Opinion Overload

June 11th, 2008 in Featured Posts by Ben Mandelker

Everyone has a passionate feeling about something, and in this age of blogs and pundits and Interwebs, convictions seem to exist as some sort of intangible currency — the special stuff that fuels the most popular destinations in cyberspace. Without opinions, sites like this one and many others would simply exist as mere rest stops on the information superhighway — quaint little outposts that, while useful, wouldn’t be particularly memorable. But is there such a thing as too many opinions?

Not according to whereistand.com, a much-publicized website that invites users to take stands on “the issues that matter to you.” Just like those annoying Facebook debate groups popping up everywhere, whereistand.com wants people to vote yay or nay on a wide variety of provocative statements, ranging from The U.S. government should not provide universal healthcare” to “Patti LuPone (’Gypsy’) will win the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical.“. In theory, it’s the perfect response to a society that’s become increasingly addicted to weighing in on all matters large and small.

In practice, however, whereistand.com would do well to gather a few opinions about its own usability. It’s a mess. Just like a room full of people spouting their thoughts on every topic all at once, the site has a chaotic, disorganized feel that detracts from any sort of meaningful experience we’re supposed to come away with. Navigation is almost a joke. Nothing is easy to get to. Nothing is easy to figure out. Nothing is intuitive.

From the main page, click on what appears to be a topic, and most likely you’ll be brought to a user’s specific opinion on that topic, not an actual overview of the topic itself. In order to do that, users must click on a smaller, easily-overlooked, Digg-like badge to the right.

Of course, if you do find yourself at someone’s opinion page, don’t expect to find an actual opinion very easily (if it’s there at all). Take, for example, the case of KMumm, a user who weighed in on the topic, “Based on the information available now, was the invasion of Iraq justified?” Click on her opinion, and you’ll be taken to her page, at the top of which she writes:

I am a proud republican. I believe that this nation was founded “under God” and should stay that way. I am for the pledge of allegiance in schools. I believe that if ever we are not one nation under God, we will be a nation gone under ~ props to Ronald Reagan. I will say Merry Christmas until I die, and if that offends you I couldn’t care less. I don’t take offense to Happy Hannukah, so deal with it. I don’t believe in pussy-footing around muslim beliefs. Why should America cater to them, we are a majority catholic/christian nation. If you don’t like it there are plenty of other places that will cater to you.

If this “opinion” seems a bit off-topic, that’s because it is. Turns out that this is a bio, not an opinion. If you want to see what this woman really has to say about the issue, users must look lower on the page, find the topic, and read the blurb beneath it. However, most people don’t bother writing anything. They merely click “Yes” or “No” on any given issue, which means coming to most opinion pages in the first place is just a giant waste of time.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of browsing opinions. As it stands, there’s no way (or no way I found) to peruse a list of the topics that people are squawking about. Click on “Issues,” and you’ll find a few questions designed to spur on discussion. Click on “Opinions,” and you’ll be brought to a long list of opinions tens of thousands deep, logged chronologically since who knows when. These opinions, however, are not topics. They are merely people’s thoughts on the topics. How am I supposed to take a stand if I don’t know what I can take a stand on?

Scratch that. There is a way to get a list of topics. Ready? Here’s how:

1) Register for the site.
2) Wait upwards of 40 minutes for your confirmation email, which tells you “You tried to register an account at http://whereIstand.com and did not complete the registration.” Based on this statement, you may think that you messed something up, but rather than waste a minute or two figuring out what went wrong, know that this is the system’s inarticulate way of saying, “In order to complete the registration process, click here.”
3) Now that you’re registered, click on your user name in the upper-right hand corner of the screen. Almost there!
4) Once you’re at your home page, click on the “Opinions” tab, and voila, you finally have a list of topics. Just remember that when you reach the bottom of every page, you have to scroll up again to find the “Next” arrow.
5) Oh, and also, keep in mind that this still isn’t a comprehensive list of topics. So never mind.
6) Wait, maybe it is. And maybe “Issues” are the topics after all. They just don’t seem like it because they’re questions but the topics are presented as statements, and the questions becomes statements once you submit an opinion. Or something like that.

Do you see what I’m getting at here?

This, sadly, is emblematic of many of the site’s navigational flaws: counter-intuitive flow, disorganized structure, and confusing layout. There’s entirely too much trial and error involved, and instead of focusing on ideas, most users will be putting their energy into getting from point A to point B (with several accidental stops at points C, D, E, F, and G). Sure, navigation can be learned in time, but it’s on the designers — not us — to do the heavy lifting.

It’s too bad, really, because there’s a lot of potential here. The site boasts nice blog integration as well as thousands of “public profile” opinions culled from politicians, pundits, columnists, and many others. Users can employ a comparison feature to see how others stack up on various issues, and even better, if no opinion is available, users can request one (don’t ask me how — I saw the feature once on some page and haven’t been able to get back to it. Again, the navigation).

Still, despite all the intriguing promise, whereistand.com is nowhere near where it should be as a professional website. Obvious features are missing, navigation is a nightmare, and the visuals are substandard. In fact, it’s so hard to use that the entire experience is essentially rendered irrelevant. What’s the point of taking a stand if no one else can even bare to listen?

–Ben Mandelker