Last night, we replaced our long-established star rating system with a simple 'Thumbs up/down" rating system for mind maps shared on Biggerplate. When looking at a mind map, you now get a very simple visual representation of what the community thinks of a map, showing the total number of likes or dislikes a map has received.
Why replace the stars?
There are a couple of reasons for what might appear to be a simple change. If you'd like to know a bit more about the logic behind the change, read on! If you'd prefer to take a look on site and get 'liking', then head straight to the mind map library!
1) It's now easier/quicker to rate a map
We noticed a long time ago, that people did not leave ratings for maps, no matter how much we encouraged them to do so. Even the most popular maps on Biggerplate had only received a handful of star ratings, even after being on the site for 5 years!
There are any number of reasons for this, but we think a key reason is because a star rating system requires a little too much thought and consideration. It may sound silly, but in the time it takes a user to consider whether a map is a 3 star or 4 star map, they have probably lost interest and moved on to the next page. We hope that a simpler system, will encourage more users to give feedback, in the form of a simple click that shows "yes I like this map". This is more of a gut feeling/reaction to a map, and (hopefully) therefore requires less consideration!
2) It will improve the visibility of good maps
This new system will soon be helping to greatly improve the visibility of high quality maps, as we make several changes to the site that will rely on 'likes' to inform how easy it is to see the most highly rated content within the library. Our aim is to help great maps become more visible, and this new system will make this job much easier.
3) It will help with author recognition/visibility
A serious objective for Biggerplate this year is to improve author visibility and recognition throughout the site. We feel our most pro-active members should be made more visible, and those who are sharing numerous high quality mind maps should have their content seen more. We are currently working on a system that will help to highlight members who are sharing lots of maps, and (especially) those members whose maps are well-received by the community. Basically, if you are sharing lots of maps with us, and getting lots of 'likes', we want to help you (and your maps) to be seen more! The new thumbs up/down system will play a key part in helping us to do this!
We hope you all like this little change, along with the new larger map images on each page. Help us to get this new system off to a good start by clicking around and giving the thumbs up (or down) to the maps you see! Take me to the library!!!
