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up vote 6 down vote favorite
4

I'm wondering what is the best voting system for site that have ranking like top 10 / top 100.

Like/dislike

stars rating (from 1 to 5)

single thumb up

thumb up/thumb down

What you think?

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6  
You'll need to reword your question and title. As stated it's highly subjective. If you can state your requirements rather than just asking for "the best" a) the question will stay open and b) you'll get some useful answers. – ChrisF Oct 7 '10 at 21:14
Possible duplicate of: ux.stackexchange.com/questions/23002/… – Danny Varod Aug 28 '12 at 0:59
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See my answer to the above question. – Danny Varod Aug 28 '12 at 1:00

4 Answers

up vote 15 down vote accepted

Last year YouTube abandoned its 5 star rating system after research showed that nearly all users only use 1 or 5 stars. See http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html

Now YouTube uses a thumbs up or down system.

So the conclusion is:

  1. Use thumbs up or down if your users either love or hate the thing that is rated

  2. Use 5 stars if users have more nuanced opinions (Amazon books, for example)

Since you asked about ranking the items after they have been rated, remember that you normally don't want items that have a single 5 star rating or one thumb up to outrank items that have 100 ratings and 4.5 stars or 95 out of 100 thumbs up because that gives undue weight to the lone ranker and will mean that unpopular items will always outweigh popular items.

Here's the link that explains how to solve the rating popularity problem: www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html

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It's nice that you reference the Youtube change, because it's relevant, but your conclusion is a bit .. broad. Just because something worked for Youtube doesn't mean that's how it should always work. Right? – Rahul♦ Oct 8 '10 at 7:51
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Correct, Rahul. That's why I suggested that you should use a thumbs up or down only if your users are polarized in their opinions, as youtube discovered their users are. Otherwise, see point 2 above. – user2017 Oct 11 '10 at 14:38
Thumbs up and down have different meanings in different cultures - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbs_signal#The_gesture_internationally though this may be overridden in specific contexts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… – ChrisF Feb 10 '12 at 11:05
up vote 3 down vote

Thumb up/thumb down would be my choice. It's an intuitive pattern. Good luck.

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Thumbs up and down have different meanings in different cultures - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbs_signal#The_gesture_internationally though this may be overridden in specific contexts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… – ChrisF Feb 10 '12 at 11:05
up vote 3 down vote

It is a combination of values (1..10) and colored impression.

alt text

alt text

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1  
And why would this be the best? I'm sure it has its benefits but it might be nice to explain. Thanks. – Jay Aug 28 '12 at 8:33
@Jay Maybe it tries to get the "passive" answer or allows to get answer something like [rather than not]. I think, I understood you: it is different from life concept that has two answers ONLY: pay and don't pay. :) – igor Aug 28 '12 at 10:03
up vote 1 down vote

it depends on what are you voting for, if voting on something that has many aspect like a movie (story, act, screen) and need detail judgment, i think 1.0-10.0 scale is needed, cause the vote is aggregate of that many aspects. But if the vote do not needed a detail judgment, like or dislike is very nice, not too much option and people do not need too much think to give a vote.

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