New "Rate Recent" Interface

[ken_thalheimer]

Great job Brian. Takes away the previous scrolling and is very clean. I get no overlap here

[mottershead]

Yann, 1 & 2 ratings were never gone. You could rate photos 1 & 2 before also. Those ratings just aren't being counted at present, and aren't displayed on the various pages that show you details about a photo's ratings. They are still in the database, and anybody can put a 1 or a 2 rating on a photo if they wish.

[will king]

Did the new Rate Recent feature makes things more efficient? I just posted a photo for critique and rate and not even a minute later I got 5 rates. Usually it takes at least 15 minutes before I get the first rate and about an hour or two before I get 5.

[alejandrokeller]

:D

 

Thanks Brian, I see your point. I personally try to upload ONLY images that are less than 680 pixels width... I will start saving to buy all the viewers a larger monitor. I hope that, when I finnaly have the money, the standard monitor will be already large enought and I can spend those millions in something else.

[bens]

The new design once again suggests a lack of commitment to encouraging more meaningful feedback to the work of posting photographers. You state that the change was to eliminate the need to scroll for viewers. Yet your new design requires those of us who like to comment on photos to scroll even more than we did before, as the new box is much larger than the previous one -- and much larger than is necessary. If you were to reduce the size of the comment box, or reduce it and reposition it in some fashion -- one suggestion above is to place it beneath the photo -- and/or redesign the ratings box -- you could achieve your stated purpose while retaining the comments box on the display page. Instead, one must now click to get the comment box, then scroll more than before. Furthermore, rather than require a comment before moving to the next image automatically, you've made the auto submit function so prominent that its use will discourage comments as well.

 

It also appears that the link to an explanation of ratings and comments has been eliminated, taking away the opportunity to encourage comments there that you never pursued despite previous suggestions.

 

In a previous thread, I believe you mentioned that comments in RR are running at about 3% and, therefore, you were considering removing the box from the page. If you were committed to encouraging comments on photos, that percentage would lead to the implementation of some stratagies to encourage more feedback. Instead, you have made it more difficult to comment.

 

I remain puzzled and disappointed by the site's apparent lack of commitment to encouraging anything but ratings with the changes it makes. The posting photographer's role is one of many that make this site work. Nonetheless, I think you take for granted what posting photographers need and want from the site in your never-ending efforts to tweak how ratings occur.

 

The accessibility you provide is tremendous and enables commenting to occur abundantly if the effort is made. I appreciate your willingness to allow this to continue. But more could be done. Ratings are for the site, comments for the photographers. I am glad to help the site. Is the site glad to help photographers? If it is not, in my opinion the site will turn more and more into a somewhat silly ratings-based competition regardless of the professed belief that ratings are not for photographers. I see the lack of regard for commenting in this new design as another small step in that direction.

[yann_r.]

Brian,<p>

Is it useful to rate a photo with 1s or 2s if these ratings aren't counted? What I meant is : are you planning to make them available to balance again the rating system?<p>

Sorry to use this thread for this topic, by the way, sure it could be a very active forum (according to importance many give to low ratings).<p>

The new "Rate Recent" Interface is fine to use and works well. The main default has been shown above : the photo goes to the bottom, under the text, when one clicks on 'comment' button.

[john falkenstine]

Nice Improvement Brian. BTW I continue to use ALL rating numbers.

[._._z]

<i><blockquote> Those ratings just aren't being counted at present, and aren't

displayed on the various pages that show you details about a photo's ratings. They

are still in the database, and anybody can put a 1 or a 2 rating on a photo if they

wish.

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

Doesn't make much sense. You might was well return the 10-point rating scale and

hide the eights, nines and tens too.

[bennyboy]

The reduction in image size from 680 width (which I aim most of my photos to meet) is just absurd, the compression applied to these images kills many of them aesthetically, possibly leading to lower scores for photos that deserve to score well. Some images just cannot be fully appreciated at a lower resolution, this is why people upload them as large as they can.

 

Since I am not prepared to rate a photo that is obviously highly degraded due to compression this new interface also slows my rating down . I find myself now clicking through to the full size version of an image almost every time.

[mottershead]

Ben, as I said before, the photo is only reduced in size if the user's window is not large enough to accomodate it plus a bit for the UI. It is a tradeoff between making the user scroll or displaying the whole image somewhat degraded by browser downsampling.

 

Either the user is going to scroll or the photo is going to be downsampled, and either one could have an impact on the rating (or on whether there is a rating). People with smaller monitors (or browser windows) necessitate a compromise, and this is the compromise I chose. People with browser windows that are big enough won't have to scroll and won't have the image degraded.

 

Sounds like your monitor is not up to your own standards, or maybe the browser doesn't have a big enough window. So get a bigger monitor or resize your browser windows bigger when you are rating photos.

[aphanius]

I still have to scroll, at 1024 x 768 px on a 15'' screen. My suggestion is to place rating box at left frame, below "what others thought". It has no sense to place it over the image, and resize vertical images more than 30% (i.e. to 289 x 391 when original size is 452 x 611). Let's see font code:

 

<!-- MAX: 751x391 MD: 452x611 T: 289x391<br> -->

<a href="/photo/4209729">

<img border=0 src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/4209729-md.jpg" width="289">

</a>

 

Otherwise, RR has improved on speed, that's true...

[bens]

Puzzling Brian that you do not respond here to any of the feedback about the comments box. I did notice that the comments box appears to have been reduced in size in RR as of this morning and appreciate that as a possible response by you, thank you.

 

Some questions, would appreciate a response here:

 

Have you tried to design a display page that allows a comments box and no scrolling?

 

If so, why can't this be achieved? If not, why not?

 

Is it your intention to discourage comments in RR?

 

Given the 3% comments rate in RR, do you have any plans to encourage more commenting?

 

If not, why not, given that a principal mission of the site is to be a "photography learning community"?

[mottershead]

Ben, I see this "Rate Photos" interface as an interface for rating photos.

 

In revising the interface, I've focused on making it better for rating. Making it better for commenting played no part in the redesign. In fact, I considered eliminating the comment box. as you know. In the end, I decided simply to hide it and let the rare person who wants to comment in this venue click it open. In my view, a comment box takes up precious vertical real-estate and I would prefer that people not have to scroll to see the photos that are being presented.

 

While putting it under the photo and having it always open would take less real-estate, I don't see how that would be better than the design I came up with. To me, it seems bettter to keep all the controls at the top, and I think it is preferable to click "Comment" to open (and close) the box, than to scroll down to the bottom of the page to the Comment box. If it were at the bottom, people would have to scroll down to it, click in the box, move their hand to the keyboard, type their comment, move their hand back to the mouse, then scroll back up to and click the Next button. I don't see now this is better or faster than just clicking "Comment", then clicking in the comment box, and typing, then clicking the Next button. If someone is rating as well as commenting, then I think my design is better.

 

But I wouldn't expect this particular interface to be the place where people would comment, and the fact is that most people don't comment on photos from this interface. Accordingly, I don't plan on trying to make "Rate Photos" better for commenting. I don't see the tiny number of comments being made in this interface as a problem to be solved; I see it as evidence that there is not much point in compromising this interface as a rating interface in order to make it better for commenting. It does not make sense to me to make the activity that the vast majority people do in the interface harder or less pleasing in order to facilitate an activity that hardly anyone does in this interface.

 

If people aren't commenting enough on photos, it isn't because finding photos to comment on is hard, or because the process of commenting on photos takes too many clicks. I think the main reason is that most visitors don't feel they have anything interesting or non-obvious to say about the photos, and don't want just to write "Wow", or "This sucks" all the time. The rating system lets them register their likes and dislikes and that is enough for most visitors, and unlike "Wow" or "This sucks", our computer algorithms can do something with a rating. Another problem is that people don't want to expend effort writing comments on photos when they don't know if all the photographer wants is praise. Though many photographers say they want comments and avow that they want criticism, the behaviour of many photographers contradicts this. Anybody who has tried to provide even constructive criticism on photos learns this quite quickly. Consequently, the photos that attract comments are the best photos and the comments tend to be compliments -- guest book material. Finally, the fact that a photographer can simply delete a photo that gets anything other than praise does not encourage people to spend significant amounts of time formulating insightful comments about the pros and cons of a photo.

 

If anyone thinks that a rapid-fire commenting interface is needed and should be developed, please present your arguments, but I don't see this "Rate Photos" interface as that. From my point of view, an interface that lets people rate 5 photos per minute is desirable, But an interface that lets someone write rapid-fire comments is of no value to anybody, except perhaps to someone marketing his own portfolio by pasting "Wow" comments on as many photos as possible. I'm all for more people writing well-thought-out articulate comments, but I don't thing encouraging that has much to do with user interface.

[bens]

Thank you for the response Brian. You and I have gone back and forth about this issue for a long time and I don't mean to repeat past discussions or my many past suggestions for encouraging comments. You have made clear in the past that you are not particularly interested in them.

 

You as the site's manager and designer have a lot to do with establishing the priorities and behaviors of its participants by what you emphasize, encourage and discourage. Your new design further deemphasizes comments by making them one click more difficult to make. I prefer the previous design because ratings and comments were literally on the same page -- the design implied they were of equal importance. That is now gone.

 

Furthermore, this new design exists not only in RR, but in ALL of the critique forum categories where ratings are provided. Obviously, you have chosen to emphasize ratings and deemphasize comments far beyond the RR queue.

 

I assume unless you say otherwise that you've gone this route because this will encourage more ratings and page views. I also assume there are no plans to encourage more comments. You need to do what you need to do to make the site run, a headache I don't have to contend with, and I have a very high regard for you because you have taken on this challenge. But I have to say again at the same time that I think the larger purpose of the site, the "photography learning community", is not served by this design change and, in fact, is damaged a little by it.

 

Regarding the impact of comments, I have left many comments that are extensive, specific, and which include suggestions for changes or indicate things I do not like. I can honestly say that more than 9 out of 10 photographers receive these comments well, many of them thank me for them, and any "reliation" is rare and most of that likely a figment of my own imagination. I also think there is nothing wrong, and often much right, about telling people what one likes in a photograph, as it indicates where you think they are acting in the right direction, something I have found is less obvious to me as a posting photographer than it may seem to a reviewer. There are also ways to say critical things that are constructive and not inflammatory. Leaving constructive criticism that has some meaning to the posting photographer and does not create lots of bad feeling is very doable, and certainly very teachable on a site like this.

 

But so it goes. Thanks again for letting things like "Five" exist. Perhaps at a later date, when the site is more secure in its revenues or whatever else drives this ratings obsession, you will have the opportunity to pay more attention to how to encourage the kind of feedback that I think many posting photographers would like to receive and would support, and that many people would give with some encouragement and guidance.

 

In the meantime, I am afraid to say that the culture of the site is headed in the other direction, and it does disappoint.

[bens]

One additional thought -- would it be possible to allow the viewer to opt in one move on the first page or what have you to open the comment box and keep it open for all the photos that follow in RR or a critique category? That would at least make it easier for those of us who like to comment to do so. It also enables us to move through these pages more quickly, which I assume dovetails with the site's interest that we view as many pages as possible.

[darrell_m]

I am getting more ratings than ever before and super quickly too. Superb. However,

the ratings are appreciably lower than my already sad average. Could this be

because of the compression? On the rate recent page <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?topic_id=1481&msg_id=00FbTv&photo_id=4209980&photo_sel_index=0"><b>my

most recent submission</b></a> looks so poor on my monitor. Now I know it's

tragic to be using IE6 with 1024/768 and that is no doubt the reason my pic

looks so bad compressed. But I'm not alone in this configuration. In fact it's

probably the configuration for up 50% of all users (Brian could correct me on

this) So my effort, already burdened by my lack of technical and artistic abilty,

now suffers the immediate handicap of being displayed distorted before the judging

crowd.</p>

<p>My solution? A radical thought occured to me. Why not abandon the entire Rate

Recent page altogether? I've been using the site and rating photos for 5 months

wthout ever bothering to use it. The critique forum provides ample method by

which to rate recent and subject specific photos. I know the CF does not allow

anonymous ratings but if the option was available (Click here to rate this photo

anonymously) perhaps it could work. The CF does not, of course, provide the

speed to rate that the RR page does but then what value can a photographer give

to ratings delivered quickly on a compressed version of their work?<div></div>

[darrell_m]

The screen cap i reproduced above is exactly the same size as displayed on my screen from the rate recent page.

[will king]

I would agree with Darrell M. I'm getting a lot more rates and a lot faster and a lot lower, which is no big deal but I noticed my written critiques and feedback are next to nill. Personally I think the ratings issues has gone from sad to depressing. Receiving comments/written critiques/feedback is what I really want and now I just get a bunch of meaningless numbers. I agree with Ben. We should try to promote more dialogue and not the well oiled ratings machine.

[jstyles]

Well, of course comments are always going to be more meaningful than ratings, but I am actually totally impressed with the new ratings interface. The previous interface was woefully slow and I couldn't bear to load boring photo after boring photo (everyone has interests and disinterests) when I could just browse the categories or TRP instead and pick out those of interest to me. I had been thinking that anonymous raters must really not be interested in photography, and were more of the internet chat-room fanatic type, happy to waste their time as long as it was on a computer (again, not judging here - it describes myself at times). Now I think it's accessible to everyone. As for comments, comments that are given without clicking on the photo to read the introducion and prior comments are almost always of the "wow" or "nothing of interest" kind, so I really think that part of the rate-recent interface is irrelevant. I say well done Brian - much much better, and its great that photos ranked in the TRP now average about 10 ratings instead of the previous 5.

[bekster]

If rating and critiqing are to be mutually exclusive, then I for one would certainly welcome a better interface for critique requests. I would like to see an interface (maybe I could set my rate recent preference?) that shows the title above the photograph and photographers 'request for critique' text somewhere. I don't mind scrolling to see this... Nor do I mind scrolling to see the image that was uploaded instead of the degraded one. Also on my wish list is a gallery for the critique-only photos...

[mmmee]

I have read the whole thread, and maybe I am an incurable optimist, but I like the idea of this is a new interface for the raters. I never used the old one so have no comparison experiences to relate.

 

If there is this new interface solely for the rating machine and the site statistics feed, I cannot help but think there will be a whole new interface for the photographers (clients of the site) who want good critiques. So that we may find other like minded people as in Ben's FIVE initiative. When I look around I see no ratings given by the people from whom I would love to have critiques on my photos. I also see a few people who held great discussions on their photos have let their subscriptions lapse, and in a lot of cases deleted most of their photos, if not all. But with all the new changes lately, I am very hopefull that there might be a critiquing forum for more serious critiques. Maybe even with Moderators, as in the POW forum, who would be willing to delete the 'wow' and 'this sucks' comments, as well as the personal attacks, to make it truly a critique forum. I think this would bring back many of the former clients as well as keep the ones who feel lost and forgotten, now. I can imagine a whole new, very active critiquing center. Can you?

[mmmee]

If it can snow in LA, this could be possible too. :)) Oh man, those poor shivering people. The mouse will be frozen and unable to click on anything.

[bennyboy]

Brian,

 

Regarding my screen size, I typically rate using my laptop, it has a lower resolution than my workstation, 1024*768, the last time I checked images at 679 pixel width were very adequately displayed without scrolling or downsampling by my browser. Would it not be better to accomodate images of this width, and display the medium thumbnail only for images with a portrait orientation?

 

To my knowledge most people actually use a resolution of 1024*768, perhaps you can glean some statistics from the sites visitors? By offering the medium thumbnail to that majority the site is now offering a reduction in overall quality, I don't think it probable that you expect all of your users to buy better resolution monitors in order to view images as intended by the photographer. That would be a ludicrous position to inhabit.

 

It's not a giant leap of imagination to realise that first impressions count, lower quality compressed thumbnails will result in lower ratings. Now I'm not particularly bothered either way about that, I'd just like to have to faff less in order to see the optimum quality image, the new interface means my net 'faffing' has increased.

 

The suggestion above would seem a good compromise - the new interface does have its merits, why not make it the best it can be?

[bennyboy]

By the way, I am still being served downsized images even on a 1280*1024 display (full screen browser), even in kiosk mode, this can't be right - do I need to go out and buy an apple cinema screen Brian?

[mottershead]

Portrait format images that were 680 pixels wide and, for example, 1000 pixels high when they were uploaded wouldn't get resampled at that point because the uploading code pays attention only to width when deciding whether or not to create a medium thumbnail by downsampling the photographer's upload.

 

But in the Rate Recent interface (and Slideshows), the medium thumbnail might be resampled down by the browser because the height does not fit. This would be true even with a smaller portrait-format image in a relatively large window because browsers chew up so much of the vertical real estate -- for menus, toolbars, navigation "bars", status bars, scroll bars, etc -- that there isn't much vertical space left for content. On top of all the real-estate chewed up by browsers for top-of-page decorations, our page layout uses a little more for the photo.net page header and rating buttons.

 

I don't know why the computer user interface has evolved in a manner that uses up the shorter (vertical) dimension of the screen for all the controls, but it has. Because of the small amount of space available for actual content, even on a big monitor, portrait format images are probably going to get resized more often than landscape format images.

 

For example, I have a 1280x1024 display, and with the Firefox browser maximized, I only end up with a 979x623 display area for the photo. This means a landscape image that was 680 pixels wide wouldn't be downsampled by the browser, but that any portrait image higher than 623 pixels would be downsampled. I can improve things somewhat by switching off the status bar, the navigation bar, and the "bookmarks toolbar", but there is still not a lot vertical space. And most people are not yet running displays this big: 1024x768 pixels is the most common now, and 800x600 is still quite common.

 

In short, portrait format images are probably going to be more susceptible to being downsampled by browsers in the new UI than landscape format images.