Site Improvements at Daily Lather!

Site Improvements!

I'm happy to announce two big improvements on the site that I think everyone will love... The first is an all new search engine and the second is a new scoring system! They both make the site more helpful and informative, and they're something I've been wanting to do for a while. Read more below for a full explanation of each!

The first improvement is a new search engine which will making finding things a lot easier, and more fun. Before, you only had a simple search box - and the results were a boring list that wasn't all that helpful in most cases. Now, in addition to the search box you can sort the results by relevance or date posted, in either ascending or descending order. But that's not the best part...

The listing itself is now in a grid, complete with title, date posted, photo and summary! But wait, there's more... You can now drill down on the type of content by means of "tags" (categories like SOTD, Review or News) and "hashtags" (specifics like #soap or #aftershave). By default, the search page shows all content (which you can drill down into) or you can get specific with search keywords. So, for example, if you're looking for all Barrister and Mann reviews with a particular soap and razor - you can!

Finally, the search engine features "infinite scrolling." In other words, if there are a lot of results - just keep scrolling downwards and you'll get more automatically! It will keep going until you reach the end of the results.

The second improvement is a new scoring system (that will be used going forward) that's meant to be short and to the point, but covers all bases. In fact, there are twelve individual metrics that are graded, but using only four bars in a graph. Overall, it looks like this (minus the percentages, seen here for clarity):



Value (Cost, Packaging and Performance)

11%
33%
33%

Lather (Density, Glide and Feel)

33%
33%
33%

Post-shave (Healing, Moisture and Feel)

33%
33%
22%

Scent (Quality, Strength and Longevity)

33%
22%
22%

Each bar has three metrics, each representing 33% of the total (11% = below-avg, 22% = avg, 33% = above-avg, except cost)


Let's break a bar down with a closer look. There are three metrics that make up each bar, or overall rating. Each one of those is scored individually and can be below average (11%), average (22%) or above average (33%). To see this in an extreme sense, look at it this way:



Overall (Metric 1, Metric 2 and Metric 3)

11%
22%
33%
11%
22%
33%
11%
22%
33%


The only exception is when it comes to Cost (since a higher price is a negative and not a positive). So that value is actually reversed, or in other words, a higher price results in a lower score. If you think of how it affects the overall rating for Value - it makes sense. Let's look at each metric:

Metric Description
V
A
L
U
E
Cost Overall price of items (higher price = lower score).
Packaging Quality of packaging, artwork/branding and labels.
Performance Overall impression of product performance.
L
A
T
H
E
R
Density Airy and fluffy lather or thicker and more creamy?
Glide Primary and secondary (residual) lubricity - slickness.
Feel Do the ingredients contribute to a nice face feel?
P
O
S
T
Healing Does it stop bleeding and/or calm razor burn?
Moisture Face feel from drying or tight to moisturized and supple.
Feel Does the skin feel dry, sticky or weird - or really nice?
S
C
E
N
T
Quality Quality of ingredients, complexity and richness of scent.
Strength Is it fairly light or quite robust - and also projection.
Longevity Do you get an hour or so or does it last all day long?

There's actually a third improvement but I'm still squaring that away... I'll be improving the product photography, starting with a seamless white background. You'll see me ramp this up over the next week or so.

Hopefully you find these new improvements useful! By all means, comment below to provide feedback and I'll answer any questions...

UPDATE (05/09/17):

I made a few adjustments to the metrics to better reflect qualities I wish to express, reduce redundancy and improve clarity. Basically they make a little more sense now. I've updated the two reviews already posted that have the new scoring system.

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