Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Ideas to improve Criticker and new feature requests, as well as announcements about new enhancements.
oread
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Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by oread »

Quicky wrote:
  • What the hell is Criticker?
The first page a visitor sees should scream what this site is all about...

I don't remember how the site looked before I signed up, but I'm in total agreement here... it needs to be more attention grabbing.

Quicky wrote:
  • Abbreviations are scary
... Instead of saying "10 Rankings Needed to Generate TCIs!", why not say something like "10 Rankings Needed To Determine Your Film Taste" and then add something like "Click here to find out more about how we determine your film taste and find other users like you."

Again, love it.

Quicky wrote:
  • Is this site alive?
... It's been mentioned before that the blog could use some more visibility on the site. I think it should also be visible somehow on the visitor's front page to show the developer's commitment to the site. Also display forum threads and recent rankings for example to show that it's not just the developers that are alive and kicking, but that there's also an active userbase. When a user sees that the heart is dynamic and changes even in the past few hours (!) then he or she is more likely to take the time to rank movies and start using the site.

This is me to a T when I find new interesting sites: if they look abandonned, I'm less likely to invest my ltime. I like the idea of the latest blog post & latest active forum thread appearing on the home page.

Quicky wrote:
  • And now what?

I think if people are encouraged to rate more than 10 films, they'll see the PSIs get more accurate & be more inclined to use the site.

Quicky wrote:
  • What are these numbers?
TCI's are a very abstract thing. What does '1.68' mean? Yes, it means the average number of tiers another user's ratings deviate from yours. However, it is still very abstract, in particular because we have nothing to compare it with. Is 1.68 good? Or is it bad? How good is it? I suggest that you convert the TCI's either into a percentage (100% = you're twins! 0% completely opposite ratings)

OMG yes! I know the "1.7 yadayada" person is good & the "4.4444" person is bad, but it's awkward to see these strange numbers when I check out someones profile.

Quicky wrote:Image

Love this too, by the way.

sengir wrote:I guess it all depends on what this site wants to be and to be honest I don't think this 'should' be the movie site for everyone... This only dillutes the experience for the people who really enjoy the site anyway. I agree you can make it more accesible for newcomers, but then again, I had very little to no problem getting into the flow of the website and I'm not a member for that long...

I'd love to see many more users... I see a lot of movies in the theatre & when I check Criticker shortly after a movie has been released, I generally find there aren't enough rankings to generate a PSI; more users = more likely to get an idea of whether or not the movie I'm thinking of seeing is right for me (without the chance of having Ebert's review spoil it for me ;) ) I also don't think it will dilute the experience.

Quicky
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Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by Quicky »

oread wrote:I think if people are encouraged to rate more than 10 films, they'll see the PSIs get more accurate & be more inclined to use the site.

The problem is that at the time my house mate said "And now what?" he hadn't seen a single PSI yet, because he simply hadn't found his way yet to the recommendations. I feel there needs to be a page that is extremely easy to find that shows off what Criticker can do, so the user immediately says "Wow! that actually seems like exactly what I'd want to see!" I think this should be the recommendations page (portal?). I know the developers are already working or at least brainstorming on a new recommendations page, so I hope it'll be a lot better than it is now.

To be honest, I think it's the absolute worst part of the site when it actually should be THE page that users find useful. It has some nice features, sure, but the recommendations seem so random to me that it feels like I'm watching one of my own lists through a telescope and that I have no idea where I'm pointing. You only see a handful of movies, there's very little overview, and it feels cramped. I also get annoyed if there's a movie on there with a PSI of "???". Why bother!? If you give a person 20 random movies there will probably be only one or two of which the person will instantly say "Oh, yeah, I want to watch that!" Right now I rarely have that feeling when I'm on the recommendations page because there simply aren't enough movies on there. At least it's better than the Flixter recommendations page which only shows you one recommendation at a time, but really... we want more than that, right?

**steps off his soap box** :oops:

oread wrote:[...] when I check Criticker shortly after a movie has been released, I generally find there aren't enough rankings to generate a PSI [...]

I've noticed that too.

vincente
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Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by vincente »

Oh wow, this thread is on fire.

First off - I hope by now that every regular Criticker user will know that we never going to aim to become something like Flixster.

Criticker is far off from being done and it will never be - so we really appreciate the time and effort to make Criticker a better place.

Many addressed issues and downsides are well known and we agree that they need to change to make Criticker more appealing to new users. It's not like we don't want them but you guys are already a handful, lol - rofl!

Just kidding.

Every suggestion you make and we think they apply we will make a note of.

Criticker has come a long way and we will work very hard to improve Criticker further more. Step by step, day by day Criticker will become a better site.

Thank you all!

Quicky
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Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by Quicky »

vincente wrote:Oh wow, this thread is on fire.

Heh, sorry, I guess I got a bit too enthusiastic again. But this falls under "active conversation", no? :D
Anyway, I have full faith that you'll make something nice out of the recommendations page/portal at some point :). I'm curious how you feel about some of the newer suggestions that we made here though...?

livelove
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Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by livelove »

Quicky wrote:In response to the PC Magazine review of Criticker, I would like to make some suggestions here since I agree with their "Worst feature" comment. I hope this post and the replies that will hopefully follow it, will provide the developers some useful suggestions on how to make the site more accessible to new users based on our own experiences with the site. In my case it's not only based on my own experience, but also on my observations while introducing a house mate of mine to the site and watching him use it. […]
@mpowell:
I suggest revisiting the OP, as Quicky offers us a lot of intelligent (and apparently timeless) recommendations there.

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