I have some more suggestions! After submitting three designs for the FitKit logo, I've discovered some glitches/annoyances with the interface...

1. Need ability to edit submissions. Currently the only way to edit a submission is to post a comment on your own submission. The FitKit logo submissions are a bit messy because of this.

2. I don't think people should be able to vote for their own ideas.

3. Voting should not begin until all ideas have been submitted. As a first time contributor and voter, I voted for my favorites 3 days ago. Now there are great new designs that I want to vote for, but I've used up all my votes. Before voting begins, user can just mark their favorites and comment. This also gives the designers a chance to read the comments, go back to the drawing board, and then revise their submission.

4. Whenever I submit a comment, the text that I just wrote and submitted stays in the comment field even after the comment has been posted. The first time I wrote a comment, seeing the text in that box made me think my comment had not gone through...which led to me posting the same comment twice. The box should clear as soon as the comment is posted.

5. There should be a confirmation for voting. "Are you sure you want to vote for Logo X?"

6. When I click "3 Comments" under a logo submission, this should expand the comments section automatically. Right now it just expands the submission, so you have to click "3 Comments" again to expand the comments section.

I've also had a few issues with the site in Google Chrome for Mac, but those could be due to my unreliable internet connection. Has the site been tested in Chrome?

I really love Quirky, so I hope my suggestions are taken as constructive criticism. These are all minor things that frustrate me, but overall I think the site and the community are great!

Oh, one more thing: Is there a way to receive alerts when people reply to your comments? Or comment on the same thread that you commented on previously?

As far as votes go, you can always change them, just click it again and you'll have your vote back, so having a confirmation for voting isn't really necessary. I tend to change my votes around quite often in the logo design phase.

I agree that there should be a submission period and then a voting period. Once the submission period is over, the voting starts. I frequently check back to see the new submission, but I know not everyone has the time to check back multiple times, so it would be nice to be able to view all of the submissions at once.

The comment thing bothers me too.

ErinK - I had tried clicking my votes again, but it didn't work before. It worked now, though! Thank you! Now to decide my true favorites...hmmmmmm.....

I'd like to comment on the site's UI: could you possibly reduce the size of those OVerview, Logo Design, Product Name, Product tagline arrows etc so you can maximize the width of the text area for comments?

Doing so would reduce line breaks, reduce scrolling, and it improves reading immensely.

Wow, Quentin. That is an ingeniously simple solution...definitely in the "why didn't we think of that in the first place" category.

I don't know how much it would save, but every little bit helps and cumulatively speaking, it all adds up. (The previous sentence was brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department)

I posted this elsewhere but thought it was pertinent to this discussion (in this area of the forum as well):

In regards to comments perhaps (as with many other comment enabled sites) there could be some way to downgrade comments so that with enought downgrade clicks the comment is minimized or dissappears entirely. I know that this is effective in several other sites that I frequent and it minimizes the impact of iTrolls looking for a reaction.

This in conjunction with intitially making the reply comments visible (with the ability to minimize) could really clean up the comment sections.

I'm not all that comfortable with making comments go away. It kind of smacks of censorship.

Yeah, Jim, I guess further to the comment about the "size" of the tabs, would be the LOCATION of the tabs, they could simply get re-located to the top - and still maintain the function as a nav menu - that revision would effectively eliminate the sidebar altogether. There's far more real estate to be had on the top (and somewhat less valuable than the sides), and the chronological 'timeline' is still maintained.

Good job, Quentin. You show me that I need to hone up on my lateral thinking process.

;-)

While checking the depressing stock market at the yahoo finance page and watching the streaming stock quotes scroll across the top of the screen, I thought, "scrolling product sales!!!

Powercurl...+79_4682..........Cloak...+76_3798..........Scratch-n-Scroll...+34_2540............The Space Bar...+32_1398..…

This would be GREAT!

I agree with 5 of Stacey's 6 suggestions (I think it's ok for people to vote for their own ideas). But many of those have been discussed in the Feedback/Get Satisfaction sections. Especially the editable posts/submissions/comments within submissions, AND the separate submission/voting rounds. It is unfair to those who, for whatever reason, cannot submit until later in the open period, and thus it can bias the vote to those who submit early (what about those last-minute inspirations?)

Michael, what a great idea -- scrolling product sale updates! LOVE it. :)

Great ideas, Quirks! We are taking all suggestions into consideration for the site redesign. And I love the visual idea of a product sales ticker a la Wall Street. Take that, bankers!! ;)

ha - I've got about twenty ideas for improving quirky...

(1) The more "ore" you mine, the better your chance of finding the big diamond...so, give quirky a better chance of seeing a brilliant idea by encouraging and collecting as many as we can get.
So, UNLIMITED SUBMISSIONS. yeah!
(example: the Hydraduo's logo actually was the ideators "sixth" submission...).
I'd rather see a brilliant name while slogging through a 1000 submissions, than see 300 without the brilliant name.

(2) Quirky uses votes to measure the preferences of the community. Quirkers vote to gain influence. Right now, each quirk has three votes. Quirkers will often ask for more votes 'cause we want better odds of voting for the idea the staff eventually selects. But I think quirky benefits if the preference of the community is clear and unambiguous. Make each vote really, really meaningful. Make each vote be the quirker's absolute favorite idea.
So, ONE VOTE per person per project.

(3) I don't know how the staff uses the ratings right now, but they could be really useful. Because they are so much more detailed than votes, they could be, like, the first thing the staff pulls up and uses to help them select an idea. But they will only be that useful if they accurately reflect the preferences of the community. And they can only accurately reflect the preferences of the community if the community is consistent with how they rate ideas. Rating numbers are ambiguous...their meaning is pretty inconsistent across the community (what does "5" mean?).
So, REPLACE THE RATING NUMBERS WITH WORDS.
My suggestion: as the quirker moves the rating slider up the bar to answer the question "Unique?", for example, display
(cr@p/unrated) (absolutely not) (definitely not) (no) (probably not) (maybe) (probably) (yes) (definitely) (absolutely) (unbelievably)
instead of
(0) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
(As an example of the current ratings weirdness: one of the people who liked my compostapalooza idea enough to vote for it, also rated it so low that they are listed under my "those who didn't [like it]" ratings analyses tab.)

Clinton, that sounds a bit like a resume.....I bet anything you're an INTJ.

;-)