Last month, we did our first survey to get an idea of who our audience is and how you like the site. But before going into that, let’s find out which lucky survey respondent won a $50 Amazon.com gift card!
Congratulations to Gina H.! We’ll email you about claiming your prize.
Now let’s delve into the the findings.
How did you find out about Revision Path?
Most survey respondents learned about Revision Path through Twitter (41%), followed by word of mouth (34%), Facebook (17%) and Tumblr (8%).
Commentary: I haven’t done as much with Twitter as I know I could (there’s only so many hours in a day), but it’s good to see most people found out about the site through Twitter.
Revision Path been more active on Facebook, but it’s good to switch things up a bit. I’ve thought about starting a weekly Twitter chat…would that be something you’d participate in? We can do a different topic each week.
What do you think of the interviews?
Most survey respondents said “I really love them!” (58%) while others said “They’re good, but they could be better.” (42%).
Commentary: I’m glad people love the interviews! Some people have said they’re a little dry, but everyone interviews differently. Some people are pros and for some, it’s one of their first interviews. I think that’s good though, because what they say is raw and unpolished…but that could just be me.
I ask every interviewer if they’d rather do an email interview or an audio interview. Most opt for email because they have more time to give more thought-out answers. Audio usually goes much quicker since we can get it done in about 60-90 minutes.
What sorts of interview questions would you like to see?
What do you think about the Vox Populi feature?
Most survey respondents think that it would be better if there were more responses (58%). 25% of respondents say “I love it!”. 17% think it’s unnecessary.
Commentary: Vox Populi was a good idea in theory. In practice, it was a whole other story. The lack of responses really killed the motivation for me, so I’ve decided to axe it for now. But don’t be surprised if the questions I had pop up on Twitter or Facebook from time to time.
We’re thinking about ramping up our publishing schedule to twice a week. What do you think about that?
Most survey respondents said “Excellent! Twice the Revision Path!” (75%), while 25% feel that once a week is enough.
Commentary: All the interviews are usually done a few weeks in advance (some a few months in advance). On my end, this means stepping up my outreach efforts. (A few people reach out to the site, but I get more OMG THIS IS RACISSST!!1!!! emails than anything else.)
I’ve got a huge list of designers and developers to reach out to. Most of the designers and developers I’ve already contacted either a) never responded to multiple emails or b) just flat out said they weren’t interested.
If I do two interviews a week (which I would love to do!), I would do a text interview on Mondays, and an audio interview on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
This might be harder to pull off since people are horrible at answering emails in a timely fashion, but I’ll keep you all posted.
Starting a weekly podcast with more interviews and other tech topics is also on our wishlist. What are your thoughts on that?
Most survey respondents said “Great idea! Show me where to subscribe on iTunes!” (75%), while 25% feel say “I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either.”
Commentary: I’m definitely glad to hear most people would love a dedicated podcast! Stay tuned for more news about this.
What are some ways that Revision Path can improve?
Commentary: Most respondents left this blank, but here are a few answers that caught my attention.
More variety – Variety in…interview subjects? Interview questions? Gender variety? Racial variety? (Wait…) I’m not quite sure what this means.
In terms of gender variety, I’ve reached out to an equal number of men and women about being interviewed. More men have responded than women, but I’ve been scheduling and publishing the interviews to make it more balanced.
Interview subjects go across all career and skill levels from students to entrepreneurs to agency folks. I have had people that want me to interview marketers and recruiters and social media mavens, but that’s not the focus of this site. It will never be the focus of this site.
I will admit that the questions could be a bit better. It’s a process, and I certainly welcome any types of questions you’d like to hear from people being interviewed. Maybe I’ll start doing calls for questions on Twitter or Facebook for upcoming interviews. What do you think?
Redesign the website. Readability is terrible. – That one has been on the books for a while now. I won’t go into the backstory of how I had to pull together a design in the eleventh hour, but I’ll say that this was never meant to be the “final” design. There’s more content sections I would like to introduce, but it will take time for me to put all the information together and do a proper site.
Maybe we should hold a design contest! What do you think about that? If I can find a few sponsors interested in this, I would totally do it.
The interviews are too boring. I’d rather get to know the person instead of what they do. – Well there’s always EBONY or Essence. I’m kidding, but I see this respondent’s point. I don’t want the interviews to be too casual, and like I mentioned before, everyone interviews differently and answers questions differently. I think it’s important to talk about what they do as a designer or developer — it’s the focus of the site — but I also don’t want the interviews to be boring. People might think the text interviews are too boring because of that.
I’ve toyed with the idea of doing a weekly newsletter just for text interviews, and the entire text of the interview would be included in the message. That’s extra work on my end, but if people are interested, please speak up and let me know!
In the podcast interviews, you definitely get more of the person’s personality shining through, and there are some people that have done a text interview that I really wished would have done a podcast instead. However, I’m working around people’s busy schedules and what they are comfortable with, so it’s a delicate balancing act.
Why are you only interviewing black people? Isn’t that segregation? – Next question.
Do you have any other comments?
Commentary: Most survey respondents left this blank as well! I should’ve made these last two questions mandatory.
For those who did answer, I got some great feedback.
“Keep up the good work brother.”
“Keep forward!”
“Love what you doing for our community”
One person left a really great comment:
“Love that you are capturing important moments in black history as it’s happening! I think our community (the black community) often ignores graphic designers and their storytelling abilities but I think black people in this field is gravely important.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. The goal of Revision Path is something that I feel very strongly about, and I’m glad to work with and align with anyone who shares that vision and can help out.
They also said not to start a podcast until we’ve built a larger community and prevent spreading the audience too thin.
Growing pains, growing pains, growing pains.
Thanks again to all who took the time out to complete our first survey! Your support helps make Revision Path bigger and better!