How purpose changes ratings

Austin Govella — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:12:00 GMT

For Fancast, we use ratings to recommend similar shows you may not be familiar with. When I first started, I rated movies and shows based on their quality. Favorite movies like Bladerunner would be rated higher than other shows, but what about just a good movie? As Good As It Gets is a great movie. If I rate As Good As It Gets according to quality, then maybe it gets four stars. If I were evaluating a movie's quality, that would be an accurate rating. However, I'm really rating whether or not I would like to see more movies like As Good As It Gets. For Bladerunner, yes: more like that. For As Good As It Gets? No. Fewer romantic comedies, please. When I rated shows and movies according to quality, my recommendations became muddled and useless. When I changed my ratings to answer "would I watch this again", all of a sudden my recommendations became really good again. As Good As It Gets? Great movie. Would I watch it again? Maybe. Bladerunner? Great movie. Watch it again? Yes, please, every chance I get. And the improvement to my recommendations has been fantastic. Because I would watch Bladerunner and Akira again, I was recommended both Appleseed and Renaissance, both of which I never knew existed, and both of which are highlights of the last few months of movie watching. When adding ratings, it's worth exploring the purpose behind the rating. "Would I watch this again" might the question to answer for personalizing your recommendations. Professional movie critics are answering "would I recommend you watch this?" What question are you answering when you rate something on Amazon? YouTube?

A new design

Austin Govella — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:02:51 GMT

Just launched a new design. I'm proud. Not because it's the greatest design ever, but because it really matches who I am with what I need. I'm a contrarian at heart. My design is driven by what others aren't doing rather than by what it needs to do, but as someone who believes so much in the user experience, what's a contrarian to do when the prevalent style becomes clean, usable, readable websites? That's my style! So, the post page becomes this crazy mash of colliding elements before slipping into quiet order below the fold. Then the elements start colliding again in the footer. I love it. The main page and everywhere else are oddly utilitarian. But, at least they're overseen by the mummyhead. It's either a sad or disturbing icon about the self. Stolen from the Situationists and adorned with grungey, paint splatter angel wings, it floats over a logotype set in a classical style. I'm not sure what that says, but it's me.

An Armani Casa ad from this Sunday's New York Times Style Magazine.

In this Sunday's New York Times Style Magazine, a slew of furniture ads seemed to reflect an underlying fear of globalization present in much of the Western world. Each ad represented an onslaught of the different, the foreign, and the strange, and each onslaught was kept back by a reliance on the super-clean lines of modernism; those same lines that reflect education and class as the West's cultural redoubt against all things foreign.

All that wasn't in my head at the time, but this is my response. It's odd. Despite feeling so disconnected from the Design world, you can describe my work the same way. I’m a contrarian, but even I fall victim to the same fears. In the West, everything is changing, and no one knows what the fuck is going on. Seems like everywhere I look nowadays, you can sense that society is reacting to that.

Visual design from Thinking and Making

How purpose changes ratings

A new design