I'd rather see a blank than read a review that was only written to solve a UI problem.
Yelp's "firsts" do reward a certain kind of competitive behavior. It doesn't mean those people's opinions are particularly reliable. Diana On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 9:31 AM, adrian chan <adr...@gravity7.com> wrote: > Jason, > > Not sure I like the zappos approach. Visually, i would prefer to have the > ratings even if they're "blank." For consistency's sake ;-) (If > consistency isn't desired for its own sake, then for what else?) Now that's > just a visual argument. In terms of what it indicates, the lack of ratings > to me indicates the same thing as an unrated rating. So I dont see how > they've solved that in any way: no ratings here, next to all the other shoes > that do have ratings, just says "no rating" ... Or so it seems to me. To me > absence of the ratings can be noise -- when something seems to be missing, > isnt that the same kind of noise as something that's not yet filled out? > > We're splitting hairs, but that's what we do well. > > On a side note, this opens a back door to social interaction design and > social usability matters: A ratings system has two social functions: to > encourage the act of rating by user; to display average ratings. > Interestingly, my suggestion favors the former; yours I think favors the > latter. My suggestion is to leave ratings in there -- we want user to rate > -- and if needs be then have one user rate just to seed the activity. Your > suggestion is to remove it because it doesnt show anything, which is totally > valid and true. > > How would we design a principle here? If the input element also provides a > social connotation, which function prevails? The call to action or the > display of data? > > Personally this is why I think a lot of social design elements introduce > social bias and distortion : input mechanisms are the display mechanisms > also. But that's another topic.... > > thoughts? > > adrian > > >> With regards to hiding ratings: >> >> Zappos, for instance, hides the ratings on the search results page, >> until the shoe has been rated. >> >> http://www.quicksnapper.com/files/1946/5248341084A5DFBFF1CD89_m.png >> >> Being consistent for the sake of consistency isn't a good reason to >> be consistent. Hiding the ratings in this case for unrated shoes >> reduces the noise on the page. This is helpful, and well done, I >> think. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Jason R. >> > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
