Rating Stuff in Norway
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Dice, according to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, are "small cubes of plastic, ivory, bone, or wood, marked on each side with one to six spots, usually used in pairs in games of chance or in gambling."
They also form the basis of online reviews in Norway. Some context:
"...the newspapers next morning, both locals and national seemed to give a careful "thumb's up," most of them landed the dice on four out of six eyes, I guess I was around that too?"
- from a Bob Dylan fan site
"JABULANI receives 5 and 6 on the dice from main newspaper"
I'd never encountered dice as a rating system before, but I have it straight from a good source that it is quite common in Norway, and I've found examples on several sites.
Now, while I might advocate a rating scale of 1 to 6 for sites with a Norwegian audience, I'm not going to suggest that everyone switch from stars to dice. And there are exceptions in Norway itself, of course. I do think it's interesting to consider the use of familiar items in rating scales, though. Thumbs up/thumbs down is pretty clear, and in using dice, everyone knows that you're rating on a scale of 1 to 6 (D&D folks excluded). Travel guides have set the standard that hotels and restaurants are rated on a scale of 1 to 5, and while that scale may not be implied in the same way, it's at least been used consistently enough that it's comfortable and obvious. At least you know what to expect from a 4-star hotel (for the most part), and you are duly impressed when one declares itself a 6 or 7-star hotel, even when you know that rating was pulled out of the ether.
Generally, I'm so used to seeing different rating scales that I don't really expect them to be the same from site-to-site. It only bothers me if there's no obvious key or visual cue on the page. So I guess I'm wondering whether an implied scale makes any difference to people as they evaluate a service or product. Does a familiar gesture or item make it easier, or less of a chore, to process product reviews? Or, if I'm just a visual person, is it still simpler for me to distinguish the number of stars lit up in a row than it is to count the dots on the side of a die? Also, does anyone know of any other countries or online communities that use dice or other objects somewhat consistently for this purpose? Bonus if anyone can tell me more about how the dice system evolved in Norway.
Well, here in Norway the rating system of the dices are called Terningkast (dice throw). Board games like monopoly, yatzee, ludo and trivial pursuit are very popular and have been for a long time for the Norwegians. Personally I always play yatzee with my family in the easter, and tp or settlers when gathering with some good friends. The newspapers are probably inspired by this, and therefore they are using a system for rating that the norwegians trust and are familiar with. It´s only a guess, but thats how I, as a norwegian, understands it.
I’ve never really thought about this before, but yes – we do use dice a lot when rating stuff.
For me it’s easier to interpret a dice (counting its ‘eyes’) than to count lit-up stars. Dice also have the advantage of not having to show the total scale’s highest score, as it is implied. The dice would always be the same size. In some situations, that could come in handy when designing.
When implementing international sites, there’s never any dice, only stars. The same goes for international sites in general – when you point it out I think I’ve never seen dice used on non-Norwegian sites.
Maybe Webhazard is onto something, but I should think table games like yatzee, ludo etc. are quite popular in other countries as well?
That being said, I do see a lot of other ranking systems, as the [ 3 / 5 ] with some visual fancy style. I also see a lot of ‘star systems’ (with various symbols, not only stars) here in Norway, but often without the dark stars to indicate how far the scale goes. Then I often find a big box on top of the page explaining the rating system, when it could’ve been done so easy.
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