i see this all the time with software designed by americans. on an old job we used a tool called “officevibe” where you’d enter your current impression of your role and workplace once a month. you got some random questions to answer on a 10-degree scale.
when we were presented with the result the stats were terrible because the scale was weighted so that everything below 7 was counted as negative. we were all just answering 5 for “it’s okay”, 3-4 for “could use improvement”, and 6-7 for “better than expected”. there had never been a 10 in the stats, and the software took that as “this place sucks”.
like, of course you downvote a bad response. you’re supposed to help the model get better, right?
It makes more sense with restaurant reviews. The business environment is so intensely competitive that any restaurant actually deserving of 1-2 stars would be much more likely to eventually go out of business.
So, over a long enough period of time, you’d wind up with mostly 3-5 star places, with some exceptions existing for restaurants that can survive without the benefit of repeat customers. (tourist trap places, places operated as some kind of money laundering operation, etc)
I wonder if it’s like the grading system we use in school? <60% is F for fail, 60% to <70% is D which depending on the class can be barely passing or barely failing. >=70% would be A, B, and C grades which are all usually passing, and A in particular means doing extremely well or perfect (>=90%). I just noticed that that rating scale kind of lines up with the typical American grading scale, maybe that’s just a coincidence
From the looks of it, what they’re calculating is a net promoter score. The idea is that, in some context, what you actually want to know is whether your target audience would be willing to actually promote your business to their friends and family or not.
It’s very common in retail and other competitive markets, because a customer that had an “okay” experience could still go to a competitor, so only customers who had a great experience (7+ out of ten) are actually loyal, returning clients.
Don’t know if that’s the best method to gather impressions on workplace environment though, I don’t think many people would consider their workplace “amazing”
i see this all the time with software designed by americans. on an old job we used a tool called “officevibe” where you’d enter your current impression of your role and workplace once a month. you got some random questions to answer on a 10-degree scale.
when we were presented with the result the stats were terrible because the scale was weighted so that everything below 7 was counted as negative. we were all just answering 5 for “it’s okay”, 3-4 for “could use improvement”, and 6-7 for “better than expected”. there had never been a 10 in the stats, and the software took that as “this place sucks”.
like, of course you downvote a bad response. you’re supposed to help the model get better, right?
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That happens in Google maps too. A 4 star restaurant is not good. But in Japan, 3 star is the norm, and 5 means exceptionally good.
It makes more sense with restaurant reviews. The business environment is so intensely competitive that any restaurant actually deserving of 1-2 stars would be much more likely to eventually go out of business.
So, over a long enough period of time, you’d wind up with mostly 3-5 star places, with some exceptions existing for restaurants that can survive without the benefit of repeat customers. (tourist trap places, places operated as some kind of money laundering operation, etc)
Recently, saw some survey that explicitly said 1-7 is “poor”, 7-8 is “OK”, and 9-10 is “great”. Wild, not sure what the point of the scale is then.
Same with book ratings. Looking at StoryGraph, the average ratings I see is somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5. While I would rate a decent book a 3.
Born in Eastern Europe, live in the US, maybe that’s why.
I wonder if it’s like the grading system we use in school? <60% is F for fail, 60% to <70% is D which depending on the class can be barely passing or barely failing. >=70% would be A, B, and C grades which are all usually passing, and A in particular means doing extremely well or perfect (>=90%). I just noticed that that rating scale kind of lines up with the typical American grading scale, maybe that’s just a coincidence
most countries i know mark <50% as a failing grade
From the looks of it, what they’re calculating is a net promoter score. The idea is that, in some context, what you actually want to know is whether your target audience would be willing to actually promote your business to their friends and family or not.
It’s very common in retail and other competitive markets, because a customer that had an “okay” experience could still go to a competitor, so only customers who had a great experience (7+ out of ten) are actually loyal, returning clients.
Don’t know if that’s the best method to gather impressions on workplace environment though, I don’t think many people would consider their workplace “amazing”