011 Aug 2011 Oct 2011 Dec 2011 Feb 2012 Apr 2012 Jun 2012 Aug 2012 Oct 2012 Mobile traffic trippled over the course of the campaign Source: Google Analytics
FUNDRAISING: WHY WE WENT RESPONSIVE Source: Pew Research Center 17% 48% 35% Overall US Cell Phone Ownership Owns smartphone Owns feature phone Does not own cellphone
FUNDRAISING: WHY WE WENT RESPONSIVE Source: Pew Research Center 0 20 40 60 80 100 Affluent 18-24 Ethnic minority Demographic breakdown of smartphone owners
FUNDRAISING: TESTING • Ask a question: Does the color of a button on a form affect conversion rates? • Pose a hypothesis: Positive colors like green or blue will positively affect conversion rates. • Do an experiment • Analyze the results: Any button color but red works.
FUNDRAISING: TESTING METHODOLOGIES • We generated over half a billion Google Analytics custom events • We ran almost 1,000 A/B tests to millions of visitors