Major Studio | INTERFACE : Final Project, Rating System (further development)

The rating system is a very important element of the project.  It needs to be easy to understand from a glance and intuitive to use.  ALSO, it needs to be fun to interact with since a goal of the site is collaboration.  So, in an effort to A) make clear the levels of negativity and positivity and B) add a little humor:

Major Studio | Interface : Final Project, User Scenarios

User Scenarios

Mary is a 20 yr old college student. She communicates with her friends by all methods: phone, text, email, blog, along with social networking sites. Mary is not afraid of technology nor of interacting with on-line forums; she posts a clear, detailed profile on Facebook, blogs her daily activities and thoughts, and regularly chimes in with her vote on books and movies if a website so prompts her. One day, Mary was working on homework and took a break to check her email. In her inbox she found an email from her friend Tom via a site named JustANote.net. Since her friend Tom is technologically similar to her and would be known to send her an email via an outside source, Mary opens the email to see what’s inside. Mary reads the comment that her friend Tom has sent her that references Yankee’s. Mary herself is a Yankee whereas Tom is from the Southern U.S, so she and Tom regularly joke with each other about North vs. South. As Mary continues to read on, she realizes that this comment, seemingly harmless to her, has garnered a Negativity Rating of -4 and says that this rating breeds an environment of Hurt Feelings and Isolation within the world at large. Below this rating, Mary also sees a visualization of what this rating looks like along with a visualization of the “climate” of the JustANote.net site as a whole. Mary clicks on the invitation to visit the site to see what this business is about. Although Mary can see that the comment she received technically is a bit combative, she herself only sees the humor in it. Reading through the list of comments on the site, Mary disagrees with a number of the ratings and puts her 2 cents in by voting on a bunch of them. Then she comes to the comment she received. Mary votes that the comment has a Positivity rating of 4; she feels that the comment is not necessarily a hugely positive thing to say but might rather just be viewed for its humor rather than its negativity. Mary is then pleased to see that the comment’s rating has been affected by her vote and has moved to -3. After voting, Mary then clicks on “Share” and sends it to another friend from the South to get their reaction, too. She personalizes her message saying, “Is this really that bad? Come on… it’s totally not.” After pressing “Send” is pleased to see that the visualization has changed along with the rest of the commentary about the quote, as well.

Jonathan is a 27-year-old English teacher for high school seniors. He is amazed on a daily basis about how these students treat each other. The comments that he hears while passing through the halls seem shocking to him in their harshness. It is obvious that a large number of the 17 and 18-year-old listeners to the comments find them very funny since they all dissolve into fits of laughter, but there are always a few students in the group whose smiles seem forced. Jonathan recognizes the thin line that he walks in trying to get through to the students without seeming as if he’s preaching to “do the right thing”. Jonathan sees an opportunity to get an idea of the student’s true reactions to the commentary when he searches the words “meanness” and “negativity” in an online search engine and JustANote.net appears in the list of results. The next time Jonathan is walking the halls he takes a moment to step aside and write down a couple of the comments that he hears. That night he adds this comment along with an initial ranking of 0 to the JustANote.net commentary list. He then shares his comment through the JustANote email feature to tell his class about their homework assignment to visit this link and vote. In this anonymous environment, Jonathon is able to get a better idea of his students’ true reactions to these comments. Just as he suspected, Jonathon found the Negativity Rating of the comment to be around -5. Jonathan made this a part of his curriculum in a discussion of mean humor in literature and the fine line between funny and hurtful.

Susie is a quiet girl of 25. She has a history of being walked on by her older sisters, but sometimes doesn’t know if she’s just being too sensitive. Her friends are always telling her that she should stand up to them, but doesn’t know if they are just being supportive and also if it’s really worth it to bring it up as an issue. Susie is very unsure of herself. One day one of her friends was talking about a site called JustANote.net that a friend had sent her. She heard things like “negativity rating”, “put in your own comments for rating” and thought she’d check it out. After reading the comments and seeing the votes for herself, Susie decided to put up one of the things that her oldest sister said to her the previous week. She went back to the site to see how the other users of JustANote.net saw her comment. After a week, her comment had a garnered a Negativity Rating of -7. The world agreed with her that there was negativity housed in her sisters’ comments and Susie was not being too sensitive. At that point, Susie clicked on the “Share” button and sent the email to her sisters. The email became a conversation starter with her sisters about their issues.

Major Studio | INTERFACE : Final Project Visualization Research

I found this website called A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods which is quite a resource. My visualizations were going to be a little different, but perhaps throwing in a couple of straight graphing charts could be interesting…

Major Studio | INTERFACE : Final Project, Online Rating Systems

Below is a short analysis of 4 sites online who are known for their rating and review systems. I guess I had never realized how each of them differ, but they certainly do. Each choose a familiar symbol, number, method which could be why they all feel very much the same when used. The rating system I intend to employ in JustANote.net would be larger than this going from -10 to 10. Mine would differ from these 4 in its use of negative numbers, however this addition makes sense in purpose of rating the content (reflecting negativity or positivity).
Another note to make would be the connection of the reviews and comments with the rating. Should my users have an opportunity to comment about their rating as well as simply vote?

Major Studio | INTERFACE : Final Project, Current State of Affairs

Here is the to do list for my project:

1. Working Prototype (currently on-line in stripped down form. fill in holes to allow for user testing)
2. User Testing (once Working Proto is fleshed out get some commentary and responses)
3. Visualization Ideas (see earlier entry. brainstorm and research ideas of polar opposites to develop choices of visualizations to add interest and dynamism to site)
4. Tag Cloud (see how useful this element will be to the site. could be an easy and dynamic categorical/shortcut tool rather than just deciding categories on own)
5. Information Architecture (keep revising and adding. Build in Table lists in “preparation” for database building)
6. Result Word List (ex. pessimism… list pretty much exists in past blogs. need to organize “ranking” … maybe get some user voting… and rank along with neg/pos rating)
7. Meta Information for the site
8. User Scenarios (nearly complete)
9. Research/Investigate other sites’ rating methods
10. MOCK SITE: build out style frames for each individual site. perhaps combine with user scenarios to animate a step by step example of a user’s experience.

Major Studio | INTERFACE: Final Project, Call for Content

I sent out an email to family and friends as a request for content.  Ultimately the site would be submission-driven, so this initial email is in keeping with that vision.