Hide Zeros for Users(vitonsky.net)
vitonsky.net
Hide Zeros for Users
https://vitonsky.net/blog/2025/05/15/zeros-in-ux/
2 comments
I agree with your disagreements. People are accustomed to fractional stars on product ratings, so rounding 4.5 up to 5 would be misleading. If I see a full five stars on something, I'm inclined to wonder if it's only gotten a few votes from the seller's buddies so far. I could see rounding to the nearest half-point, as long as the star icons match. The icons should match whatever numbers are displayed.
And skipping the ratings that have gotten no votes yet would be weird and bad.
And skipping the ratings that have gotten no votes yet would be weird and bad.
>Make the interface obvious and explicit, replace it with something like Rating is 5 stars.
>The semantics of the “stars” system are clear enough for human beings and are additionally visually reinforced with five stars below the text.
Things like this make the UI a little better. Even though the semantics and context are clear to those able to visually interpret it, there are some users that don't have this luxury. If someone is using a screenreader they will often need to tab around to figure out what 5/5 means. Is is a progress indicator, a page number, a recipe that doesn't have units on a page selling sunglasses?
There's really only 2 things I'd disagree with in this article:
1)
>Instead of 5.0 / 5, it’s better to show 5 of 5, since the .0 part has no meaning for the user, it’s important only for the computer. Users visit the site to get a service, don’t make them overthink and calculate your formulas.
>If the decimal part is important, round the numbers. Show 5 instead of 4.5 and 4 instead of 4.4. That’s sufficient if your site is not about math or chemical formulas.
I think that showing a decimal does have a purpose, it indicates that you should expect a fraction. If I land on a product page with 3/5 or 4/5 I would wonder if the product was really 4.9/5 or 3.1/5 both of which will hit the reptilian part of my brain differently and sway my purchase one way or another. But I will concede that showing a rounded 4.5 is better than 4.4 or 4.6.
2)
>The same applies to the list with stars. Nobody is interested in your computer data, so it’s fine to just remove the entire list of star distribution that merely clutters the page and pretends the site has a lot of content.
I agree with not showing progress bars, to a degree. But I do agree that his example is poorly executed. Sites should show the real ratio (I know product owners will hate that) or just show me the raw number.
>[...] For example, do not show stars that have no votes.
This would look odd to see:
* * * * * 64
* * * 4
* 1
I would wonder what happened to the rest of the stars. Is the site broken? Did my internet glitch and drop the network request to get the images?