reviews system - beta testers wanted

[Mr E]

Hi Everyone,

Ive just finished creating a reviews system and its in beta state. I would like to get some feedback on bugs or improvements before I finalize the release.

Its at: http://scripts4ning.ning.com/forum2

If you have time, that would be great.

Thanks.

Vince

[Lorri Ely]

Hey there. Thanks for posting this for testing, Vince, it is a nice feature I have been wanting. I am a relative newbie, but wanting to put reviews on my site so I tested your feature.

My feedback is from a user and not a developer point of view. I use yelp.com all the time to write reviews, so I will use them as the "standard" from an ease of use/reviewer's perspective. I guess first off - what is being reviewed? Is the review itself being reviewed, or is the user reviewing a place (e.g., "I give this restaurant five stars", or "I give your review of this place five stars"). I think most users are more interested in the former (yelp style reviews)- being able to have all my users add their own reviews to the same restaurant would be cool. Then those reviews would be tallied up for the average 3 stars or whatever. However, for things like blog posts and articles, it would also be nice for other people to review that article - e.g. this was a useful post, I give it give stars!

Feedback on usability:
So, I added a restaurant review....but I expected to be able to add my "five star" rating on the same page, but instead quickly realized I was simply adding the restaurant itself - as in a place to be reviewed. Then it took me to a page where I could "rate this". It was a tad confusing. Was I rating the restaurant five stars on this second page, or was I rating the posting of this restaurant that I had entered on the last page? I wasn't sure.

Anyway, if the intent is to allow many users to add their reviews to the same restaurant, is there a way to "add a new restaurant" and "rate with stars" all on the same page?

Also, it may be asking a lot, but for example, on yelp, you can search first to make sure you are not adding a new place that is already on there by another user.

I liked the map, but it slowed down my entry--I had to wait for the map to finish loading before I could start typing anything. I am not sure the map is necessary right on the same page. It's good eye candy, but also a little distracting.

All in all, I think this is a great app - I would probably try this feature out on my site, but I would want the usability to be a little clearer--if it isn't super obvious and easy to use, people may get confused and shy away.

[Mr E]

thanks for the feedback. Its still really V1 and could do with a bit more tweaking. I know what youre saying.

Cheers