How to: a guide to my new review system!

Well guys, I've finally deiced to re-invent my review system. As always, change can be a bit rough at first, but I think you will enjoy these new changes. I'll keep this post short, as most of the changes are self explanatory, and you'll catch on to them by simply reading the reviews.

These new changes will be implemented immediately, and you'll get to see them at work tomorrow morning (Lamy 2000 review!).

Let's jump right in with all the changes:

• All pens will now be rated in 4 different areas: Design, size/weight, functionality, and the nib.
• Each area of the pen's performance can be given a maximum rating of 25%.
• At the end of the review, all rating will be added together for the final pen's rating, maximum of 100%. Simple enough, right? :)
• There will be a new overview section at the very beginning of each review. This will help get the point and conclusion of the review across to those individuals who may not have time, or may not wish to read the entire article. It's exactly what it says - a quick overview of the bad and strong points of the pen!
• You will see the new "rating bar" for each review now. A convenient graphical bar to let you know, at a glance, how good the pen ranks on my scale. Here's how it will look:

This is the full bar, just showing the different coloring for each rating. Percentage rating goes like this:

• Horrible: 0-20%
• Bad: 21-40%
• Not bad, but not good: 41-60%
• Good: 61-80%
• Great: 81-90%
• Amazing: 91-100%

The higher ranks have a more "narrow" allowance than the lower ones do. The percents are just a bit "goofy", but being that I had 6 rankings, to divide into 100... :)

I did the best I could! I'm sure you'll catch on to them, and get used to it in a few reviews.

Here's how it will look in the reviews. Whichever rank the pen scores will be "lit-up", and the rest will remain greyed out.

The overview:
I felt the need to add this into my reviews. The overview will give the high and low points of the pen, as well as it's rating, right in the first visible portion of the review. It's basically a quick summary of the review in just a paragraph. This is made for a specific reason. I want to make it easy on people who may not have the time to read the entire review, but they still want to know what the pen is like. If you've got 60 seconds to spare at work, you can quickly determine if the pen is good enough to be worth reading the full review later. I hope you will enjoy this new feature!


That's about it for my changes! The rest are small things, that you may not even notice. They will just make everything a little bit better.

As always, don't forget to subscribe to the blog! Tomorrow morning I will put out my first review using this new system. The Lamy 2000 is up on the plate, and I've got some good things to say about it. :)

Regards,
Tyler Dahl