The 4-Star Lie: Inflated Ratings Ruining 'Expert' Tech Reviews

[Mark Spoonauer]

Professional product reviews graded on a too-kind curve will only push more people into the arms of Amazon and crowdsourced review sites.

The 4-Star Lie: Inflated Ratings Ruining 'Expert' Tech Reviews : Read more

 

[beegmouse]

Similarly invading the ratings systems are skewed Statistics.

You can give an Item 5 stars, but not 0 Stars, so the user only has 4 options, not 5

The worst product/etailer in the world can still average 3.5 out of 5 Stars with 2 one Star reviews and one 5 star review 1+1+5/3=3.6

When realistically it should be getting 0+0+5/3=1.6

It's very misleading

Check out trust pilot and their ratings of simply electronics, a terrible e-tailer.
Reviewers have 4 options which get translated into a 10 point average.

And even though 30% of reviews are as low as possible it still manages 6/10
and gets ranked as "Average"

 

[Vlad Rose]

User reviews aren't very reliable for products either. If a person has a problem with an online purchased product, they're more than likely to write a bad review than a person who has a good experience with it. Also, some of the bad reviews have to deal with a shipping problems they had, or user error, instead of the actual product.

Whenever I get ready to purchase any product, I try to read as many reviews on sites as I can and comments made, not the star rating or quick synopsis. It makes for a rather long process; but more often than not pays off in the long run.

 

[SamSerious]

Actually, the problem is not subjectivity of the reviews, but it is the try to be less subjective by adding an objective score. And that score does distort the meaning of the review inspite of underlining it.
Therefore a truly subjective conclusion at the end of a product test is much more helpful as it leaves the author enough space to explain why the product may or may not be useful under what conditions. If there is a super-short "conclusion" with to negative and to positive statements, many users will only read these and cannot get a picture of what the author thought abouit it.
If you really want to deliver a short pro/contra conclusion, it is crucial to add a text box with the personal thoughts of the tester.

 

[ubercake]

I like to look at as many reviews as possible. I make sure I cover the high-star and low-star and in-betweens paying more attention to the comments and looking for consistency between reviews. This has served me fairly well over the years so I don't necessarily trust the star ratings, but if I do see a product with a substantial number of reviews with a one-star or two-star rating, I'm likely to discount it from my shopping list.