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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman wrote:
> In lugnet.admin.general, Steve Bliss writes:
> > > OK, now for the *actual* user interface. A slider which glides between
> > > -100 and +100 would be perfect, but that's not part of HTML forms, so it
> > > has to be a drop-down list box with a few choices. (A fill-in-the-box
> > > might kinda work, but that's prolly too much work for the user.)
> >
> > How about radio buttons instead of a drop-down list? Seems more
> > approachable for the non-geeks among us.
>
> OH! Yes, radio buttons. When the number of choices is small, maybe that's
> the way to go.
Hmm. Thinking back to the desired slider interface, you could put a
good number of radio buttons horizontally across a page. The voter
could click in the desired range. Something like:
Very Bad Neutral Very Good
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
It wouldn't slide (ie, you couldn't hold down the mouse button, and drag
between buttons), but it would be visually close.
I don't know how 'heavy' this approach would be, in terms of page size.
> OTOH, radio buttons in GUI web browsers are smaller "targets" than list boxes.
> Does MSIE know how to automagically group text associated with a radio button?
> Or, like NN, does MSIE make the user click _exactly_ on the radio button
> circle itself rather than sloppy pointing on the text?
I think MSIE works like NN. But I'm far from being an expert.
> The one-click nature of radio buttons probably makes up for that shortcoming,
> though, huh?
I think so. But a drop-down wouldn't suck, it just wouldn't be the
best. Not saying that I know radio buttons would be better, but it's an
idea.
> > > I'm weary of 33's and 66's because they don't seem "round" enough, so what
> > > I've got now in the test thingie is the 6 values of +100, +75, +50, +25,
> > > -25, -50, -75, and -100. (0 is also a list item, but it means "I don't
> > > care" or "erase my earlier vote" and displays as three dashes).
> >
> > You could let people choose a score from 1 to 10. This is very
> > intuitive, at least for us Michiganders--I can't speak for the rest of
> > the world.
>
> Hmm, there could be a couple of sticky problems with that:
>
> First, the magnitude: The range 1-10 is great for casting quick votes, but
> isn't quite expressive enough for showing final scores. It'd have to go to
> decimal expansions to show the difference between, say, an 8.743 and a 9.311,
> which would both show as "9". And, most importantly, it's too easy to get a
> "10" -- all it would take is 19 votes of 10 and 1 vote of 0. (19/20 => 9.5
> => "10").
I didn't explain my idea very clearly, sorry. I figured the server
could take the [1,10] votes, and map them to the [-100,100] range. The
mapping could even be non-linear, but that's probably overkill.
BUT, like Dan said, avoid the numbers altogether. The horizontal UI
thingy allows you to only use general labels.
> Second, the midpoint: Although the midpoint of [1,10] is 5.5, non-geeks
> may be likely to think of 5 as the halfway point.
Good point.
> But even a range [0,10]
> where 5 *is* the midpoint (or [0,100] where 50 is the midpoint) doesn't
> communicate negativity... If the scale is [0,100] with 100 being the best
> and 0 being the worst, doesn't a 0 sound like "no value" rather than "negative
> value"?
If we're talking about Freshman Chemistry exam scores, 0 is bad. Then
again, anything less than 90 is 'bad', in that case.
That may be a problem -- people looking at message scores may interpret
near-0 scores as bad, rather than neutral. I think that is an issue to
resolve with user education, via clear labeling.
> I think there's a lot to be said for being able to mark thigs like
> unnecessary flames, trolls, filth, and other stuff like that to be of
> "negative value" rather than, at worst, only "no value."
Agreed.
> In other words,
> a score of -5 (or -50) on a scale of [-10,+10] (or [-100,+100]) much more
> accurately communicates negativity than does the equivalent score of 2.5
> (or 25) on a scale of [0,10] (or [0,100]), yes?
Not necessarily. It's logical, but people are used to things being
rated starting at 0. Then again, people are not used to having combined
'good' and 'bad' ratings. Usually, ratings indicate *either* how 'good'
or 'bad' something is, not both.
> > > I don't know how to avoid judgment words like "good" and "bad" and still
> > > have the labels "make quick sense." Any suggestions?
> >
> > Having a '1 to 10' UI would let you avoid the labels.
>
> Well, except the endpoints -- they'd still prolly need to be labeled. :)
And the midpoint. Establishing that mid-range is a neutral stance is an
important feature of the system.
But I think Dan is right - avoid numbers altogether. And avoiding
numbers also means that voters would have less trouble accepting the
score they see after they cast their vote. Since the entire
votes->score transformation becomes a magic black box, they don't have
to worry about why casting +100 as the first vote turns into a score of
only 50. Provide the details (somewhere) for anyone who wants to read
it, but don't put it on the voting page.
Steve
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Article scoring
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| (...) That would rock!! (...) I don't think the HTML would be too heavy, but it could get pretty nasty on the web browser (depending on how many buttons there were per article). I seem to remember the Fibblesnork LEGO Survey pages (which each have (...) (25 years ago, 9-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: Article scoring
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| On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Steve Bliss (<ctgfcsop8uaj5lc1dc...25o1pt@4ax .com>) wrote at 15:47:34 (...) Perhaps if the numbers were mapped to a coloured indicator? You could have an orange-red for high scores, & blue-green for lows, with a spectrum in (...) (25 years ago, 9-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Article scoring
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| (...) OH! Yes, radio buttons. When the number of choices is small, maybe that's the way to go. OTOH, radio buttons in GUI web browsers are smaller "targets" than list boxes. Does MSIE know how to automagically group text associated with a radio (...) (25 years ago, 8-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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