Here's how I'd like to rate things on sites where you rate things.
Pretend these blocks are books, or movies, or video games in a particular genre. Let's say they're movies. Here is how I've arranged (drag and dropped) three of those movies. The better movie is on the right.
A few other people rate some movies in that genre.
Because I share a common pattern (3 items) with Ted, and a few with Alice and Bob, the following are recommended:
What I like about this type of rating is that it forces you to make decisions about what is better than another item. There are no five star movies or percentage ratings that can tie. This is better than that. If you see something new and fit it into the continuum it says something about that movie.
When people ask you if Iron Man is good, you don't say "yes, I gave it four stars" you say, "it's better than Spiderman II but not as good as the Dark Knight." That's meaningful.
usernameguy
it's a nice idea, but violates the common UI principle that you never force the user to consider more than 7 things at once.
like...it's tough sorting 20 movies, exactly.
friday
january, 2 2009
Andre Torrez
That's a good point. A friend just suggested that you only allow a set of 10 movies per category. So you're forced to set in stone your favorites and it doesn't grow after that.
I think the categories have to be really distinct, such as: Super Hero Movies or David Fincher films.
friday
january, 2 2009
Catbird
While I think it would be fun/nice/interesting to see various user's selections, I don't think you could draw any real usable data from those (ie recommedations) because it seems like it can't take into account magnitudes of difference. For example: I may think Spiderman II sucks balls, and that Iron Man is, like, 20 times better. Someone else may think Spiderman II was actually GREAT, and Iron Man was just slightly better than that. So both of us have the same sequence (Spiderman II, then Iron Man), but the motivations backing them are drastically different-- like I said, I can't imagine that you could draw usable or consistent data b/c of that.
friday
january, 2 2009
Derek
[this is good]
friday
january, 2 2009
Bill
I love this idea. I might rate two items the same, say giving Iron Man and Dark Knight 4 stars. But making the distinction that I liked Dark Knight more would give the user that internal feeling that the rating system is really more about them, it's more personalized. To UNG's point I'd only offer three items at a time to make judgments about BUT give them the ability to swap in and out items from the three if they like (drag and drop all web 2.0ishy). I imagine it would have to be category based at first BUT doing this cross category would be even more fun. Maybe it's just me but I hardly ever think about movies in terms of categories, unless I'm looking for a comedy.
thursday
january, 22 2009