[James Mitchell]

I am not sure how difficult this would be do implement, but I thought it'd be a neat feature. In our website critique forum, lots of people ask for a "rating" per se. Wouldn't it be neat to implement a feature where someone could give it a "star rating" based on their like/dislike of it as well as their suggestions for improvement.

There are plenty of CSS star-type rating techniques that could be utilized in this feature. Think of adding something as simple as [star rating]4[/star rating] which would of course then display the rating.

Thoughts?

[benbacardi]

That would be quite easy to implement, simply adding a new bbcode...

[James Mitchell]

I was figuring it'd be easy, but then again I am no bbcode programmer.

Do you think it'd be a worthwhile feature?

[marcamos]

What about using the rating feature that is auto-inserted into each new thread? We'd have be be adamant about it, stating that those stars are to be only used to rate the website listed in the first post of the thread, but otherwise, BAM, it's already there and waiting to be used.

[James Mitchell]

That's not a bad idea, although I thought the thread rating system was to rate the quality of the thread not the quality of a link within the thread? I'd fear that the "strictness' of it would really have to be enforced. Where as the in post rating would not be tied to anything and more of just a quick way of inserting 3 out of 5 stars for a design I think is average and so on.

[Karl Buckland]

Do you think a rating system would actually be particularly useful? Would this be any better than the comments that people add at the moment?

I'm kind of playing devil's advocate because I do like the idea. I think it would be best to have it seperate from the topic rating though.

[marcamos]

I can honestly admit to many times where I don't have the time to write up a reply, and having a quick star-rating is much faster for me to express my opinion. So, it might get more people contributing due to the speed and simplicity... me specifically . Time isn't on my side lately.

[Karl Buckland]

herkalees, on May 29 2007, 04:33 PM, said:

I can honestly admit to many times where I don't have the time to write up a reply...

Good point!

[James Mitchell]

Marc, that is an excellent thought. The best thing is not necessarily to not have a detailed reply, but for those that never reply, they can share their opinion without the feeling of needing to join in on the critigue.

[Ben Abrams]

JPMitchell, on May 29 2007, 06:09 PM, said:

Marc, that is an excellent thought. The best thing is not necessarily to not have a detailed reply, but for those that never reply, they can share their opinion without the feeling of needing to join in on the critigue.

At first, i thought this would be a brilliant idea. but now ive been thinking about it, something bothers me.

Sure, its a great idea to be able to rate a site, but what if this just turns into a 1* to 5* forum? People post for advice im sure, to be told of problems / views they dont know of / see. Simply rating the site, granted - would allow more people to cast their views much more easily, however what happens when the poster isnt getting the information they had hoped for.

Say a poor site gets asked for a critique, and 4 people put 1*. Yeah, a few people think your site looks bad, but how is that helping them? its not.

I just see this voting thing having more detrimental effects then positive.

[Telos]

I agree with benbramz. By just seeing the star rating of your website won't give you any information at all. Ok, so they llike or don't like about it but what's especially important is to have written critique so you can improve the site. The star would be ok if you would be obligated to write your comments too but just a star, not good.

[Karl Buckland]

It's difficult to know without trialling this idea out. If people can post critique or use the rating system, then I can see some people just giving a rating and not critiquing. On the other hand, I can imagine that the people who want (and perhaps like?) to critique will continue to do so. It's only a small core of dedicated users who tend to critique anyway, isn't it?

I suppose the real question will be how useful the rating system is to the user? It might tell the user how good the site/design is, but not how to improve it. For this system to work I'd quite like to be able to see the average rating, then click a link to get a popup and see who rated what they rated.

Maybe, as with the 'answerable topic' system, this can be a feature that users enable themselves (and only in this forum) when creating a topic?

[James Mitchell]

Bramz - I see your point, but I don't think that'll happen. I mean if you look at some of the critique posts, they aren't that helpful (things like - site looks good). I think that the core people who critique sites will likely continue to give indepth critques and this would allow at a glance for the poster the overall rating (which could be beneficial - since we have a broad range of personalities here).

Sirkent - I definately like the idea of it being enabled like "answerable topic". That would allow the poster to enable or disable it.

Plus I think that there are some existing sites that people likely have and are not currently working on, yet they'd like to get a critique on it. They haven't worked on it for 2 years, so it might be beneficial to them to get a rating to determine if a redesign is in need.

Just a few more thoughts.

[Ineke]

Quote

It's only a small core of dedicated users who tend to critique anyway, isn't it?

I don't really critique because I don't know much technically about webstuff so don't have much to say, but I'd be more likely to post a rating thing

[Ben Abrams]

Sirkent, on May 30 2007, 08:55 AM, said:

Maybe, as with the 'answerable topic' system, this can be a feature that users enable themselves (and only in this forum) when creating a topic?

If we were to go the full cahoot, i would love to see an optional system in the reply, where people can simply rate the site 1 to 5 on a variety of aspects..

• Design
  
• Usability
  
• SEO
  
• etc

but would it be used?

[Ineke]

benbramz, on May 30 2007, 02:47 PM, said:

If we were to go the full cahoot, i would love to see an optional system in the reply, where people can simply rate the site 1 to 5 on a variety of aspects..

• Design
  
• Usability
  
• SEO
  
• etc

but would it be used?

...id answer on what i understood!

[James Mitchell]

That would make great sense.

It would allow even those who are just rating to at least provide some great feedback to the poster. It would then keep the critiques pretty uniform in reply, and aid those who thoroughly reply now.

[Ben Abrams]

Ineke, on May 30 2007, 02:51 PM, said:

...id answer on what i understood!

maybe this would help..

its very rough and only shows two options, but it could be extended.

Attached File(s)

•  somethinglikethismaybe.jpg (58.98K)
  Number of downloads: 18

[James Mitchell]

Thats awesome. Let's do it!

[marcamos]

benbramz, on May 30 2007, 12:15 PM, said:

maybe this would help..

its very rough and only shows two options, but it could be extended.

Is there anything you can't do?