How I created a custom review system without any code on my application
See the simplicity in the custom with low-code/no-code tools
Background
I’ve been learning how to use low-code/no-code tools by building out an online application to connect local venues (bars, breweries, restaurants) and musicians to book non-ticketed events that can be shared with fans.
I recently was given feedback that a great feature addition would be a review system that enables Venues and Musicians to rate each-other so that other users could see reviews prior to future booking decisions.
So I decided to explore creating a user review system on my application as the feedback I was provided had me realize that this could be a huge value addition to my users. After seeing most other platform applications (think Uber, DoorDash; basically any product that has 2 different end users working together) having review systems, I have always been interested to learn the technical process on how this was conducted from idea to implementation at a foundational level. Now I have a reason!
Resources Used
Glide low-code/no-code tools
Youtube example by Robert Petitto (highly recommend all of Robert’s videos)
A little bit of persistence and creativity
The Ideas
As a Venue or Musician user, I would like to see other user’s reviews before booking an event with them so that I can have better insight on how these individuals have worked with others.
As a Venue or Musician user, I would like to be able to provide a review after a booked event so that I can help other users to see how it was working with this individual.
Shout out to my Product Owner/Scrum Masters who love a good user story !
Where I Began
Backend Data Field Setup
I started with thinking about what fields would be important to capture in order to present on the user interface.
The fields that I deemed as important were:
ReviewAvailable field - in order to know when a review is available for the user
ReviewStatus field - in order to know if a review is in progress or complete
Reviewing - who is completing the review?
BeingReviewed - who is being reviewed?
ScheduleID - what event is this review related to?
ReviewDate - when was this review conducted?
Rating - what is the rating 1 to 5?
RatingStar - template to turn the rating number into stars (★★★★★)
UserRelation - relation to user table based on email so that I can pull in user details to populate on user interface
UserName - relation to name of who is begin reviewed
UserPhoto - relation to photo of who is begin reviewed
Frontend User Interface
I thought about how I wanted the reviews to present on the screen and determined there were two main locations.
Review Tab - for users that have reviews to see and complete
User Profile - for other users to see and view the
To update the user interface you have many components available with customizable abilities where you can connect with your created fields on the data side.
Takeaways
From ideation to implementation/validation testing, this took me about 2 hours in total for a user to be able to begin interacting.
There are many future ideas that I’m looking forward to explore including Artificial Intelligence with ChatGPT and Notification integrations to email and sms on specific actions.
If there are any ideas you think I should try out or walk through please comment below!
Check out what we’re building!
Earshot is an application to connect Venues and Musicians to conduct local live music events that are shared with fans.
Create a free fan account today at earshotlivemusic.com!