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I have a client who wants me to improve the usability of their current iOS app.. they have a voting mechanism that looks like this:

enter image description here

i figured that this was bad usability b/c it didn't add up the votes to a final number (like how it's done on stack exchange).. and so I created a design that's very similar to the stack exchange voting style:

enter image description here

he said that he hated my design! he said he didn't like my idea of a vote up vote down.. he couldn't think of another way though..

so any suggestions here folks? any sample implementations of this idea on some famous android or iphone apps?

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    my bad.. i took away the rest of my design and focused on just the concept of a vote up down for a mobile device.. i hope that makes my question more generic..
    – abbood
    Mar 9, 2013 at 14:05
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    "he said that he hated my design!" Unfortunately, there's nothing inherently wrong with your design except that the client didn't like it. In this case the "best" answer is really the one that correctly guesses the mindset of the client. I don't know how to help you there; maybe the best approach would be to get some more specific feedback from the client?
    – Benjamin Malley
    Mar 9, 2013 at 15:25
  • well this ux business is an interesting world.. i'm a developer by trade.. but I also do/read about a lot of ux/ui stuff.. as much as I would like to look at it as a systematic thing.. at the end of the day a client not liking something trumps everything else.. and yes I've seen that happen at amazon too when I used to work there..
    – abbood
    Mar 9, 2013 at 17:06
  • Tough luck with the client, this isn't very constructive though...
    – David
    Mar 9, 2013 at 19:13
  • @David it probably isn't, but instead of just down voting me, you can probably also tell us how to make it more constructive? this is my first post on this forum.. and so I'm not sure what parameters or what expectations there are here to make ux questions more generic and constructive.. you can visit my stack over flow account and you'll see that I'm more than glad to follow protocol and to help the community the best I can
    – abbood
    Mar 10, 2013 at 3:05

2 Answers 2

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this is one of my attempts so far.. basically the item that's voted for comes in the center.. i guess this has better affordance than the previous one.

enter image description here

update: I convinced my client to go with this one.. I will have to animate into the screen though.

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  • +1 It's a nice compromise between your design and what your client clearly likes. I'd be interested in hearing how he/she takes the suggestion.
    – JohnGB ♦
    Mar 9, 2013 at 16:16
  • will let you know as soon as they get back to me.. I'll ultimately put the design that they 'like'.. i guess that's the only criteria for a correct answer here? lol
    – abbood
    Mar 9, 2013 at 17:06
  • Your answer got me thinking and lead to this question: ux.stackexchange.com/questions/36104/…
    – user12741
    Mar 9, 2013 at 20:43
  • lol just saw it.. i commented on it as well..
    – abbood
    Mar 10, 2013 at 3:27
  • So... where does the result of the vote go? In the middle with a single number? Do you allow to split the result just like you can on StackExchange?
    – André
    Mar 12, 2013 at 10:06
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I would definitely go for your own answer (thumbs-up and thumbs-down control + current count in the center). But if you really need to do things differently you could just show a number and allow a swipe-up to up-vote and a swipe-down for a down-vote.

However, you need to address two problems:

  1. This concept lacks affordance. At the very least you need to explain how to control this number the first time they see it (perhaps by a swiping animation).
  2. You need a fall-back for non-touch devices.
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