Reviews website, any design ideas? and your views on reviews.

[Sims]

Hi,

We want to create a website that reviews businesses in our area.
We already have the data, (our review followed by user
reviews/comments/vote). The data is fairly extensive

But now we would like to look at a few ideas for the design of the site
itself.
Would you guys know a few good sites where we could get ideas on how to
present the reviews in a friendly professional manner.

We would also like to be know for our fairness and as such we had to give
bad reviews to certain businesses, (they know about it).
But, what are you views on bad reviews? Don't show them? Re-word them not to
sound offensive? Be overly rude on how bad they are?

Sims

 

[Kim André Akerø]

Hi,

We want to create a website that reviews businesses in our area.
We already have the data, (our review followed by user
reviews/comments/vote). The data is fairly extensive

But now we would like to look at a few ideas for the design of the site
itself.
Would you guys know a few good sites where we could get ideas on how to
present the reviews in a friendly professional manner.

The design itself? Easy to understand, not too graphics-heavy, good and
clean. Whatever your preference is, basically.

Personally, I feel that design ideas comes along better when I sit down with
a pen and a couple of sheets of paper and jot things down. First, I make a
list of all the features I want to cram into the site itself. Then, I start
drawing the outline of the design (while having the nature of the content
the website will have in the back of my mind), complete with sketches of the
graphics, content placement (basic layout of the article text, title and
illustrations), ad placements (if necessary), colors, etc. After that, it's
all about moving the idea from paper to pure digital and develop the design
further.

We would also like to be know for our fairness and as such we had to give
bad reviews to certain businesses, (they know about it).
But, what are you views on bad reviews? Don't show them? Re-word them not to
sound offensive? Be overly rude on how bad they are?

Being overly rude will get you nowhere, and will only make you sound
unprofessional. If it's really bad, try re-wording it so you're rather
giving them suggestions on ways to improve in a polite way. In general,
there are always ways to improve, nobody's perfect.

Even I've tried the world of reviewing stuff here:
http://www.neonreviews.com/

It's still not much, since I enter new reviews only when I have the time and
energy for it. But, at least I spent a lot of time and effort creating that
publishing system from scratch, and that part turned out great. In my own
opinion, that is.