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Welcome to the New Review Index!

amirm

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As hopefully you all know, a ton of work was put into building the interface and database of our Reviews. Alas, for myriad of reasons, work stopped last October and index has become quite stale. I decided to take on keeping it current but for the life of me, I could not figure out how to navigate that complex system. On top of that, we (I) were playing monthly fees for Microsoft PowerBI for the interface you see.

As it happens, a smart member and web developer, @Nonick, contacted me with a quick prototype he had built from scratch. As soon as I saw it, I realized we need to go that way due to its extreme efficiency and simplicity. The work then started on refining the feature list and importantly, importing, fixing and updating the database. The latter was done with kind help from members @Rick Sykora, @BostonJack, and @chuckt62, we have now an updated and current database.

You can navigate to the new index with the menu bar or clicking on this: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Reviews/

Once there, you see a new dashboard that shows the latest reviews and statistics about them.
1653026963850.png


You can then click on the titles of different sections to see electronics/tweaks, speakers and headphones/IEM reviews. You can click on headings to sort in either direction. Or use Search to narrow down what you are looking for.

I want to emphasize that the main intent of this "1.0" release is to get the base platform solidified and database updated. So please do a quick scan and if you find mistakes in the database, post them here and I can edit/fix them.

You are also welcome to suggest features you like to see. We plan to do a 1.5 update which would be modifications/smaller features to the current system. Past that will be a 2.0 release with more sophisticated features/graphing, etc.

Let me extend my deep appreciation for hard work, knowledge and speed with which @Nonick has put in this system. He would work at his day job and then night after night spend hours on development of this system. His work ethics and willingness to work with me without any compensation of sorts (refusing to accept from me), amazed me night after night.

I also want to thank the previous team which built the system we used until now. Special thanks go to @pozz, for bringing the original idea to me and spending so much time and effort maintaining the old database.

I hope you find the new system useful and performant.

 

JSmith

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Nice update, looks more organised. Thanks to all who have spent their time doing this. :)

... although is there any plotting/graph function like before at all? No problem if not, just though I'd ask.
You can then click on the titles of different sections
May just be a bug, using Chrome and they are not links for me;

1653028410396.png



JSmith
 

NTK

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The links are at the top.
[Edit] They are the only ones that work for me -- Windows 11 / Brave browser.

review_index.png
 

JSmith

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The links are at the top.
Yep... saw that, however I thought @amirm was saying in his post;
You can then click on the titles of different sections to see electronics/tweaks, speakers and headphones/IEM reviews.
I think you are referring to the headings;
You can click on headings to sort in either direction.


JSmith
 

jae

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Great work, was always a pain to find stuff (I would usually search my own browser history...)
 
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amirm

amirm

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I think you are referring to the headings;
That is once you get into a section and get the full database listing for that. The headings there are sort order.
 

voodooless

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Nice! I’ll zap though it once behind my desk! One important missing feature I immediately noticed: a scalable interface. It really doesn’t work well on a mobile phone screen.
 

restorer-john

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Is it just a quick demo/non-functional link? It doesn't work for me. Nothing is clickable except the "latest review links"
 
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amirm

amirm

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Is it just a quick demo/non-functional link? It doesn't work for me. Nothing is clickable except the "latest review links"
No, it is the real deal. Did you click on this?

1653030303733.png
 

voodooless

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Nice! I’ll zap though it once behind my desk! One important missing feature I immediately noticed: a scalable interface. It really doesn’t work well on a mobile phone screen.
Ah, so it actually IS responsive, it's just that the iframe fucks that up. probably not a good idea to iframe this, or make the iframe properly scale with the screen width. The double menu is also confusing when embedded like it is now.

For the filters, it would be nice for the "between" values to be able to put in only one of the two as well. Now I want SINAD >= 110 I have to put in between 110 and 130. Or price <= 1000: I need to put in between 0 and 1000. Just a minor inconvenience though. Would also be nice to open the review links to a new window/tab by default.

For the speakers, I'm missing an option to filter active vs passive.

All in all, it looks pretty usable :cool: Nice work!
 

Vict0r

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It's a bit confusing that the main dashboard doesn't let you click anything in the indexes. Would be nice to be able to click those as well, and see the contents of the specific index listed. And yeah, scaling is messed up but someone already noticed that.
 
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amirm

amirm

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It's a bit confusing that the main dashboard doesn't let you click anything in the indexes.
The review URL is a hot link there. What would be the usage of clicking on anything else?
 
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amirm

amirm

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The double menu is also confusing when embedded like it is now.
Yeh, we had been working on the stand-alone version of the Index and I didn't realize this issue until I embedded it in the main forum just now. The old one had different drop downs for each category. We could go back to that.
 

Vict0r

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The review URL is a hot link there. What would be the usage of clicking on anything else?

Ofcourse, but it's an UX-thing. You instinctively want to click on the number behind an item in the indexes. Years of internet have conditioned most of us (or maybe just me) into expecting that functionality.

Schermafbeelding 2022-05-20 om 09.43.45.png
 
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amirm

amirm

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Would also be nice to open the review links to a new window/tab by default.
What is the consensus on this? I tend to like in place links.
 
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amirm

amirm

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Ofcourse, but it's an UX-thing. You instinctively want to click on the number behind an item in the indexes. Years of internet have conditioned most of us (or maybe just me) into expecting that functionality.

View attachment 207661
Ah, now I see. That would be cool. Will add it to the feature list for next revision. Thanks.
 

voodooless

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I think not embedding it would be a better way.
What is the consensus on this? I tend to like in place links.
Well, there is your answer, there isn't a consensus :facepalm:;)
 

Propheticus

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Performance wise, this is a big step up from the BI dashboard.
UX wise, it would make sense to be able to click categories in the landing page/dashboard and get to a prefiltered list of that device type

i.e. clicking this:
1653033343048.png

leading to this: pre-filtered list

What is the consensus on this? I tend to like in place links.
I was going to suggest the same. So +1 for new tab here. edit: the thinking being a common use-case is looking to buy a product and then creating a filter to match the device type, your budget price bracket and such to then compare several reviewed devices matching that filter. In-place links navigates you away from your carefully created search filter.... but of course no one is stopping you from simply using a middle-click if you want a new tab.

I think not embedding it would be a better way.
Agreed. The full-page view when middle-clicking a header item (without iFrame) looks better. But I get the wish to retain navigation/ not give the idea you just left the site. A middle-ground would be scaling the frame so that it uses more of the (vertical) screen-estate.
 
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Vict0r

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Another UX-thing:

Replacing the "Advanced Search" popup with layered navigation would make the navigation more intuitive, in my opinion. Check boxes, drop-downs and sliders are more friendly than text input. Generating search results by way of tags and properties is king.

Here's an example of something that could work for the ASR review index. This is just to illustrate my point ofcourse. It would need ASR-specific filters.

Schermafbeelding 2022-05-20 om 09.52.49.png
 
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