rankmylist.com, please critique

N

Nik Coughlin

A work in progress, would like anyone who has a moment to please take a
look:

Current site is http://rankmylist.com/

Next version is http://rankmylist.com/testTabs/

The tables for layout will be replaced with CSS in the next iteration.

So far tested in IE6/7 and newest versions of Firefox and Opera, seems to
work fine.

Any comments, critiques, questions or suggestions on the html/css, layout or
mechanics of the page very welcome!
 
W

William Tasso

Fleeing from the madness of the CLEAR Net New Zealand
http://www.clear.net.nz - Complaints (e-mail address removed) jungle
Nik Coughlin <[email protected]> stumbled into
news:alt.html,alt.html.critique,alt.www.webmaster
and said:


Not Found
The requested URL /testTabs/ was not found on this server.


Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an
ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.36 Server at rankmylist.com Port 80
 
C

Charles Sweeney

Nik Coughlin wrote

Visually it's very nice indeed, clean, easy to read, uncluttered.

As a concept I think it's bonkers. It's a website that tells you how much
you like things? Do you need to be told that? Don't you already know
that? Will there be a rush of people visiting to remember what they like
most?
 
T

Toby Inkster

Charles said:
As a concept I think it's bonkers. It's a website that tells you how much
you like things? Do you need to be told that? Don't you already know
that? Will there be a rush of people visiting to remember what they like
most?

A very good point.

An improvement in usefulness would be a way to save my list as, say,
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list, and save my rankings as
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/toby. Then I could invite people to
visit http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/ and rank the list too -- and
they could save it as http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/dave or
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/bob. http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/
could display an overall set of rankings.
 
W

wayne

Toby said:
Make a list of red, green, yellow, blue and click "apply". The first
time it asks, vote for either of the two colours (doesn't matter), now
repeatedly click "I can't decide" and look at the rankings. :)
Choose one of the other colors after the above directions and click "I
can't decide" again.

--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.us
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things
and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes religion.
—Steven Weinberg
 
N

Nik Coughlin

wayne said:
Choose one of the other colors after the above directions and click "I
can't decide" again.

Haha, it never used to do that, will have to have a look, thanks.
 
C

Charles Sweeney

Toby Inkster wrote
A very good point.

An improvement in usefulness would be a way to save my list as, say,
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list, and save my rankings as
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/toby. Then I could invite people to
visit http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/ and rank the list too -- and
they could save it as http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/dave or
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/bob.
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/ could display an overall set of
rankings.

Yes, that could be interesting.
 
P

Paul Watt

Nik Coughlin said:
A work in progress, would like anyone who has a moment to please take a
look:

Current site is http://rankmylist.com/

Next version is http://rankmylist.com/testTabs/

The tables for layout will be replaced with CSS in the next iteration.

So far tested in IE6/7 and newest versions of Firefox and Opera, seems to
work fine.

Any comments, critiques, questions or suggestions on the html/css, layout
or mechanics of the page very welcome!

Hi,
I didnt like the bit telling me what browser I should be using. Surely the
aim is to display correctly whatever browser is being used?

--
Cheers

Paul
le singe est dans l'arbre
http://www.paulwatt.info
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Paul said:
Hi,
I didnt like the bit telling me what browser I should be using.
Surely the aim is to display correctly whatever browser is being used?

It does display correctly, just not as nicely. IE 6 and under are incapable
of displaying links with an alpha transparent background without some extra
work that I'm not willing to undertake. Point taken though.
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Leonard said:
Perhaps some indication of progress while clicking on options would be
of help. Or a far smaller example group than food. When do you stop or
win ;-)

The ranking algorithm is undergoing an upgrade, once it's done I'll add a
progress indicator (i.e., how close you are to having made a decision for
each possible combination), thanks!
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Charles said:
Nik Coughlin wrote


Visually it's very nice indeed, clean, easy to read, uncluttered.

As a concept I think it's bonkers. It's a website that tells you how
much you like things? Do you need to be told that? Don't you
already know that? Will there be a rush of people visiting to
remember what they like most?

Whenever things ask me what my 10 favorite bands or movies etc. are I have
trouble making my mind up, the idea was for a tool that could help me get
over my indecisiveness. Hopefully some other people will find it useful or
fun for the same reason :)
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Toby said:
A very good point.

An improvement in usefulness would be a way to save my list as, say,
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list, and save my rankings as
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/toby. Then I could invite people to
visit http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/ and rank the list too -- and
they could save it as http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/dave or
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/bob.
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/ could display an overall set of
rankings.

Hi Toby,

Once I've implemented the private/public list functionality currently on my
to do list you'll be able to do just that :) I like the url structure
you've suggested a lot though.
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Toby said:
Make a list of red, green, yellow, blue and click "apply". The first
time it asks, vote for either of the two colours (doesn't matter), now
repeatedly click "I can't decide" and look at the rankings. :)

When I changed the urls from index.php?blah=blah to just ?blah=blah it broke
that, I've fixed it now though, thanks!
 
L

Leonard Blaisdell

"Nik Coughlin said:
The ranking algorithm is undergoing an upgrade, once it's done I'll add a
progress indicator (i.e., how close you are to having made a decision for
each possible combination), thanks!

I quit. I had elevens, tens and nines through the first six rankings and
no clue whether I got a cookie or what for completing the thing. Isn't
that some factorial deal for all possible combinations that might take
me the rest of my life? 30x29x28...

leo
 
D

David Segall

Nik Coughlin said:
A work in progress, would like anyone who has a moment to please take a
look:

Current site is http://rankmylist.com/

Next version is http://rankmylist.com/testTabs/

The tables for layout will be replaced with CSS in the next iteration.

So far tested in IE6/7 and newest versions of Firefox and Opera, seems to
work fine.

Any comments, critiques, questions or suggestions on the html/css, layout or
mechanics of the page very welcome!
The sort algorithm does not seem to terminate! If I enter 1,2 it just
keeps asking me to compare them. You need an algorithm that uses the
minimum number of comparisons and maintains the original order for
equal values - the "I don't know" case. You also need an algorithm
that never gives the user a chance to contradict himself. That is, if
he prefers 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 then he must not be asked to compare 1
and 3 in case he decides on 3. I'd like to give you a suitable
algorithm but I don't know one.
 
N

Nik Coughlin

David said:
The sort algorithm does not seem to terminate! If I enter 1,2 it just
keeps asking me to compare them. You need an algorithm that uses the
minimum number of comparisons and maintains the original order for
equal values - the "I don't know" case. You also need an algorithm
that never gives the user a chance to contradict himself. That is, if
he prefers 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 then he must not be asked to compare 1
and 3 in case he decides on 3. I'd like to give you a suitable
algorithm but I don't know one.

In the next iteration it will only ask you to compare each possible pair
once, in a random order, I was just too lazy to do this initially which is
why it is always random. However, the user *will* be able to contradict
themselves. It seems to work better if they can, believe it or not!

Thanks for taking the time to play with it.
 
D

David Segall

Nik Coughlin said:
In the next iteration it will only ask you to compare each possible pair
once, in a random order
I doubt if any visitor will have the patience to do this. According to
my rather rusty maths you will be asking them to do (n*(n-1))/2
comparisons when, in the easiest case, they only needed to do n-1. For
a list of five items that's ten instead of four which is tolerable.
However, most people could order five items without the aid of your
program. For your food list it's 4,465 instead of 94.
, I was just too lazy to do this initially which is
why it is always random. However, the user *will* be able to contradict
themselves. It seems to work better if they can, believe it or not!
I'm sure it does given your definition of better. My definition of
better was minimising the amount of effort for your user.

I should add that I think your project is a good idea and my comments
are only intended to optimise it for my use :)
 

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