Blu Shell - New Scorecard

Over the past couple days, we've been experimenting with scorecard designs for the Blu Shell Reviews. We want to make them easy to read and accessible on the go. Our goal is to create a streamlined scorecard to help you decide whether a movie, tv show, book, graphic novel or music album is worth checking out. After a bit of trial and error, we've come up with a design we're pretty confident in. We'll show you the new design, but first, a trip down memory lane with some commentary on what each one did well and what wasn't so great. Click the jump to see the designs!

The first design we ever used for a movie review was colorful and bright, but it was so busy that it made it difficult to look at it and read it quickly. In some ways, this was an excellent design for what we were doing, but in many other ways, it failed tremendously. It was difficult to keep consistent. The arrow marker at the bottom was really only good if the movie scored less than 50 points, at which point the letter grades got in the way. We also hadn't decided on a clear, strict grading method. We used 5 stars, a score of 0-10, a secondary score of 1-100, letter grades, and an opinion grade (This Movie Sucks, This Movie Rocks etc.). It was just too busy.

Our second design was introduced for the review of The Fifth Wave and was much more streamlined than the one before. It was also revamped to better match the new branding style of the website. The problems in this new design were not apparent at first, but they quickly showed their heads. First of all, the circles on the left were confusing to readers, prompting people to ask us what exactly they meant. "Why are there yellow, green, and red circles on the side?" It was also a bit vague with terms like "technique" and "effects." Additionally, the card was 900x500, which was a bit tall for an end card at the bottom of a post.

Finally we have our new design. With four categories worth 25 points each and a cursor style slider to let you know quickly and easily how the film scores in each category, this card is smaller and more streamlined than any that came before it. Standing at a sleek 900x250, this is half the size of the previous design. Even coupled with the letter grade banner underneath, it stands at a mere 900x350 ratio and is easy to read.

So what do you guys think? Is the new design the best one yet or did we mess it up? Leave your thoughts in the comment section and don't forget to rate, share and subscribe!

See ya!