We’ve fixed the weirdness of clicking on one report and getting another. We’ve also found that trying to rank the reports with a “helpful” or “not helpful” doesn’t work very well, as most are scored helpful and have the same average score (perfect). So, we’d like your comments on how we can improve this new feature:
Is it worth rating the reports, and should we go to a 1 - 5 scale or similar that would allow for some differentiation? Or, like some sites, should we just show how many thought a report was useful and not worry about comparisons?
It seems like many people have run out of room on the “short answers”. This is partly a technical issue because we don’t yet have a good feedback mechanism that warns the user that the space is full. But, in general, would you prefer to read a longer narrative report with very brief one-liners on specific visit aspects, or longer descriptions on those particular aspects (Friendliness of Students, Appearance of Campus, etc.)
What other suggestions do you have? Any difficulties in finding what you are looking for (other than lack of content for most schools)?
Thanks for any input, and again, particular thanks to those who have taken a few minutes to report on their college visit(s)!
<li>I like the idea of just “how many found this report useful” rather than ratings. Especially since every report pretty much has a perfect…its rather useless right now lol.</li>
<li>Definately longer answers on particular aspects; with how short many of the responses are cut, its difficult for the reports to really differentiate that much from each other. I think it’d be nice to let the writers report on a lot of the particulars they found interesting on their trip…a lot of the reports don’t really have the chance to do this. It’s already pretty difficult to get a feel for the college reading a report…but hey, anything extra can help.</li>
<li>Can’t think of anything right now…</li>
make it possible to delete reports you have written. i messed up on one (the text-being-cut-off problem) and had to make a new report
edit: OH NO! looks like the mods deleted the wrong report after i asked them to…darn…please delete the remaining uchicago report from this user…i guess i’ll try again next time
Sure, macnyc, by all means post it in the new area so it will be easier to find. There’s a 15 minute edit window now, jimbob, maybe we can lengthen that.
I agree Jarred about just showing the number of people who found the report useful. On the short answer questions, I would personally prefer if the answer space was expanded. The way I look at it, the more info the better. Thanks for the great work so far!
This is not related but for a different time. Can you guys maybe setup a professor review section where students from each college can review professors. Yes reviewmyprofessor.com exists but it sucks, and is full of those crappy flash ads. I think CC can do a far better job and it’ll attract more traffic from current college students! (Just a suggestion.)
LOL, that was the idea… Members were putting in long paragraphs that got cut off. Based on the feedback, though, we’re considering expanding the allowable size of these comments.
I kind of like the idea of one-liners with more info in the bottom if you care to elaborate. I do think the space could be a little bit longer to be able to complete a thought though. Maybe a 2 liner? LOL
Overall I think the site is looking awesome and I am looking forward to seeing a lot more reports.
1.) I don’t know about ratings…I would go the “how many people found it helpful” route rather than 1-5.
2.) LONG answers. Short answers always leave you wanting more, plus it becomes difficult to differentiate b/w different colleges when all that fits is “friendly people”
I still have to scroll through each college visit report to get to the one I want to view. When I click on the college link it takes me to the last-posted college visit report instead of to the college I wanted. I don’t mind doing this - it’s interesting to read about other colleges and there are only 63 reports. However, as time goes on there will probably be hundreds of reports listed and that would be too hard to navigate.
Thanks to all who have commented in this thread or elsewhere. In response to your comments, we’ve made some changes to the Visit Report posting form. We’ve expanded the room on the form for specific comments on the tour, campus, etc. and increased the limit to 500 characters (about 100 words or so). We don’t have a “past the limit” warning mechanism yet, though, so be careful not to get carried away with the “short answers”.
The “Visit Description” field is for your lengthier comments, funny tour guide stories, how bad the cafeteria food was, etc. - it can hold as much as a few full-length application essays (10000 characters), though we doubt if you’ll need that space.
Roger, the links on the left are still misdirecting. I clicked on William and Mary and got Cornell. I eventually found William and Mary by clicking on something else! Hey, maybe that should be my approach to college hunting!
It seems the problem is fixed. It happened yesterday on the “College Visits” page when I clicked on the quick links under “Most Recent Reports” and “Most Popular”.
OK, I think I know what the problem is. The “Most Recent” list currently is position based. So, if you click on the second link, you go the the second most recent. If someone has posted a report since you loaded the home page, you’ll go to the NEW #2 report, not the one you were expecting.
I think this could be a bit confusing, so we’ll see if we can do that linkage in a way that you’ll always get what you expect.
Is this limited to college visits or to college experiences as well (in the style of other college websites)? If only the prior, you guys should consider expanding it to include first-hand reviews of colleges. It would give more than just the superficial first impressions a person gets on a visit and these open reviews tend to attract a wide range of perspectives.
Members were putting in long paragraphs that got cut off. Based on the feedback, though, we’re considering expanding the allowable size of these comments.