Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Ideas to improve Criticker and new feature requests, as well as announcements about new enhancements.
Quicky
Posts: 451
786 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:53 pm

Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by Quicky »

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.

  • What the hell is Criticker?
    The first page a visitor sees should scream what this site is all about. This is mentioned quite nicely when you go to 'your profile' as a guest: "When you signup to Criticker, you can compare your movie taste with thousands of registered users," but who would go to 'your profile' on his first visit to the site? It's also mentioned on the right that when you register for an account that you save your rankings, find like-minded users, and get the net's best recommendations, etc., however it doesn't scream at you, and I don't find it that alluring either. You need a clear slogan on the first page that tells the user immediately what the site is about so that the user thinks "Hey! That sounds cool! Let's rate some movies." Right now the visitor's eyes are immediately drawn to the big 10, where the visitor is immediately left wondering what the hell a 'TCI' is, which brings me to my next point.
  • Abbreviations are scary
    This has been mentioned before already, but abbreviations like 'TCI' are confusing to new users, especially during their first minutes on the site. I strongly suggest that this abbreviation on the front page be replaced by something more down to Earth. 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."
  • Is this site alive?
    To me a site and a web application looks attractive to me when the first page I see shows how dynamic the site is and how recent it is. I don't care about sites that have been dead or static since 2005. What I want is a community and a site that lives. I don't want to spend an hour on a site to then come to the conclusion that actually there hasn't been any activity on it since 2005. Criticker is alive and kicking, but unfortunately you don't really witness that on the front page. 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. I would also like to mention that there's a 'random, recent quote' on the front page. However this is collapsed by default (a shame!), and it's not that flashy, so it's unlikely that one would click it to see the quote. Furthermore it says 'recent quote', but it doesn't show how recent. Take random reviews from the last 24 hours, and mention the date so the visitor sees the site is active!
  • And now what?
    My house mate whom I introduced to Criticker literally said at some point while I was looking at the site standing next to him: "And now what?". This is what a user is thinking when he visits the site for the first time:
    1. Hmm... ok, so I need to rate movies to get recommendations?
    2. Ok, let's rate some movies.
    3. Hey, "Pulp Fiction", great movie, I should watch it again some time.
    4. Damn, I need to register. Heck, why not.
    5. This is actually quite fun, seeing all these movies again.
    6. Haha, "Speed 2", what an awful movie that was!
    7. Ok, I'm getting bored. I wanna see how accurate those recommendations are.
    8. Erm... crap. Now what? Where the hell can I see whether Criticker is any good?
    When my house mate was getting bored of rating movies, he didn't know where he could see how well Criticker was performing. There's a menu, sure, but the menu doesn't really say what you can do with this site. For me the 'New Releases' page is the best page to showcase what Criticker can do. There you usually can get a good overview of stuff you'll probably hate and stuff you'll probably like. But the new releases pages isn't the only thing Criticker has to offer. So then I thought, 'Ah! I can show him the TCI page so he can see how some users have a similar taste like him.' That is indeed a good place to witness how Criticker links you to users with a similar taste as yourself. However, my house mate didn't know what the heck TCI meant, so he wasn't about to click 'Your TCI's' either. And furthermore, the TCI's aren't exactly accurate in the first minutes that you use the site. Ok, so what else can I show him? Ah, the Recommendatoins page. Mmm... 6 movies. That's not exactly a big list to see how well Criticker performs...
  • 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) or a value that has a clear bottom and a clear top (e.g. 0 to 10) or into something visual. For example you could make little bars that show how well a user's taste matches yours. A long green bar would be a low TCI, a short red bar would be a bad TCI, and a grey bar could be the 'N/A' TCI. I posted a quick mock-up for this at the bottom of my post. Another suggestion that popped up in my head just now: maybe you can show TCI's (visual or not) under the avatars in forum posts, just like the number of rated movies is mentioned. Then when you're discussing a movie with someone you also clearly see whether that person generally agrees with you in your movie taste or not.

So, to summarize, here's where I think Criticker can be improved to make the site more accessible to new users:
  • Show more clearly what Criticker is about on the front page
  • Get rid of the Chinese ("TCI")
  • Demonstrate that the site is active and alive
  • Guide the user better towards the pages that show off how well Criticker performs
  • Make TCI's more understandable by making it less abstract or by visualizing it

I'm being quite tough on the site here, however I absolutely love the site, and I am only posting this so this can become a discussion about how Criticker can be made more attractive and easier to understand for visitors so that reviews like those on PC Magazine don't have to mention that it might all be too confusing for non-geeks. You can agree with my views on this or you can not, what is important is that we can share ideas about this. I'm also happy that the forum has become more active in the past months, but it's still a pretty small subset of the community. We need to show new users that we are an active community and that Criticker is not only about "Rank More Films", but also about sharing opinions about movies, directors, etc.!

If you have any comments or other suggestions, please mention them here. :)
(I apologize for the long post ;))


[EDIT] I added a section about making TCI's visual

Image
Last edited by Quicky on Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

KGB
Posts: 746
1335 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:44 am

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by KGB »

Quicky wrote:
  • What the hell is Criticker?
    The first page a visitor sees should scream what this site is all about. This is mentioned quite nicely when you go to 'your profile' as a guest: "When you signup to Criticker, you can compare your movie taste with thousands of registered users," but who would go to 'your profile' on his first visit to the site? It's also mentioned on the right that when you register for an account that you save your rankings, find like-minded users, and get the net's best recommendations, etc., however it doesn't scream at you, and I don't find it that alluring either. You need a clear slogan on the first page that tells the user immediately what the site is about so that the user thinks "Hey! That sounds cool! Let's rate some movies." Right now the visitor's eyes are immediately drawn to the big 10, where the visitor is immediately left wondering what the hell a 'TCI' is, which brings me to my next point.


There's used to be an introductory page with some sense of humour about what Criticker was all about. I came to it only by chance, though, when I was already a member for some time on Criticker. I think that page should really come back, and be concluded with the 'About Us' page. And all of this should be very notable on the main page (something like "New to criticker? Click here!". This article mention is really a big deal... Perhaps you should consider making a few changes to make the site more alive and accesible visually.

Quicky wrote:(I apologize for the long post ;))


Apologize? But every single user should be thanking you!

td888
Posts: 835
3955 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2007 10:44 am

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by td888 »

Hi Quicky,

I agree with your remarks. I introduced this site to some friends (movie-buffs too) but they had exactly the same experience like your house-mate. I think Criticker has some great potential, but needs some more 'slick' introduction page to get people hooked.

sengir
Posts: 134
4050 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:57 pm

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by sengir »

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...

Quicky
Posts: 451
786 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:53 pm

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by Quicky »

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...

You make a very important point here. Thanks for that :).

It is my personal opinion that Criticker should try to be accessible to people of every background since it is not just those who consider arthouse lovers or geeks who deserve to know which movies they'll like. My girl friend who's more of a films-are-for-fun-person also deserves to know which movies she'll like. TCI-wise, it shouldn't be a disadvantage to the artsy people when thousands of new users come along who love Sex and the City, since that's the whole point of Criticker: connecting those people that have similar tastes. Sure enough, the atmosphere in forums and communities like this one heavily depends on the users who are in it, so it can be quite tricky to keep the atmosphere healthy and fun. It's the task of the moderators to make sure that the atmosphere remains the way they want it to be.

In the end the decision lies with the owners of the site. But from what I've seen so far, I have the feeling that they do want to be more visible on the web, and thus attract more users.

Quicky
Posts: 451
786 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:53 pm

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by Quicky »

KGB wrote:There's used to be an introductory page with some sense of humour about what Criticker was all about. [...]

It's still here actually: Click. You can access it by going to Resources -> Help and Information. It's indeed a little buried.

KGB wrote:This article mention is really a big deal... Perhaps you should consider making a few changes to make the site more alive and accessible visually.

Exactly my point :).

sengir
Posts: 134
4050 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:57 pm

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by sengir »

Quicky wrote: Sure enough, the atmosphere in forums and communities like this one heavily depends on the users who are in it, so it can be quite tricky to keep the atmosphere healthy and fun. It's the task of the moderators to make sure that the atmosphere remains the way they want it to be.

In the end the decision lies with the owners of the site. But from what I've seen so far, I have the feeling that they do want to be more visible on the web, and thus attract more users.


As you say, I don't think TCI will really suffer, but more the general mood of the site and indeed forums etc... (just look at the forums/discussions on IMDB to get a good feel what a mass audience can do the quality of the discussions). And good luck controlling massive trolling with a limited staff (again compare it to IMDB which has (I think) a very big staff).

That being said, there's of course nothing wrong with getting recognition, just beware dumbing down the place to gain a larger audience (the whole system of TCI etc... gives you the best results if you rate a lot of movies anyway, and do the sporadic film fans really have the patience to do this...

And you're completely right btw in saying that decision of this is up to the owners, I just really like the site and the system and hope to preserve this.

Quicky
Posts: 451
786 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:53 pm

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by Quicky »

sengir wrote:As you say, I don't think TCI will really suffer, but more the general mood of the site and indeed forums etc... (just look at the forums/discussions on IMDB to get a good feel what a mass audience can do the quality of the discussions). And good luck controlling massive trolling with a limited staff (again compare it to IMDB which has (I think) a very big staff).

I completely agree, IMDB is indeed full of crap in those forums. However, I don't think Criticker will ever reach such a big audience, until they start sending invitations to every contact in my addressbook like Flixter has been doing with their aggressive viral marketing strategy. Right now we have 13,000 users, with almost 5,000 of those having rated more than 40 movies. Both Flixter and IMDB are roughly 1,000 to 10,000 times as big. Obviously I'm not hoping for Criticker to get this big, but I think I would welcome a 10-fold increase in users. I suspect that if Criticker concentrates on marketing the accuracy of its recommendations and the value of its reviews as opposed to its social networking features, it will never become a Flixter clone.

sengir
Posts: 134
4050 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:57 pm

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by sengir »

That's the only thing on my mind and I'm glad you're of the same opinion on this matter. I would definitely welcome more active users (especially users who rank more films, add more films to the database, actively participate in the process) and I completely agree with you on trying to attract those kind of users and trying to explain the TCI system more actively to their advantage.

Quicky
Posts: 451
786 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:53 pm

Re: Making Criticker more accessible to new users

Post by Quicky »

FYI: Criticker gets about 19 new users every day, a rate which is increasing with roughly 0.05 per day, so the growth isn't exactly accelerating much if at all. At this rate we'll have 100,000 users in a bit over 4 years. Quite a long ride ;). I've only tracked back till february though, so I don't know how it was before that. I'd say we should try to find a way to up this number a bit, and I think making the site more accessible is one way to do that, since it'll generate more positive reviews of Criticker on other sites.

Post Reply