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I'm more of a developer and less of a designer and I'm currently working on a website that will display a list of books and will allow users to vote for their favorite book (or add a new one if their favorite isn't there).

I was wondering what the best way to lay out this list is when presenting it to the users? Right now, the list is a simple radio button control, but obviously I'd like to change this to be a bit more modern, usable, and just plain elegant.

Also, I'd like to be able to pull cover images for each book, however, I'm unsure if that will be able to be in the final implementation or not -- right now the list is simply text -- the title of the books and the number of votes for each -- in a table.

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    Can they vote for multiple books?
    – Mervin
    Commented Jan 24, 2012 at 23:22
  • i would suggest a UI where selection(s) are highlighted and beveled... sort of like picking friends for invites in Facebook.
    – Andrew Davis
    Commented Jan 24, 2012 at 23:44
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    By design, it's a one-vote-per-person implementation.
    – JToland
    Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 2:50
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    Now if only there was a nice website with voting functionality somewhere nearby... :)
    – Vitaly Mijiritsky
    Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 5:56
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    What books are in the list? How long is it? How much info do you have on each book?
    – JOG
    Commented Feb 2, 2012 at 12:45

1 Answer 1

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Suggestions:

  1. Use images if possible.
  2. Make the images "buttons" to vote, and then highlight the image as having been voted for - give it a 3-D look is good, possible a coloured surround too.
  3. Do not show the current scores until someone has voted - otherwise there is a strong tendency to vote for the most popular/least popular - the voting will not necessarily reflect the actual opinions.
  4. Consider carefully about allowing people to add new books. If someone adds a book half way through then only half the people will see it as a suggestion to vote for. You would do better to have a fixed selection, otherwise your votes will be meaningless.
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