Gallery Preview Plans
I really appreciate the comments from Chris, Harmony and Wim. Here are my plans to respond to those.
First, I’m still going to keep the basic concept. I want to make sure the site content keeps flowing, and I simply don’t have the time or the skill to do that on my own. Letting you guys give a thumbs up/thumbs down helps me tremendously and helps better ensure that Gallery entries really deserve to be there.
With that in mind, here are my current, specific plans to revamp the Preview.
Usability
As I admitted, and Harmony pointed out in more detail, the usability of the Preview is definitely lacking — beginning with the name. So, I’m thinking now of going with Harmony’s “Gallery Candidates” suggestion unless someone comes up with a better name. I’ve thought and thought, but can’t come up with anything I really like that also conveys the real purpose of the section.
I’m also going to greatly enhance the messaging and interface — well, I guess “enhance” would imply that either of those things is in place substantially right now. That’s obviously not the case, so I guess I should say add messaging and a better interface.
Timeliness
Chris mentioned that leaving sites in the Preview so long really sucked the freshness out of them by the time they made it to the Gallery. I completely agree, so I’m going to start pulling sites after a max of three days (or maybe two, depending on how things go).
Volume
Realizing that 10 could very well be overwhelming, I’ll probably introduce no more than two/day. That should give us a max of six at any one time. I may need to adjust that, but I’ll err on the side of having too few.
Scoring
As I mentioned to Chris, I think the voting system, while no doubt flawed, still more than adequately serves the purpose.
However, I am going to go to a thumbs up/thumbs down system where you vote simply Yes or No on whether they should go into the Gallery. Then I’ll reset everything when it goes into the Gallery to give it a fresh life.
I’ll probably change things up this weekend, so you still have a chance to get your comments in if you have any. Comments on the new plan are welcome as well!
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Hi Shane,
Really liking the sound of your impending changes.
The idea of having 6 designs in total, and 2 new designs added each day sits perfectly with me. This almost creates a “conveyor belt” of designs - giving your audience a maximum of 3 days to either give it the thumbs up or down as it shuttles along (3 days to go, 2 days to go, LAST DAY). Once it reaches the end of the conveyor belt it either drops into the reject bin or gets promoted to the Gallery. Brilliance :o)
This should definitely help in keeping things fresh.
The Thumbs up/down idea is also going to be an improvement, hopefully giving you a better judgement call of people’s opinion rather than the usual 4 to 7 stars out of ten that everyone chooses.
Finally, I think “Gallery Candidates” is an adequate title to begin with - it certainly seems to sum up the whole gist of the idea. In time I’m sure you’ll come up with something more snappy!
Right, well I’m heading off on holiday for a few days, so good luck with all the changes and keep up the good work. It’s really nice to see you continually improving Unmatched Style, with it having quickly become one of my favourite CSS showcase sites of late…
Chris
Shane…
I think all the changes you’re suggesting sound great!
I’m especially interested in seeing how the thumbs up/thumbs down scoring system affects the results.
Thanks, guys! Your support has been great, not only now but continuously since I took over. I really appreciate it.
Sounds good :)!
Just an idea, but how about “Gallery Contenders” or “Gallery Vote” or “Gallery Thumbs” or “In or Out”