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So what do you think?
I’d like to know what you think about the Gallery Preview. I’ll tell you that I love it. I get to showcase tons more designs than I would otherwise, and it keeps me from being the gatekeeper to the Gallery. There have been designs that I thought were absolute locks for the Gallery that turned out to be anything but, and there have been designs that I just included to keep the Preview fresh that ended up scoring way higher than I thought they would.
There are two things I don’t like about it right now, though. One is the name. It’s not really a “preview.” Preview implies that these will be in the Gallery eventually. That’s obviously not the case. The other thing I’m not satisfied with is that people view the purpose differently. Some score the designs against one another instead of on their own merits. That was never my intention, but I’ve obviously been less than clear about the whole thing.
Both of these issues were intentional in many ways — I wanted to see how things would evolve on their own — but I think it’s time to clear things up and turn the Preview (or whatever we change the name to) into a permanent fixture. I really like letting you see so many of the designs I’m getting submitted, and I trust the wisdom of crowds much more than my own judgment.
So let me know what you think! What is a better name for this concept? What would make it better? What should change? What should be added?
Thanks!
This site has not been rated, cast your vote!
Hi Shane,
I’m glad you’re happy with this new feature, but I’m still undecided on whether it’s a good thing or not.
I understand the pressure side of things where you are likely to receive flak if you add designs to the gallery that people think “aren’t up to standard” - therefore it must be nice to have that weight lifted from your shoulders. I suppose it’s also a good thing to have more designs to look at.
However, one problem is that I feel the “featured” designs are now being diluted. They’ve already been seen for up to a week in the preview section which can make me less inclined to comment on them. There’s now also the possibility that there’s maybe TOO many designs? 10 new designs can be quite overwhelming to consider and comment on… What seems to be happening now is that people simply rate the site out of ten rather than actually commenting on it - and I understand that. I wouldn’t want to waste my time to comment on a site that is likely to be removed from the preview in a couple of days anyway. This means the “review” of the site has already taken place with the whole voting period, and no-one seems to comment anymore.
The biggest problem however is that you are adding designs based on scores. If I were a less honest person and my site was added to the preview section, I may be inclined to repeatedly submit high score, delete cookies, return to submit high score, delete cookies, etc, in order to get my site added as a “main feature” and benefit from the added traffic that would create. That has the potential of turning the preview section into a farce.
Lastly, I simply prefer the “putting your balls on the line” approach of featuring a site and then defending your actions. It creates a much more interesting atmosphere and more of a debate where people agree or disagree with it’s inclusion. This seems to have evaporated since the inclusion of the preview section…
That’s my view anyway.
Chris
Fantastic comments, Chris. Thanks! I figured I would be able to count on you for some great feedback.
The comment about too many designs was very interesting. Looking forward to seeing what others have to say about that.
I haven’t seen any problems with illicit voting yet. Yes, I’ve definitely seen people voting multiple times for their own designs, but ultimately there are enough votes that those are largely canceled out. I think we still get a good idea of the general opinion. There will inevitably be one that gets through that shouldn’t, but I think those cases would be very rare.
I had never considered that there might actually be value in the … ahem … “balls on the line” approach :) I definitely can see what you mean, though. Interested to hear what others have to say about that, as well.
Thanks, again!
I quite like the Gallery Preview the way it is set up already as it’s simple and effective, I have a few usability suggestions though which I hope are helpful.
- For a more informative name perhaps something like “Gallery Candidates”?
- On the preview page - http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/gallery-preview/ - it’s not currently clear that the entries are up for vote, and even for those who know they are and click on the site thumbnail it’s confusing to get the site itself and not the vote page. I would suggest something like:
Vote for this site to enter the Gallery
View this site in a new window
————————–
| |
| SITE THUMBNAIL |
| |
————————–
And then in on the voting page itself - http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/gallery-preview/soul-purpose.php - keep the same format you already have (except perhaps with an additional “view this site” link if you want), but add a little something about voting for that site to be a part of the official Unmatched Style gallery so people know exactly what the star rating achieves.
I think too, as Chris Williams said, there should be times when you pick a site -you- think is feature worthy and feature that, giving us your reasons as to why. The majority may be ‘right’ most of the time, but sometimes it’s good to just get a fresh perspective and see a design through someone else’s eyes.
I remember a while back you had an idea of having guest writers feature a site and give their commentary, something like that really appeals to me because it’s a great way to get a variety of opinions on a site from people with different backgrounds and it opens my eyes to things I would not normally look at, eg - a designer with a coder bent would point out how well the code is structured which is something I might not normally pay a lot of attention to; a designer with a strong graphic arts background would concentrate on visual design elements, etc. Maybe you could even have a design once a week or once a fortnight, perhaps something that rated highly in the gallery preview, that you then have commented on by your group of guest writers so that each offers a different perspective on the site?
Some thoughts anyway, hope they help :)
Hi Shane, your preview gallery is more like the sorting hat / box to direct the submission into the various rankings / Hogwarts houses.
I would suggest adding more technical and educational analysis of the submission which finally makes it to the Gallery. Emphasising the latest techniques, multi platform compatibility (including pda), 508’s, Java, Ajax, CMS, etc….
Having guest analyst assist you is a great bonus for us readers, even if you have to pay for this service… I’m sure you are already doing this but an occasional “BIG” name would be a great pull.
This could entice the viewer of the sorting box to return once a submission is selected, you might be able to give the viewer the possibility to track the specific submission……….
Good luck!
Hi Shane, as mentioned by Wim, I would agree that the technical info would be a great addition. I would also love to see the thumbnails slightly reduced in size, I found when navigating around the gallery the number of clicks could have been reduced slightly by including less room for advertising and maybe a 3 column gallery. Having said that, there are a number of galleries around that do that already, so its nice to see the larger previews. Vote 1 for the technical info! Nicely done!
- Cam
Did you take the URL down?
http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/gallery-preview/
Doesn’t work anymore, returns a 404
Yes, Ash. Sorry. It has moved to http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/thumbs-upthumbs-down/