Whitepaper · Vol. 01
Three theories and five studies on why the pigeon wins.
Pigeons are the most overlooked animals in New York and some of the most studied in science. Almost everything we believe about building websites, they figured out first. This is the paper.
(peer reviewed by pigeons.)
Abstract
It survives anywhere, it never gets lost, and it learns what works by testing it. We think websites should be built the same way. Below: the three theories we build on, the research that backs them, and a few pigeons to play with along the way.
Theory 01 · The Apex Adopter
A beautiful website that doesn’t convert is a vanity project. To win, a site has to be adaptable, relentlessly fast, and built to survive a hostile environment: the internet.
The peacock 14.2 MB · stock template
0.0 s
The pigeon 380 KB · built by hand
0.0 s
(on your marks.)
Theory 02 · The Homing Principle
Pigeons navigate by the sun and by the Earth’s magnetic field. Drop one hundreds of miles from home and it finds its way back. Your website should do the same for your customers.
(pick a website.)
Theory 03 · Signal vs. Noise
You walk past a thousand pigeons a day in New York and don’t see a single one. They’re noise. But a neon blue pigeon, you’d stop and photograph. If your brand looks like a template, you are the grey pigeon.
(find yours. click it.)
Part II
(we checked. the pigeons did not.)
Exhibit A · 1948
B. F. Skinner taught pigeons to peck a key for a reward, in what became known as the Skinner box. Rewards that came only some of the time kept them pecking hardest. In the war he even trained them to steer missiles. Much of what we know about habit and reinforcement came from those birds.
0 pecks · 0 seeds
(go on. peck it.)
So what: that’s conversion design. A clear cue, a quick reward, and a reason to come back.
Exhibit B · 2010
Three doors, one prize. You pick, the host opens a losing door, and you can stick or switch. Switching wins two times in three. In a 2010 study, pigeons learned to switch almost every time. People, given the same practice, never fully did.
pick a door.
So what: evidence beats instinct. We test designs and follow the data, not the gut.
Exhibit C · 1995
Researchers in Tokyo trained pigeons to tell Monet from Picasso. Then they showed them paintings they had never seen, and the birds still sorted them, even stretching to other Impressionists and Cubists.
0 right of 0
So what: style is legible at a glance, even to a bird. Your customers judge yours just as fast.
Exhibit D · 2015
In a 2015 study, pigeons learned to spot cancer in breast tissue slides. Alone, a bird was right about 85% of the time. Pool the votes of a small flock and the answer was right 99% of the time.
The flock is reviewing…
Single bird – · Flock –
So what: one opinion is a guess. Many, pooled, is research. That’s how we test a design before it ships.
Exhibit E · Ongoing
Take a homing pigeon hundreds of miles from its loft and let it go. It circles, takes a bearing from the sun and the Earth’s magnetic field, and heads home. Nobody fully knows how. Everybody agrees it works.
So what: findability is the job. SEO is homing, for customers. Release one in Theory 02 ↑