6 ms·

Extremely common pattern on Android, but it's so transparent in its dishonesty it really annoys me. But I guess it works for the masses anyway..

hobofan 8y ago
I agree. Learning about that basically made the ratings in the Play store worthless in my eyes, as it only represents how well you play the game. 1-4.0 stars means that you probably haven't added that feature to your app. The various degrees of 4.1-5.0 then only mean that you have optimized the process even more by better selecting for 5 star reviewers.
IneffablePigeon 8y ago
Agreed, when an app I don't love does this I now go out of my way to always click the "I love the app" button and then give a negative (honest) review. OTOH if I developed an app I'd probably do the same thing :/
- zrobotics 8y ago
  Yep, I absolutely can't stand this design pattern either, but I ended up using it as well. I would advise that the best way is to actually respect the 'never show again' button. One pop-up isn't too annoying, but if an app asks me after I tell it to f off, I'm damn well going straight to the store and leaving a 1 star. It does work, but make sure it's the least annoying it can be. E.G. in a shopping app, don't show the rating pop-up in the middle of checkout, wait for the user to finish their transaction.
learnstats2 8y ago
In what way is this dishonest? It's really just saying 'if you love this app, tell others - if you don't love it, tell us'. This is an honest request.
- noxToken 8y ago
  For me, this bit: > If they rate anything below 5 you don't forward them to the App store for adding a review. This method attempts to passively hide negative reviews from the public while actively prompting users to leave positive reviews. Storefront ratings don't matter unless the user leaves the app and enters one via the official app store. Without forwarding the user, anyone with a negative review will have to specifically leave the app to leave the review. The dev will usher the positive reviewers forward to leave a public-facing review, while anything neutral or negative is sent to /dev/null or (hopefully in the least) used internally for improvements. Dishonest may not be the correct term. Perhaps "slightly misleading" is a better way to put it.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    If the app stores want honest reviews, they have to be the ones to request them, on a fixed schedule after someone downloads an app. Allowing the apps themselves to forward users to the app store review interface is an invitation to game the system in exactly the manner mentioned. Whether grossly dishonest or slightly misleading, the mere fact that we can be arguing over how scummy the pattern may be is a symptom of the failure of the app stores to manage their own review systems. When one seller games the system to get more 5-star reviews, that's them being dishonest. When everyone has a 4.5-star rating on every product, that's the ratings system being lazy and useless. (Looking at you, in particular, Amazon.) An honest internal review would publish the results on the developer's website, and leave all the app stores out of it, no matter what the user rating might be.
  - learnstats2 8y ago
    I'm not convinced that this is misleading. There should be no expectation that you would ask people who dislike your app to leave a formal and business-damaging review. It's the job of the review system to invite those reviewers. Qualifying which your users like you before kindly asking them to leave a good formal review on a respected system is a sensible practice. (you likely also want to disqualify people who love your app but have a wonky personal rating system) I suspect that those apps which abuse this system still manage to have low review scores.

hobofan 8y ago

I agree. Learning about that basically made the ratings in the Play store worthless in my eyes, as it only represents how well you play the game. 1-4.0 stars means that you probably haven't added that feature to your app. The various degrees of 4.1-5.0 then only mean that you have optimized the process even more by better selecting for 5 star reviewers.

IneffablePigeon 8y ago

Agreed, when an app I don't love does this I now go out of my way to always click the "I love the app" button and then give a negative (honest) review. OTOH if I developed an app I'd probably do the same thing :/

zrobotics 8y ago
Yep, I absolutely can't stand this design pattern either, but I ended up using it as well. I would advise that the best way is to actually respect the 'never show again' button. One pop-up isn't too annoying, but if an app asks me after I tell it to f off, I'm damn well going straight to the store and leaving a 1 star. It does work, but make sure it's the least annoying it can be. E.G. in a shopping app, don't show the rating pop-up in the middle of checkout, wait for the user to finish their transaction.

learnstats2 8y ago

In what way is this dishonest? It's really just saying 'if you love this app, tell others - if you don't love it, tell us'. This is an honest request.

noxToken 8y ago
For me, this bit: > If they rate anything below 5 you don't forward them to the App store for adding a review. This method attempts to passively hide negative reviews from the public while actively prompting users to leave positive reviews. Storefront ratings don't matter unless the user leaves the app and enters one via the official app store. Without forwarding the user, anyone with a negative review will have to specifically leave the app to leave the review. The dev will usher the positive reviewers forward to leave a public-facing review, while anything neutral or negative is sent to /dev/null or (hopefully in the least) used internally for improvements. Dishonest may not be the correct term. Perhaps "slightly misleading" is a better way to put it.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  If the app stores want honest reviews, they have to be the ones to request them, on a fixed schedule after someone downloads an app. Allowing the apps themselves to forward users to the app store review interface is an invitation to game the system in exactly the manner mentioned. Whether grossly dishonest or slightly misleading, the mere fact that we can be arguing over how scummy the pattern may be is a symptom of the failure of the app stores to manage their own review systems. When one seller games the system to get more 5-star reviews, that's them being dishonest. When everyone has a 4.5-star rating on every product, that's the ratings system being lazy and useless. (Looking at you, in particular, Amazon.) An honest internal review would publish the results on the developer's website, and leave all the app stores out of it, no matter what the user rating might be.
- learnstats2 8y ago
  I'm not convinced that this is misleading. There should be no expectation that you would ask people who dislike your app to leave a formal and business-damaging review. It's the job of the review system to invite those reviewers. Qualifying which your users like you before kindly asking them to leave a good formal review on a respected system is a sensible practice. (you likely also want to disqualify people who love your app but have a wonky personal rating system) I suspect that those apps which abuse this system still manage to have low review scores.