User Feedback from Mobile Apps

tbook · Post by **tbook** » August 28th, 2013, 6:56 am

I have been working on mobile apps for LibriVox for a bit over a year, and think they have been helpful in bringing LibriVox books to a wider audience (we now have close to a million installs.) A few months back, I added the ability to rate and review books (not entirely in the LibriVox spirit, but it helps people to find the books they like.)

I thought some of the folks here might be interested in seeing the reviews - if you don't have the app, you can view them from our web site: http://librivox.bookdesign.biz. The books are sorted in order of popularity, so you can see what people are listening to, as well.

Right now, the ratings come from the Android app. The iOS app will be able to display them in a few weeks, but I haven't added the ability to contribute yet. There are also some reviews from Archive.org on the site. Do let me know if you have any feedback! Thanks!

Post by **Availle** » August 28th, 2013, 7:05 am

This looks cool! And one million is absolutely impressive

I am not sure I understand the rating/reviews part though.

For example, this one has one review (which is not from archive) in the right hand column:
http://librivox.bookdesign.biz/book/6635

But this one says 8 reviews, but I can't find any (and I'm pretty sure they are not on archive):
http://librivox.bookdesign.biz/book/6854

I don't have a smart phone, so I have to use your webpage - am I doing something wrong?

tbook · Post by **tbook** » August 28th, 2013, 7:12 am

Glad you like it! The reviews only show up on the web page if they are more than about 15 words in length. Sometimes users just give a rating without any text, or just a few characters of text, which doesn't seem very useful to show. Also, if there are lots of reviews, I only show the top 10 or so, so they may not all appear.

Post by **Availle** » August 28th, 2013, 7:21 am

15 words or characters? Because the first example has only 5 words

So, "review" does not necessarily mean that somebody wrote something extra, it just means they gave a rating? Then it's clear why I am confused, thanks!

tbook · Post by **tbook** » August 28th, 2013, 7:35 am

I checked, and yes, it is 5 words, not 15! Perhaps I should change it to say 6 ratings instead of 6 reviews, since some reviews are nothing more than a rating. Thanks again!

carolb · Post by **carolb** » August 29th, 2013, 5:25 am

Ah, thank you for including my 2 solos, both of which say '2 reviews'!
My day has been made

Unfortunately the box on your website where the review would go says 'This content cannot be displayed in a frame'.

Carol

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » August 29th, 2013, 6:12 am

Unfortunately the box on your website where the review would go says 'This content cannot be displayed in a frame'.

I see an ad there on books with presumably no reviews, only ratings - or at least I did until I told noscripts not to show it

.

It would be nice if the reader's name were included on the page, though I note with pleasure that you can search by reader. It is rather good to know that "the woman reading this book is amazing"

.

Ruth

tbook · Post by **tbook** » August 29th, 2013, 7:23 am

Thanks again, Ruth, for all of your great reading! I always enjoy listening to your books.

I would love to include the reader information with the books - in fact, one of the most frequent requests I get from app users is a better way to search by reader. The problem is that the data I have from the RSS feeds only includes readers for a few books. (for those that do, I display the reader name under the chapter.) I have been hoping that the new API will make it easier to access the reader data (and the image data - you will find that I don't have cover images for many books.) It is starting to look as though that may be a while, though.

Carol: If it says "2 reviews" but doesn't show any, it is probably because the reviewers only left a rating and not any text. I'll look into the "This content cannot be displayed in a frame" problem - I haven't seen that before.

Thanks to you both!

carolb · Post by **carolb** » August 29th, 2013, 9:09 am

tbook wrote: If it says "2 reviews" but doesn't show any, it is probably because the reviewers only left a rating and not any text.

Many thanks for including me, tbook. I am delighted with the ratings, review or not.

Carol

tbook · Post by **tbook** » August 29th, 2013, 9:23 am

Thanks! I've only had it up for a few months, so I'm expecting more reviews to accumulate.