It’s time for another Literotica upgrade update!

Within the last 24 hours, we have rolled out two changes to the Literotica Story/Poem pages. Neither change is huge, but we hope that both of them will encourage Lit visitors to interact a little more with the stories and poems that they read.

The most important changes are:

1. We have changed the Lit voting element from a two click system to a one click system using more modern web technology. The old voting element, which has been used on the site since just about the beginning, required a reader to click on a radio button near the score that they want to give a submission, and then click on the “vote” form button. They would then be taken away from the submission to a confirmation page.

Using the new system, readers simply click on one to five animated stars and the vote is saved. They do not leave the story page, so they can easily click on “post comment”, “send feedback”, “add to favorites”, “author profile”, or other story or author related links. We are hoping that the ease of one click voting will encourage more voting. We have also increased the size of the voting element to bring more attention to it.

Several authors have kindly given their feedback on the new voting element on the Lit forum. One of the main concerns seems to be about making sure that existing users understand the new “star system” versus the old “number system”. We used the stars because they seem to be internet standard voting icons. More of the biggest sites that allow voting (You Tube, Yahoo, IMDB, etc.) seem to use stars when they ask people to rate their submissions, articles, movies, etc. Our thinking is that web users can easily understand these icons as voting icons because they see and use similar systems on many websites. However, we are definitely listening to feedback. If readers seem confused. we may add numbers to the stars to make it clear that one star equals one vote, five stars equal five stars, etc. We are watching the voting results closely right now to try to determine if there is in fact more, less, or the same amount of voting going on.

You can see an example of the new voting element on this story, or on any of the recently submitted Literotica stories. The new voting element should appear on all stories in the next few days.

2. We have added two buttons to the end of the Story/Poem pages on Literotica. One button says “Add Story To Favorites” and the other says “Add Author To Favorites”. If a logged in user clicks on one of the buttons, a box will appear allowing them to confirm their request, and the item will be added to their Favorites List. Just like that. They will not need to leave the page or do anything tricky. Just click, confirm, and keep on reading. If the user is not logged in, they can login directly inside of the new “Add To Favorites” buttons. If the user is not yet a registered member of Literotica, they must signup for the site before they can add anything to their Favorites List, of course.

So far, I don’t think that we have had any suggestions in regards to improving the Add To Favorites buttons. I think they are pretty simple to use and easy to understand. If you do have suggestions for improving them, please post them here. I was thinking maybe we should add a “Join Literotica Now” link on the element, for unregistered users who want to save the story they are reading to their Favorites.

If you have a moment, please test out both of these new features and let me know if you find any bugs or have any suggestions for improving them. You can also let me know if you just generally hate them or love them or anything in between. These are not huge changes, obviously, but small movement towards a more modern and interactive Literotica. Our goal with these changes, and many more to come in 2008, is to make sure that the great Literotica authors (who put so much work into writing their stories) get as much feedback and support from their readers as possible.

Thank you for reading this long update and please feel free to post feedback, suggestions, or anything else in the comments!