A Designer’s Guide — Smashing Magazine

When we make purchasing decisions, we often rely on expertise from people like us who happen to have purchased that item already. And so we seek user reviews, often looking for a high enough average score, a good number of these reviews, and a good number of ratings.

In fact, 95% of users rely on reviews to make their decisions and learn more about how well a product fits their needs. Unfortunately, too often, the way we design reviews and ratings UX confuses and frustrates users, rather than helps them. Let’s fix that.

This article is part of our ongoing series on design patterns. It’s also a part of the video library on Smart Interface Design Patterns and is available in the live UX training as well.

What Customers Search In Reviews

We often assume that the only thing that a best-selling product needs is a high number of positive reviews. Positive reviews indeed are needed to build up trust, but just as many users need to be convinced that a product would work for them. This shows up in a few attributes that customers seek to verify in reviews:

• The product is indeed of high quality as advertised,
• They aren’t overpaying: the pricing is fair and acceptable,
• They’ve chosen the right product that addresses their needs well,
• People like them (similar age group, experience, needs) were satisfied with the product,
• They haven’t...