Forum feedback forum: Review Page overhaul

As a forum moderator and CNET power user, I'd like to reply to your comments.

One of the focuses of the redesign was to better integrate product information, editor reviews, and user reviews, creating a complete picture on the product main page. Much like CNN's highlights section, this enables users to obtain a quick overview and determine if they wish to read more or move onto the next product, without clicking from page to page.

That integration includes displaying user review information prominently on the page in the form of one user review under the editor's review, if there is one. The space allocated to the editor's and user's reviews are equal before expanding one of the reviews, and favors the editor's review once it is expanded as editor reviews are generally much longer. Thus, the 'main' review page is still primarily dedicated to the editor's review. (The old version still displayed user review excerpts, but in the right-hand column.)

Although I agree that the discontent are often the most vocal, which can skew ratings, note that the one user review displayed in full is the one rated by other users as being the most helpful. That helps ensure that the displayed user review is beneficial and closest in league with the editor's review. Although some do not place much stock in user opinions, there is a significant shift toward user-generated content via blogs, forums, comments, etc, and this kind of integration helps users find the alternative takes they're looking for.

Finally, regarding color schemes, each site within CNET is differentiated by color scheme. Downloads, for instance, uses green, Reviews uses blue, News uses red, and CNET (main) uses yellow. The color schemes are reflected in the headers, via both hues and borders. This was part of the redesign of 2007 and has been carried throughout CNET ever since, so that suggestion would have been best made three years ago. The main difference in this Reviews redesign is that the divisions between sections are 22px thick with the description in the divider instead of 3px think and the description atop the divider. The colors themselves have remained exactly the same, and the styling change makes the divisions between sections more pronounced.

These redesign decisions were not made hastily, with weeks of users being invited to CNET so that their usage of the site could be studied and their suggestions could be investigated. Once the new design was created, thousands of users from around the world were randomly selected and displayed the redesigned pages, all of whom had the opportunity to complete surveys and offer their suggestions before the redesign was completed a couple weeks ago.

You may prefer the old look, but the majority of users overwhelmingly preferred the new design, which will remain the layout for some time to come. You're always welcome to make suggestions, though, which may be included in minor tweaks as well as future redesigns down the road. In the interim, I hope you come to appreciate the user-centered nature of the new Reviews pages.

Regards,
John



P.S. The username issue is well known and is documented in the forum sticky. I'm submitting an alert on your behalf.

Clicking the red stars take you to the editor's review page, but you have to click to expand it. Clicking on the blue stars take you to the user's review page, which needs not be clicked to expand. That should actually be an easy change since the ability to provide a link that auto-expands the editor's review already exists. I'll see if this can be tweaked so the red stars automatically expand the review while the main link in the search results does not, highlighting the entire page. No guarantees, but we'll see.

Regards,
John