Have to admit, I have never rated anything on App Central. No, it has got
nothing to do with the quality of the apps. I am using many an app, and some
of them have become no less than essential for my computer activity. As
such, I guess, I should have been generous with both the fours and fives. :)
Yet, I agree, the concept of rating is more of a curosity, than a real help.
The low number of raters, is one thing. Even if one or two persons leave a
rating on my app, it does not really tell much about the app. As one pointed
out, what is the great thing for me, may not be just as great for you. And,
if an app happens to perform just what I expected, should that mean a
five-star, even if the app actually is performing a poor or rather
meaningless activity? If an app pops up some kind of jokey message every
time I turn on the computer, or whenever the Notepad is opened - does that
qualify for five ratings, simply just because that app never fails to
perform its simplistic activity faultlessly? Should my rating reflect the
usability, the stability, the complexity, or simply just my personal feeling
and opinion about the actual project?
It was likened with things like EBay, from one of the users here. Well, one
thing that makes EBay ratings slightly more usable, is the fact that you
cannot rate a seller or product, until you actually have bought the offered
product. Well, don't know if that ever could be implemented in a functional
way on App Central, specially with free apps. People may download the app,
run it once, experience some unexpected behavior, and leave you the worst
rating. Next user will see the low rating, and forget about your project.
Although I haven't tried, I wonder if App Central even lets me rate an app,
that I do not even have installed on my computer. If my suspecion is
correct, it actually could open for users simply to low-rate any project
they just happened to disagree in. I don't like the whole idea of a jaws-key
app, I don't install it, but just low-rate it to discourage anyone from
trying it. Hmm, then what benefit or real meaning would the rating have?
First speaking of ratings on App Central, you guys have already mentioned
that a rating with no comment is rather useless. Tell you what! A rating
that has been commented, is no more use, long as the comment is not valid.
One of my apps, received a mid-class rate, and a comment about some lacking
of functionality. My next update fixed the commented issue, but since I
cannot delete the comment, nor affect the rating, the commented rating
sticks. Fact is, that many a user may skip the app, if they read this
comment, since it somehow makes a bad story of my project. The comment was
usable and correct enough when it was left, and maybe we could name the
rating proper based on that. But since the app has had two updates after
that, the issue commented on been fixed long time ago, the whole comment and
rating only serves to confuse and discourage potential users. Even I go to
App Central and leave a comment, telling that the previous comment is no
longer valid, what do I get from that? When you open the website of the app,
the oldest comment will be shown first, and once people have read that, they
may conclude the app has a serious lack, and leave the stuff alone. Comments
should at least, be displayed newest first.
Now, all of that said, even if apps got a thousands of ratings, this would
tell little and nothing as to whether the app will fix what I am hoping for.
We have - for instance - two different apps for add/Removing software on
your computer. There is two different apps for having an hourly read-out of
the current time automated. There is two different apps - InstallPackage and
AppGet - to retrieve apps from app central. And, there is even two different
apps dealing with Notepad. OK, any of these apps receive ten thousand three
hundred and fiftyseven ratings. What good does it tell me? That a bunch of
people had some fun in throwing stars... :) It does tell me nothing as to
whether any of these apps are going to help me with my actual problem. And
there may be reasons why one app will be better equipped to carry out my
stuff, than the other. Yet, the other app, may have been a better go, for
misses Carlson. She rated that app five stars, but the app that really would
have solved my problem, was downloaded by mister Clinton, and he simply did
not like the whole idea - and rated it one star. If I was to go by the app
with the highest rating in this scenario, it would have resulted in me
installing an app, that only partially did what I wanted - and maybe lead to
me not leaving good ratings. Shows us some of the weaknesses in a
rating-system, on material that really is all that individual in its
structure and functionality as is the case with tiny pieces of software.
Another weakness is, if an app happens to be very popular for a period of
time. Say an app has been developed to fix a certain issue in the screen
reader performance. The app really is good, well-constructed and smoothly
functioning on a daily basis. Everyone rates it four and five stars, leaving
the project several hundred scores. After a while, GW changes some stuff in
their core, or the third-party software the app was designed for does. Now,
downloading and running this app will mess up the screen reader, causing
loads of frustrations. Yet, the app had received loads of good ratings, so
new users discern it must be the real good go, ending up with big
frustrations.
What then could we do about the rating system? OK, one easy answer would be:
Simply Remove The Whole Thing!
Still, maybe there is good reasons for having a rating capability in the
system. It just need a far more intermediate function. First of all, ratings
should be locked to a given version of the app. Just because version 1 works
well and performs perfectly, that doesn't say anything as to the
functionality of version 2 or 3. Hence a rating that tells something about
one version, should not be taken into consideration in the next version of
the app. Or, if we really want it advanced, you should at least see a rating
list like this:
Version 1: 4Stars,
Version 1.1: 3Stars,
Version 1.2: 3Stars,
All Over Rating: 3.3Stars.
This is being done on certain websites. Useful enough for some funny
statistics, but whether it will increase the download rate of the app, I
don't know. :)
Secondly, we may want to do a similar thing to the comments, and even give
the app developer a chance of rectify comments that are no longer valid.
And, at least, give any person the chance of removing his comments, when he
realizes his comment is not any longer valid. Furthermore, any comments
should be listed with the newest one first, to give the most updated facts
the highest priority.
If we really want the rating system, and we want it to mean anything, I also
believe we may want to present the ratings more directly to potential users.
Many users now aday, will be using things like AppGet. When you scroll down
the tree of available apps, you are not informed of any ratings. You will
have to tab around on the screen, for each app individually, to know
anything about the rating of the app. There should have been a setting in
the View menu of the AppGet, determining if the user wants the rating of the
apps displayed. Then, with this setting turned on, he would see a list like
this:
Hourly Chime, 3Stars;
InstallPackage, 5Stars;
Extended Dictionary, 1Star;
Time N Date, 0Stars.
Turning off the rating-display, the tree would read only the app names -
like it does already. Now, the user could browse the available apps, and
know the ratings in a quicker way. Again, if the feature would affect
anything on the amount of downloads, I am not really sure.
Give my three-year-old grand-child a toy car, and he will rate it fifty-nine
stars - since it will give him hours of fun. Give the same toy car to his
sister, she will rate it ninety-two stars because she loves the color. Give
me the toy car, and I may rate it 2 stars, since it solved my problem of
what to give as a gift for my grand-children next Sunday. Well, you see how
little it all would tell about the actual shape, functionality and
durability of the toy. And, it never could reflect much about how hard the
developer and manufacturer had worked on getting the thing as good as
possible. As a result, the whole rating could at best be amusing; at the
worse end, be misleading and unfair.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Pietruk" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 4:39 PM
Subject: Re: Meaningless app ratings
Rod
While the rating concept is theoretically good, in practice, it often
proves meaningless.
For one thing, the process is easily riggable; for another, a rating is
only valuable, particcularly when few votes are cast, if we know something
about who cast the vote.
For one person, an ap may be valuable; for another is ok. To me, as an
example, a "5" is only warranted is something is truly outstanding; a good
ap should probably get a 4.
That illustrates the whole problem with the system as about the only
vbalue most of these rating approaches have is to provide ego rubs for the
ap creators if they draw high numbers which you can help insure by telling
folks you trust or your "friends" to vote for it.
And, you would have never complained if the single vote was a 5 (or
perhaps even a 4) as that is what you wanted to see.
I am not an ap creator -- I couldn't create one if my life depended on it
-- but if I drew low numbers -- especially from a good number of people --
I'd try to figure out where the complaint lies.
What might seem flawless and perfect to you or me might not be that for
someone else.
Some rating systems -- such as Amazon, Newegg and bay -- seem to function
better given larger user bases and what is at stake.
The way I look at a free ap is I get what I pay for it. Hopefully, it
will do for me what I hope it can do; but, on the other hand,
the developer probably, in most instances, created it for what they wanted
to do and if it benefits me, so be it.
And, oh yes, an ap or programm fails for me not because there is something
wrong with it but the problem is on my end.
I will not trust in riches but in him who richly provides.
Andy Stanley, pastor, from his new book "How to Be Rich: It' Not
What You Have. It's What You Do With What You Have."
