Creatively gauging reader reactions

I stumbled across this “mood meter” of sorts on the Bay Area NBC website story about Google Wave. (As one of the early Beta testers for GMail, I was looking to find a way to finagle an invite – one is on its way, and no, I didn’t buy it on eBay. I’m just cool.) I think it’s a great example of participatory web, and it’s a neat way to present viewer reactions.

The cells resize based on the percentage of reaction, so that 50% isn’t just made up of a large font – it’s also an indication of the weight of the opinion. And it’s pretty.

I don’t know, it just struck me as a far nicer way of presenting stats than “thumbs up” or “thumbs down,” which doesn’t really allow for “meh” opinions – there’s no room for ambiguity or interpretation. Even star ratings are limited – they’re more like a grade than a reaction.

Star ratings are still appropriate in some situations, I’m sure, but I love the idea that what we want to know is the emoti0n of the people who are viewing the content.

Although I don’t know why 17% of people would be furious about Google Wave, I think that it’s indicative of the meter’s success at engaging people with what they’re reading. In terms of its application to education, well, I think it has quite a few – for instance, in a unit on Canadian internment of the Japanese during WWII, the emotional reactions would be highly relevant, if the question was well-stated:

“Do you think we should question the loyalty of Canadians from different ancestral and racial backgrounds if we’re at war with their country of origin?”

I could think of quite a few changes to ring on that, but it would be fascinating to begin a class discussion with the results (however heartening or disheartening they turned out to be), to illustrate the role of emotional decision-making in people’s thought processes.