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Google Play Store Ratings Drop

blog.testfairy.com

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Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#51

Post by tomp »

V-2 wrote: post #49
tomp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome, as Google Search (google.com main page), was very well-designed at the start. From there, it only went downhill, as soon as the marketing people interfered.

What are you referring to? If I recall, it hasn't really changed a lot, other than minor things such as replacing the wrench icon with a hot-dog

You mean Chrome?

That's just because they weren't left with a lot of elements that they could change (most of Chrome is really minimal). However, the welcome page/new tab page has gone through some really bad iterations (app store, Google+, search box, ...) that removed most of the minimalism and simplicity.

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#52

Post by zango »

abcd_f wrote: post #16

So here's the UI in question - http://blog.testfairy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quick_s... - and apparently the large stars represent not a suggestion rating, but an app rating. So dismissing suggestion as a bad one you'd basically give a 1 star rating to an app. Or so the devs claim. Coming from the iOS side, I just don't get it. How can you rate an app that you haven't downloaded? And then if you did download i…

I'm a developer, and I have the same rating fall in my apps too. Re-scaling is good, as long as it is fair. I have no problem with making it easier for unhappy users to vote, but I do have problem with a suggestion box which misleads at least some users to rate by mistake. And I also have problem with Google surfacing apps deleted so long ago that the user has no chance to remember what it was. And once the user taps on any star, the rating is registered - no way for the user to correct a mistake or to explain a negative vote, so the dev could do something about it.

It's just Google being careless about the devs. And it was a surprize for me to realize that. I thought better on Google before it started.

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#53

Post by zango »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #37
quarterto wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actively asking users to rate an app they have downloaded may lead to better ratings But it's not asking them to rate the app , it's asking them to rate the suggestion . And since rating a suggestion is usually a thumbs-up/thumbs-down, it primes users to select the extreme ratings.

>But it's not asking them to rate the app, it's asking them to rate the suggestion. No, if this is really the UI in question then it is not asking users to rate the suggestion: http://blog.testfairy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quick_s... It's clearly asking users to rate one app to get suggestions for other apps.

Sadly, many users just don't read past the title. And users familiar with other suggestion engines (pandora, etc) expect to teach the system their taste and relevance.

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#54

Post by zango »

fharper1961 wrote: post #50

I'm Android dev, and I think the "Want quick suggestions?" feature is a good addition to Google Play, because it encourages users to rate apps. Yes, the average rating for my app has gone down since Google made this change. But rankings are relative, not absolute, and all apps are being treated equally, so it shouldn't make a difference in the rankings. What wasn't mentioned is that the number of ratings has increase…

If Google will fix the user interface of the box, than it will be acceptable.

(1) let the user correct a rating if tapped by accident

(2) offer the option to leave a comment

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#55

Post by V-2 »

tomp wrote: post #51
V-2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you referring to? If I recall, it hasn't really changed a lot, other than minor things such as replacing the wrench icon with a hot-dog

You mean Chrome? That's just because they weren't left with a lot of elements that they could change (most of Chrome is really minimal). However, the welcome page/new tab page has gone through some really bad iterations (app store, Google+, search box, ...) that removed most of the minimalism and simplicity.

OK I could have missed New Tab changes, because I override it with an extension (Speed Dial 2), I never liked this bit

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#56

Post by nmohideen »

On my 2.3.3 phone, the quick rating widget takes the entire width of the phone and about 15% of the height. Any flick that originates on a star is irreversibly treated as a rating. Once the star is touched, there is no way to cancel the action. My flick style never results in any accidental 5 stars (because it is near the right edge). Wonder how many of my app users are inadvertently screwing my rating because of this design. I am surprised that Google's has such a low regard for UI design. They hide their contact forms, and don't respond when you happen to find the form.

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#57

Post by nmohideen »

abcd_f wrote: post #16

So here's the UI in question - http://blog.testfairy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quick_s... - and apparently the large stars represent not a suggestion rating, but an app rating. So dismissing suggestion as a bad one you'd basically give a 1 star rating to an app. Or so the devs claim. Coming from the iOS side, I just don't get it. How can you rate an app that you haven't downloaded? And then if you did download i…

Right now my Play store app is asking me to rate apps I have neither bought nor installed. If I dismiss one, it shows me another such "not purchased" app. I've seen 3 already. Is this happening to anybody else?

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#58

Post by dredmorbius »

watwut wrote: post #23
dredmorbius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the worst sins of UI is "unification". It's helpful to have meaningfully consistent metaphors and themes across applications. For the UNIX / Linux commandline, that's processes and pipes, BSD and GNU argument flags, and the like. There are various competing keyboard accelerator schemes: emacs, vi, Wordperfect keyboard templates, DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT, Apple's Mac hotkeys, GNOME and KDE.... There are…

The worst thing for me is that they design for big screens and I have small one. Even when you pick up compact scheme. The record was stats screen on blogger which shown me 3cm of information panel and the rest was taken by huge sticky !mostly empty! top and bottom rows. Way to go, really.

Ironically: I've got a reasonably large screen (1920x1080), but with a 16x9 aspect ratio, height is constrained. The physical size of the display is fairly small, so px-specified layouts (particularly for fonts) are often painfully small.

Re: Google Play Store Ratings Drop

#59

Post by igordcard »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #27
abcd_f wrote: post #16

So here's the UI in question - http://blog.testfairy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quick_s... - and apparently the large stars represent not a suggestion rating, but an app rating. So dismissing suggestion as a bad one you'd basically give a 1 star rating to an app. Or so the devs claim. Coming from the iOS side, I just don't get it. How can you rate an app that you haven't downloaded? And then if you did download i…

Also, if the dip affects everyone equally, then its more like a rescaling (presumably on average these reviews are lower than before, I'd guess because no-one bothers to review a 2-3 star item, only if they love it or really hate it)

If the dip affected everyone equally it wouldn't be that bad, as most of the saturation found above the 4.8 would be leveraged... However these suggestions will be rated, in average, as greater as the overall empathy and knowledge users have regarding the kind of app in question. For instance, regarding my app Tabata Trainer (which went from solid 4.57 in December 9th to 4.21 at the time of this post), how many persons identify with the word "Tabata"? Most of them will never give a 5. If someone creates a game with a very similar name to a widely known and adorable game, then people will probably rate the suggestion highly. This kind of stuff will just lead apps to be rated unequally... and bad (really bad) apps will raise their ratings, which is shameful.
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