Add-on XenReviews [CrowdFund]

[Alpha1]

I suspect you may misunderstand it as I see no conflict between the statement. Each review will not have an information block. There will be one information block in a thread / listing.

Consider this tripadvisor page: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaura...7812-Reviews-Bombay_Darbar-Miami_Florida.html
Right below the breadcrumb, there is an information block which holds the following information fields:

1. Name of restaurant
2. Address
3. Telephone
4. website
5. email
6. menu
7. Photo's
   
8. ranking
9. number of reviews
10. prizes won
11. Price range
12. Cuisine

This is the information block mentioned. It only occurs once. In XenReviews it will work similar, but every admin can define which fields will be displayed in the information block.

If a member posts a duplicate listing then its up to the moderators to delete the s2nd listing and move the new review to the original listing.

Below this information block you see the rating details and beside it you see an interactive map.
Below that you see all reviews. Xenreviews will work the same.

Now consider this tripadvisor page: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaura...ews-Faine_Misto-Ternopil_Ternopil_Oblast.html
This only has an information block, but no reviews yet.

This actually exposes one thing that we have not previously touched upon. Notice the 'update restaurant details' function. We need the same function, otherwise there will be a great many listings without the appropriate details without a possibility to add information to the information fields.i.e.:

• Information block will have an 'update listing details' function that allows users to edit the information block fields.

@Daniel Hood Could you add this to the list? I can not edit my post above.

 

[Jeff Berry]

@Mouth @Alfa1 Thank you for the list of features you both supplied. Very much appreciated.

As far as the duplicate listings go - there is no real good way to check / assure that a listing is actually a duplicate on the programming side. We will do what we can to put some of those preventions in (maybe once they submit, it can ask them - "these already existing items are similar, is yours any of them?"). However, we don't want to rely completely on the programming to filter out duplicates, as it could cause issues or raise false flags if it is not actually a duplicate and just share a similar title or such.

Thanks again for the input, and @Alfa1 I'd also like to hear what some of these extra features are you suggested to Daniel. I don't think he is online right now and I would like to start compiling a master list, as it seems this project will most definitely be reaching it's $1500 start point within the next few weeks anyway.

 

[Alpha1]

Thanks again for the input, and @Alfa1 I'd also like to hear what some of these extra features are you suggested to Daniel. I don't think he is online right now and I would like to start compiling a master list, as it seems this project will most definitely be reaching it's $1500 start point within the next few weeks anyway.

The project will go way beyond it's start point as soon as Daniel and I are agreed on my investment.

If that works out (I'm sure it will) and if some more people join in, then the crowd fund project will be at $3000 in no time.

 

[Mouth]

I suspect you may misunderstand it as I see no conflict between the statement. Each review will not have an information block. There will be one information block in a thread / listing.
[...]
Below this information block you see the rating details and beside it you see an interactive map.
Below that you see all reviews. Xenreviews will work the same.
[...]

Got it. But how does this work for things - items/products that can be everywhere? Will XenReview's information block change (or even disappear) based on the class of item being reviewed? An information block with the business details and the location map are irrelevant for things/products at the item level. And then in the review(s) of the thing/product, the information block and map does become relevant for each review since the business, price and location is important. You may be interested in the meta-data of the item (let's call it the SuperExcelRefridgerator 300o with the instant ice maker) and link(s) back to the manufacturers information page and PDF manual, but you're also interested in the reviews and whom nearby you got it at which business for the best price in your area.

Take http://www.productreview.com.au/p/delonghi-nescafe-dolce-gusto-system-circolo.html for example. I might see that this thing/product scores great and I've decided that it's the birthday present I'm going to buy my wife. Now I want to read the reviews to not only see peoples experience with this product, but also see whom got it at a business nearby me (and does this business rate well for service and warranty support etc. (hopefully linking back to the review item listing for the business )) and was it at a great price? Thus, the information block with business information and price etc. becomes relevant at the review level. Back to the productreview.com.au page again I can see that I would probably like to purchase this coffee maker from 'Coles' because this business has a better score than either 'Big W' or 'Harvey Norman'.

Another scenario ... let's say I'm creating a review item for a service, for example Fedex. Do I want 100's of items for individual Fedex locations each with their own information block containing address and contact details, and location map. And then review(s) for that single Fedex location. Yes, there is merit is doing it with this methodology as I'm interested if my local Fedex deliverer is good and considerate or if he manhandles my boxes. But each individual Fedex business item should roll-up to a central (top of the pyramid) item for Fedex global (or Fedex USA, which then rolls-up again into Fedex global) because I want the scoring of each individual Fedex location to be averaged and represented at the Fedex global item. So I can easily compare and see the scoring of Fedex as a global company against UPS as a global company. As a user, I'm even possibly wanting to enter my review against the Fedex global item, instead of one of the 100's of individual Fedex location items because my review is about them as a global business, not an individual business or deliverer.

 

[Jeff Berry]

Got it. But how does this work for things - items/products that can be everywhere? Will XenReview's information block change (or even disappear) based on the class of item being reviewed? An information block with the business details and the location map are irrelevant for things/products at the item level. And then in the review(s) of the thing/product, the information block and map does become relevant for each review since the business, price and location is important. You may be interested in the meta-data of the item (let's call it the SuperExcelRefridgerator 300o with the instant ice maker) and link(s) back to the manufacturers information page and PDF manual, but you're also interested in the reviews and whom nearby you got it at which business for the best price in your area.

Take http://www.productreview.com.au/p/delonghi-nescafe-dolce-gusto-system-circolo.html for example. I might see that this thing/product scores great and I've decided that it's the birthday present I'm going to buy my wife. Now I want to read the reviews to not only see peoples experience with this product, but also see whom got it at a business nearby me (and does this business rate well for service and warranty support etc. (hopefully linking back to the review item listing for the business )) and was it at a great price? Thus, the information block with business information and price etc. becomes relevant at the review level. Back to the productreview.com.au page again I can see that I would probably like to purchase this coffee maker from 'Coles' because this business has a better score than either 'Big W' or 'Harvey Norman'.

Another scenario ... let's say I'm creating a review item for a service, for example Fedex. Do I want 100's of items for individual Fedex locations each with their own information block containing address and contact details, and location map. And then review(s) for that single Fedex location. Yes, there is merit is doing it with this methodology as I'm interested if my local Fedex deliverer is good and considerate or if he manhandles my boxes. But each individual Fedex business item should roll-up to a central (top of the pyramid) item for Fedex global (or Fedex USA, which then rolls-up again into Fedex global) because I want the scoring of each individual Fedex location to be averaged and represented at the Fedex global item. So I can easily compare and see the scoring of Fedex as a global company against UPS as a global company. As a user, I'm even possibly wanting to enter my review against the Fedex global item, instead of one of the 100's of individual Fedex location items because my review is about them as a global business, not an individual business or deliverer.

As for your last point (franchises, smaller subsidiaries of larger parent companies, etc) they will most definitely be averaged and sorted together, but also available individually. Basically your scenario is correct in line with what I envision for how that will work.

The information block will obviously appear/disappear as necessary, yes. I think this is hard for all of us to illustrate our ideas right now because of the lack of an actual platform for us to all reference off of. Daniel and myself are going to start working on a wireframe/whiteboard style mock up in order to start laying out the GUI and general features. This will hopefully help you to understand some of these basic functionalities.

 

[Alpha1]

@Mouth Good questions there.

items/products that can be everywhere? Will XenReview's information block change (or even disappear) based on the class of item being reviewed? An information block with the business details and the location map are irrelevant for things/products at the item level.

The information block consists of fields. Fields are defined on category level. So you can have categories for products, while having other categories for companies, and yet other categories for services or whatever.
If you would create a book reviews category then the information block can have fields that only apply to books. Like ISBN number, author, pages, etc.

Take http://www.productreview.com.au/p/delonghi-nescafe-dolce-gusto-system-circolo.html for example. ...also see whom got it at a business nearby me (and does this business rate well for service and warranty support etc. (hopefully linking back to the review item listing for the business )) and was it at a great price?

Such functionality is currently not in the feature list. I would be very nice to have a price-scanner function that finds & lists companies and prices. That should function should generate a good amount of income. Maybe @Daniel Hood can comment on the possibility of this function making it in or not.

Another scenario ... let's say I'm creating a review item for a service, for example Fedex. ...

This point is not clear to me. Maybe use another example. I can say though that it will likely be possible to use a linked tag field for brands. So if you add such a field for FedEx, then clicking on the tag link will show all fedex items.

 

[Daniel Hood]

Sorry for my silence the last couple of days. @Jeff Berry had it pretty well covered and I felt @Alfa1 has been explaining features fairly well also.

I will comment more tomorrow but Jeff and I are going to start working on a wireframe/whiteboard demonstration to help clear up some of these questions and the miscommunication that has come up. Once we get some visuals to show you guys, I feel a lot of these questions and concerns will go away. I feel we have a good idea of what everyone wants to see. We're pretty close to the half way point (and with Alfa's contribution we're actually there, he's just wanting to see the wireframe and work out some details before making it official).

Tomorrow we'll work on getting something up for you to see.

 

[trizz]

just dropped in a contribution of $200! very exciting project, thanks for the quick replies via PM. looking forward to getting this installed and testing it out!

 

[Daniel Hood]

Index
This is something along the lines of how we imagine the index of the reviews system looking. This is just a mockup, it is not exactly how it will look.



Item listing coming up next.

 

[Walter]

Added my contribution.

 

[Alpha1]

Index
This is something along the lines of how we imagine the index of the reviews system looking.

I think it should be possible for the admin to set the category display to look like this:
http://www.tripadvisor.nl/RestaurantSearch?geo=154995&q=London,+Ontario,+Canada&cat=&pid=
http://www.productreview.com.au/c/vitamins-dietary-supplements.html

I think tripadvisor and productreviews.com.au have this down pretty well. So we should use those sites as an example and combine it with RM looks.

 

[Daniel Hood]

There will definitely be filters to search by.

 

[Alpha1]

Looking at those pages I see the following important aspects:

• Categories (also on your example)
• Filters (expandable)
• Sort by ...
  
• Item preview bit: Item image (also in your example)
• Item preview bit: Rating stars followed by '4.5 from 21 reviews'
• Item preview bit: latest review(s) snippet
• Item preview bit: link to map
• Item preview bit: link to images
  
• Widget: Category items on map
  
• Widget: Recently viewed

 

[Mouth]

I think tripadvisor and productreviews.com.au have this down pretty well. So we should use those sites as an example and combine it with RM looks.

Yup, agreed. Sorry, but that index screen looks bland an unappealing - add in a few more rows and every row gets lost within. Thumbnails are too small to be identifable, and not enough information on the listing to make me want to click on it.

 

[intradox]

Yup, agreed. Sorry, but that index screen looks bland an unappealing - add in a few more rows and every row gets lost within. Thumbnails are too small to be identifable, and not enough information on the listing to make me want to click on it.

I would have to agree. I think RM is fine with simple information but a review needs more information.

If the section was hotels for instance having the title + description + rating is not really enough. Showing more information would be helpful. I think it just needs more metadata included and perhaps a larger image to match a potentially taller row height.

 

[Alpha1]

I would have to agree. I think RM is fine with simple information but a review needs more information.

If the section was hotels for instance having the title + description + rating is not really enough. Showing more information would be helpful. I think it just needs more metadata included and perhaps a larger image to match a potentially taller row height.

Good point. I think this is fairly simple to resolve by giving fields a setting 'display on category: Y/N'
This way every admin can define what needs to be displayed per setup.

One thing that I find very important in regards to category display is that we need to be able to use XenReviews for different applications on the same site. What I mean is that I would want to have a book reviews section, which is completely separated from the restaurants section. i.e. if the user is in the books section, then I do not want the user to see a restaurants category anywhere in the left category nav menu widget.

 

[SelfSufficientMe]

One thing that I find very important in regards to category display is that we need to be able to use XenReviews for different applications on the same site. What I mean is that I would want to have a book reviews section, which is completely separated from the restaurants section. i.e. if the user is in the books section, then I do not want the user to see a restaurants category anywhere in the left category nav menu widget.

Yes, my thoughts exactly because my reviews categories will be broad - one could be "books" and the next a "business." So for respective categories, it would be helpful if the navigation info offered links/teasers to other reviews in that subject but not cluttered with a whole list of other categories whilst still having a "Main" nav link back to all categories page.

In fairness to Daniel's example of a home page index of all categories (I assume) I think it's a good start - it's difficult to convey the end product through a quick mock up. I'm looking forward to seeing it in action live and how it evolves from there. Personally, I've wanted a dedicated reviews system for years so I'm pretty excited about this project.

 

[Daniel Hood]

I understand what you're all saying. It was just a quick teaser. I expect the finished product to be a lot more in detail. I am still very glad it that it was posted because this is a lot of great feedback that we're getting now.

 

[Alpha1]

A side note in relation to the investments all of us are making and hopefully others will make to:
Will you be putting all other projects on the back burner to make sure that this very large project is completed without delay?

 

[Jeff Berry]

I cannot speak for Daniel, but as for myself I do not have any other projects going on at the moment besides some personal side projects I work on every once in a while. Therefore, if/when this gets funded and we begin full development, yes it will be my priority. I'm sure Daniel will have a similar response. I have already started on the database design and some basic framework for this project though. Once it reaches a point where we are confident the funding will be a success we will convert to full-time development, because unfortunately at this point it is somewhat all-or-nothing in regards to the funding.

As for the mockup Daniel posted - we appreciate the feedback you left, and I hope you understand that representation is not what the product will look like. Daniel and I had a lengthy discussion about how to provide some mock designs for you guys, but unfortunately with a project as dynamic as this one will be it is very difficult to visually represent what the final product will look like. The sites you have provided for examples (tripadvisor especially) will be our inspiration as far as user interface goes, but we cannot necessarily come up with a draft of what that will look like, because you will all end up having different content types and overall appearances. In my opinion though, the user interface is of very low priority right now, because in the end that is just HTML and can be changed very easily. The important part is the backend, the core features, and the ability to adapt that to whatever different content types you guys may end up using (restaurants, books, etc). I feel that most of us are on the same page as far as that goes.