VidSquid Instructions

Using the VidSquid system is very intuitive, and you'll probably figure it out on the first try. There are two unique parts to VidSquid: the Rate Video page, and the View Results page. Once you have logged in to your YouTube account and loaded a YouTube video at the Control Panel page, these options will appear to you. You will need a valid YouTube account to rate videos on VidSquid!

 

Rating a Video

On this page, you will be able to provide moment-by-moment feedback on the loaded video. Once the video has been loaded into the buffer, you will be prompted to press the "play" button to get things started. While the video is playing, simply click and drag the black Slider Button to the right or left... toward the "happy face" if you like what you're seeing right now, or toward the "sad face" if you dislike it. The slider has a wide range, so you can move it just a little to the right or left if you only like what you're seeing a little... or a lot, if the video is getting a big reaction from you! If you let the slider button go, it will "snap back" to center, which just indicates "I have no opinion" or that you're "indifferent" to what you're watching at that instant.

 

You can always come back and rate the same video again; however, if you do so it will "forget" any pervious ratings you've submitted for that particular video. You may also pause the video, and start it up again.

 

Viewing the Results

If a video has been rated, you can view the results from the control panel. The results page will let you watch the video again... but this time, there is a chart beneath. As the video progresses, a red line will travel through the chart to show the average rating for the video at that moment. Results are recorded for every half-second, and the more people submit reviews, the more consistent the results will be!

 

The chart has several components. From left to right (horizontal axis), the chart shows time in half-seconds. From top to bottom (vertical axis), the chart shows ratings from 0 (sad face) to 100 (happy face). A line showing indiferrence/no opinion (50) runs along the center of the graph.

Next, the thick blue trend line shows the average rating from all reviews. If more than one user submitted ratings, there will be a brown line above and below the average; this represents the standard deviation of ratings. The standard deviation is a statistical measure that represents variability, or how consistent the ratings were. If the brown lines are close to the blue line, it means that all the viewers were in close agreement. It won't be unusual for videos to have parts where viewers are in agreement, and parts where there is a lot of disagreement!