Our catalog provides a coarse rating structure of Recommended, Has Potential, and Not Recommended. About three quarters of the AV entries have been rated as of this writing. Of these, 18% are ranked as Recommended, 53% are ranked as Has Potential, and 29% are ranked as Not Recommended.
To arrive at the rating, two major factors are considered. First is whether the content being covered is clearly and successfully communicated. Second is the level of engagement and interaction that the AV provides to its users. For each of these two major considerations, we can assign valuations of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, as characterized below.
Clarity of Communication/Presentation of Content
Excellent: Clearly communicates difficult material; or incorporates analysis and insight, not just enables mechanical proficiency
Good: Clearly supports understanding of transitions between states (typically by animating the transformation process)
Fair: Presents a series of clearly defined states, but does not illustrate the transitions between them in a meaningful way
Poor: Hard to understand the necessary contents or information defining a state, or the transitions between states
Level of Engagement
Excellent: Direct interaction, user predicts and/or manipulates the state change process
Good: Some engagement, typically with direct control of the pace of state changes (at a minimum, a next button to drive the next state transition)
Fair: Passive, no control of state changes (e.g., an animation with only an overall speed control), but the information rate is not overwhelming
Poor: Discourages engagement: overwhelming, uncontrolled information flow; inadequate interface; bugs; or other off-putting factors
An AV is typically given a rating of Recommended if it scores Good or Excellent in both dimensions. Occasionally, an AV with Excellent in Content might be Recommended even if it is only Fair on Engagement. An AV is typically given a rating of Not Recommended if it scores Fair or Poor in both dimensions. However, the overall rating is also influenced by the level of competition from other AVs in that topic area. If many AVs exist that are better, the final rating could drop a level. If few AVs on that topic exist, the final rating could go up a level.