New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

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Josh Lewis

 
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New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Josh Lewis » Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:44 am

Bob Sihler proposed the idea of having a voting bar inside of images on the pages themselves. It was certainly a neat idea, so I took it a step further and made it so that on hover mode the voting displays (so when you hover over an image, you could then vote on it). This would make voting on images a lot easier, especially on pages that use a lot of images. A demonstration can be seen on YouTube (video).

As of right now I've constructed two methods for the vote display. Below the caption and on the upper right corner of the image. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. The first one does not cover any part of the image but seems a little strange that it expands the image box. The second method covers the upper right part on hover, but has the image box stay the same size. Personally I am leaning on method #2 (using the upper right corner on hover). I've tried other methods of having the voting box outside, but it has some complications such as it disappearing when hovering outside of the image. Also it would take a lot of work to figure out even if it could work right.

Thoughts? Questions? Which one do you like if any?

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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Fred Spicker » Thu Sep 26, 2013 1:37 pm

This is a great idea.

I like the upper right option.

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Bob Sihler
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Bob Sihler » Thu Sep 26, 2013 2:05 pm

I like the voting bar being beneath the caption because I usually look at an image first and then read the caption, so my eye and cursor often end up there.

However, I think either would be a great addition and would definitely encourage more voting on the kinds of images that are truly important to this site.

If you made this feature unavailable on, say, albums, that would further reinforce the point that we are trying to put more attention on essential beta, but I understand if that would be a pain to implement.
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by mrchad9 » Thu Sep 26, 2013 5:22 pm

So here is how I would do it...

I am not really a fan of things popping up on the images when you hover. I think it makes the page jumpy, and also I think might take moments longer to vote on something than what I have below. My thought is to make it as seemless and easy as possible. Make it one motion/action rather than two.

Also I am concerned the initial proposal will not work well, and maybe not at all, with smartphones, tablets, and touchscreens. More and more folks are using these, so the site should work great with them.

And I think having the full 1-10 scale for the pics is unnecessary. No one really uses those and I think there are good reasons for that.

So I suggest an icon in the lower right. This is always visible, takes minimal space, and when scrolling on the page you can see what you have and have not voted on (unlike the other option). Here an icon would appear the standard grey initially, and if an image had a vote on it would then appear orange (like our other votes). All votes registered using this icon would count as a 10.

I drew up a checkmark to sort of deviate from the FaceBook template.

The icon initially:

photounchecked.jpg
unchecked
photounchecked.jpg (160.96 KiB) Viewed 6297 times


The icon once voted on:

photochecked.png
checked
photochecked.png (513.05 KiB) Viewed 6297 times

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Bob Sihler
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Bob Sihler » Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:12 pm

Good points by Chad. I think his idea is better as well. Simpler is better.
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by brichardsson » Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:44 pm

mrchad9 wrote:And I think having the full 1-10 scale for the pics is unnecessary. No one really uses those and I think there are good reasons for that.


i've never got a 10 on a pic, but one time i got five 2's, and i think that should count.
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by ZeeJay » Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:52 pm

The thing I really like about this idea is knowing whether or not you already voted on something before clicking on it. Currently I often vote on pictures before I look at the page they are attached to and when I get around to looking at the main page I can't remember which ones I've already voted on and waste a lot of time clicking on them to find out.

Of Josh's two suggestions, I prefer the one where the vote bar is under the caption, but I think I like mrchad's idea even better.

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Josh Lewis

 
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Josh Lewis » Fri Sep 27, 2013 3:07 am

mrchad9 wrote:I am not really a fan of things popping up on the images when you hover. I think it makes the page jumpy, and also I think might take moments longer to vote on something than what I have below. My thought is to make it as seemless and easy as possible. Make it one motion/action rather than two.


I personally don't want the image moving on hover either which is why I favored idea number two. Idea number two has the voting bar appear rather than making the image box jump.

mrchad9 wrote:Also I am concerned the initial proposal will not work well, and maybe not at all, with smartphones, tablets, and touchscreens. More and more folks are using these, so the site should work great with them.


Interesting point, but as long as phones support the pseudo code :hover, then it should work just fine. I could actually make an example of this on a page and have you test it out. Right now it's my birthday so I'm not doing much SummitPost work today. But if you could Chad, test and see if when hovering on a iphone (or whatever you use) to see if the photo caption changes color (from white to a light yellow). If so, this should work just fine.

mrchad9 wrote:And I think having the full 1-10 scale for the pics is unnecessary. No one really uses those and I think there are good reasons for that.


Good reason for not using the full scale? I don't see why. While photo quality is very subjective there are elements that most people want in a photograph. For example there are world famous photographers that almost everyone would like. My point is that it still has a quality rank and that it should not go undermined. By pushing a 10 only system we only further encouraging that kind of voting behavior.

mrchad9 wrote:and when scrolling on the page you can see what you have and have not voted on (unlike the other option).


Not true. With my opinion you could perfectly well see what you voted on hover. The only reason you could not in my demo is because it was only a preview and made using FireBug (the voting bar was actually snagged from the main page). You would be able to remove your vote as well. It wouldn't be additional work because your going to have to hover over the image either way. So as soon as you hover over any part of the image box, the vote bar appears. There is no extra work in doing this.

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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by mrchad9 » Fri Sep 27, 2013 4:27 am

I'm saying with what I proposed you can scroll up and down the page and see what you had voted on and what you hadn't. You don't even have to hover. With your method you have to hover to see the voting bar right?

And the reality is that people vote 10s on pics or don't vote at all. Either it is good enough to like or not worth bothering. We made changes to the voting system and scoring, but it doesn't surprise me at all that it doesn't affect voting on pictures. More effort goes into object pages like mountains and consequently some folks put a different emphasis on voting. Just look around and see how many non 10s you find on pics that were put there by other people. Probably none!

If you make a mockup for me to test I'll be happy to try it on a tablet and a smartphone on Monday (or later if you don't have it then). No need to push right away, we have a few days! But you CAN'T hover on these devices so I seriously doubt it will be as easy to use. You have to either click on the photo (which might open it) or hold your finger on it somehow, then release, hope the bar stays, then vote. Best case scenario it'll still be more steps than a single click on an icon.

I know what I proposed isn't as sexy to code, but I think it might be easier to use and the loss of functionality (not being able to vote 8 or 9 on photos) really only affects far less than a tenth of a percent of the members.

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Josh Lewis

 
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Josh Lewis » Fri Sep 27, 2013 9:58 am

mrchad9 wrote:I'm saying with what I proposed you can scroll up and down the page and see what you had voted on and what you hadn't... With your method you have to hover to see the voting bar right?


With my proposed method I suppose we could make it possible to show a icon on images that you have already voted on (and a click on it could remove the vote as well as the usual method for removing votes). But you are correct that images that you did not vote on would need a hover over the image box to see it. Otherwise there would be no point in having it display on hover mode.

mrchad9 wrote:And the reality is that people vote 10s on pics or don't vote at all.


Which is a shame in my opinion. One of my concerns with making it a icon is that I hope that people don't mindlessly click on a bunch of images on any page they view so that people look back at their stuff. Right now they have to do a little bit of work to play the vote back game. I'm not saying we need to make it hard on folks but the instant 10 on everything might further encourage this.

mrchad9 wrote:Either it is good enough to like or not worth bothering.


If this is true, we might as well have images go to a like system. If a 8/10 truly doesn't mean anything to the minds of the public, than why do we have it setup this way? I use it as an expression of my honest rating of a photograph. It's a cheap way of me being a critique (cheap in the sense that I didn't take the time to explain why). But it's intentions are to both show liking and that a photo might need work (in future taking). Perhaps I'm influenced by TrekNature which is built on photo criticism, but is very honest, helpful, and manages to stay friendly.

mrchad9 wrote:We made changes to the voting system and scoring, but it doesn't surprise me at all that it doesn't affect voting on pictures.


Hate to say it, but you are part of the problem there. :P You vote almost all 10's. But I understand considering that most folks do so as well and join upon a big conformity. It's more difficult to vote outside of 10/10's. People lean on what's easier which is why the same habits are prevailing on main content votes as well.

mrchad9 wrote:If you make a mockup for me to test I'll be happy to try it on a tablet and a smartphone on Monday (or later if you don't have it then). No need to push right away, we have a few days! But you CAN'T hover on these devices so I seriously doubt it will be as easy to use. You have to either click on the photo (which might open it) or hold your finger on it somehow, then release, hope the bar stays, then vote.


That's what I was afraid of. Fortunately there is good news. Someone else has interest in making SummitPost more mobile friendly. I have to first re-code the template and simplify it's HTML/CSS structure first (a good hunk of the work is already done). The good news is that considering that mobile phones display things differently in the first place, perhaps we could make the mobile version non hover with the icon you propose. It shouldn't be too hard to make (using CSS or other code we can inject a object with the 10/10 checkbox vote) and not display the hover mode (to prevent mobile issues). If the icon method you mentioned is used (whether global or phone only), I already found the icon to use. The color of course can be changed because it's a "font". :wink:

I want to end by saying I appreciate your looking out for SummitPost and it's obvious you have it's best interest. We both want what's best for the site and the community at large. So either method is better than what we currently have and will be an improvement no matter what (as far as I know).

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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by gimpilator » Fri Sep 27, 2013 2:56 pm

I think it's a great idea, very modern, very simple, and effective.

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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by brichardsson » Fri Sep 27, 2013 4:57 pm

Josh Lewis wrote:
mrchad9 wrote:We made changes to the voting system and scoring, but it doesn't surprise me at all that it doesn't affect voting on pictures.


Hate to say it, but you are part of the problem there. :P You vote almost all 10's. But I understand considering that most folks do so as well and join upon a big conformity. It's more difficult to vote outside of 10/10's. People lean on what's easier which is why the same habits are prevailing on main content votes as well.


i hate to point out the obvious, but human nature is part of the problem. stop and think for a minute. you're a guy. when was the last time you were hanging with your friends, and a girl walked by, and you told your friends, "dude, that chick is so marginal."

we humans notice and point out the exceptional. it's not a problem, it's just human nature.
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by mrchad9 » Fri Sep 27, 2013 5:02 pm

Correct... I think if we were designing the system from scratch today photos would have a like/dislike system while the object pages would have the 1-10 or some sort of more detailed voting method. There are so many photos, and they are a low effort submission. Consequently the way people voting on them is a bit different than the other submissions. Albums are almost the same way... either you give it a 10 or you skip it.

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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Buz Groshong » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:28 pm

I prefer pictures without frames.

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Josh Lewis

 
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Re: New Method for Voting on Images on Pages

by Josh Lewis » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:58 pm

brichardsson wrote:i hate to point out the obvious, but human nature is part of the problem. stop and think for a minute.


Escape fate buddy. :wink:

brichardsson wrote:you're a guy. when was the last time you were hanging with your friends, and a girl walked by, and you told your friends, "dude, that chick is so marginal."


I have not once said that in my entire life. I've been around folks who have, but I do my best to look for character in people. :)

brichardsson wrote:we humans notice and point out the exceptional. it's not a problem, it's just human nature.


Right, with that in mind voting all 10's is not pointing out the exceptional.

mrchad9 wrote:I think if we were designing the system from scratch today photos would have a like/dislike system while the object pages would have the 1-10 or some sort of more detailed voting method.


It's not too late to change. But the question arises, would the community like that change?

@Buz, I may be able to think of something clever for your case. Give me some time to figure it out. If I forget, give me a hollar.

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