Changes are afoot in the way we will vote and not everyone is happy about it.
I even wrote a post about how I didn't like the new vote throttling feature as I thought it was too confusing for the average user. I have since come around.
It is my belief that the underlying change is a good idea, but so far it has failed at the presentation layer.
0% to 100% - What exactly does that mean?
I designed a quick and dirty mockup of how I think the UX of casting a vote would improve if just one additional element were added and some language tweaks were made. Take a look at the mockup below...
I created this very quickly so don't pay attention to details like it not fully matching the theme of the website.
Why Does This New Design Work?
As I noted above, 0% to 100% is quite confusing to the average user. Replacing those values with 'Min' and 'Max' and instead showing how power adjustments impact the users total voting power allows the user to easily understand what is occurring behind the scenes, at least at a superficial level which is all that is required for most users. Additionally, future changes to the voting algorithm could be implemented and this design would never need to be adjusted, thus the user would never again need to be shocked by a new system and UI being thrown at them.
This was just a thought I had this morning, but I really think it would be a great addition to the site.
Please let me know what you all think...
EDIT: Fixed mockup gif
