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Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

goodfil.ms

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Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#2
Terrible article. Calling histograms awful, based on nothing more than an opinion.

Then trying to conclude that some convoluted scatter plot system makes more sense is laughable.

Not to mention, this system is still just a star rating system. This would be no different than having two histograms side by side.. assuming, of course, that you'd even want to rate different aspects of the same thing.

I can't even imagine scatter plots on amazon, or trying to convince the general public that "it makes more sense"

Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#3

Terrible article. Calling histograms awful, based on nothing more than an opinion. Then trying to conclude that some convoluted scatter plot system makes more sense is laughable. Not to mention, this system is still just a star rating system. This would be no different than having two histograms side by side.. assuming, of course, that you'd even want to rate different aspects of the same thing. I can't even imagine…

My point was you can't create a scatter plot from a single dimension of data, and that histograms are awful because they don't allow you to see patterns. But of course you're right, it is just my opinion.

Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#4
From a statistician's standpoint, ratings systems suck. But, from a consumer standpoint, they are super easy to understand. A scatter plot system makes sense to me, but I would never put it in front of a user.

In my opinion, current ratings systems are 80% UX and 20% data.

For example, Newegg uses a pretty intuitive system of allowing you to sort a product page by Best Reviews and Most Reviews. In my opinion, this allows the user to make a more educated decision if they seek the information out.

Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#6

From a statistician's standpoint, ratings systems suck. But, from a consumer standpoint, they are super easy to understand. A scatter plot system makes sense to me, but I would never put it in front of a user. In my opinion, current ratings systems are 80% UX and 20% data. For example, Newegg uses a pretty intuitive system of allowing you to sort a product page by Best Reviews and Most Reviews. In my opinion, this al…

From a consumer standpoint, a single five star review pushing a product to the top of the list is not easy to understand, it's a pain.

Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#7
I think the two-axis argument is stronger than the anti-histogram argument. The problem isn't that the one-axis rating systems are aggregating their ratings into histogram bars rather than displaying them in some other way, but that the ratings curve just doesn't carry a lot of information.

Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#8

Terrible article. Calling histograms awful, based on nothing more than an opinion. Then trying to conclude that some convoluted scatter plot system makes more sense is laughable. Not to mention, this system is still just a star rating system. This would be no different than having two histograms side by side.. assuming, of course, that you'd even want to rate different aspects of the same thing. I can't even imagine…

This would be no different than having two histograms side by side..

Yes it would, and the article shows why and how. Scatter plots are easy to read (for comp./math. educated people). Two histograms side by side are easy to read (and find correlations) for nobody.

Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#9

Terrible article. Calling histograms awful, based on nothing more than an opinion. Then trying to conclude that some convoluted scatter plot system makes more sense is laughable. Not to mention, this system is still just a star rating system. This would be no different than having two histograms side by side.. assuming, of course, that you'd even want to rate different aspects of the same thing. I can't even imagine…

There's a pretty clear correlation between the histograms and the scatterplots, too, if you look.

If you gave someone those 3 histograms and those 3 scatterplots, I bet they could match them up correctly.

Aside- The scatterplots are an awful user interface because of the cognitive effort to interpret them, but perhaps there's a way to present the same information in a usable way.

Re: Why Ratings Systems Don't Work

#10

Why not try the lower bound of Wilson score confidence interval for a Bernoulli parameter? http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating....

We actually use this whenever we do any ranking within the site. On the film page though, we think presenting the raw data as a scatter plot is better than a single number.
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