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Contributors * * * * +1 Published on 18 Sep 2017 Contents * What are reactions? * What is it for? * Opportunities and requirements * Implementation * Glossary of recommended reactions What are reactions? Reactions are a form of participation. Participation is an action performed by anyone using our BBC services, in order to express themselves, respond to, or shape their experience in some way. It also has the potential to have an impact on another person's experience of the BBC, for example through reacting and sharing. Emotions and feedback are the two identified types of reactions supported on the BBC website. The difference between emotions and feedback is defined by their purpose: * Feedback is an evaluation of a piece of content. It can be either positive or negative and is meant to teach us how to provide our audience with better personalisation. * Emotions are feelings provoked by a piece of content. We've identified 8 types of emotions: positive, negative, sad, funny, puzzled, inspired, disgusted and shocked. An example of the difference between feedback and an emotion: I want to be recommended more songs like 'Hello' by Adele This is positive feedback. 'Hello' by Adele makes me feel sad This is a sad emotion. Back to top What is it for? The purpose of feedback is to eventually provide better personalisation, and the main purpose of emotions is to allow our audience to engage with our content. Back to top Opportunities and requirements We want our audience to engage with our content as much as possible. This is why emotions are accessible to anyone using the BBC - there's no need to sign in. Because of this, the interface will be able to show how many people engaged with a specific piece of content, and how many of them selected each proposed emotion. But, it won't be possible to display back to them what they previously selected. It also means that they will be able to interact several times with the same piece of content, and react several times with the same - or a different - emotion. If someone signed in picked an emotion, although the interface and experience would be identical as what a non signed person would see, the information - 'this user engaged with this piece of content' - could be used to provide better personalisation. To use feedback our audience must be signed in to their BBC account. Back to top Implementation Of course not every product has to implement reactions, feedback and emotions - nor do they have to implement all the 8 types of emotions. It depends on what suits the product, the audience and the experience. However, the meaning of each reaction has to be consistent across products. This is to clearly communicate to our audience the purpose and benefits they can get out of using this feature. Back to top Glossary of recommended reactions Activity Action What it tells us Signed in state Examples Feedback Positive To serve more content like this one Signed in 'Recommended more of this', thumb up Feedback Negative Don't serve more content like this one Signed in 'Don't recommend this', thumb down Emotions Positive A positive feeling was provoked by a piece of content Both 'Heart' emoji, smiley face Emotions Negative A negative feeling was provoked by a piece of content Both 'Dislike', angry face Emotions Sad A feeling of sadness was provoked by a piece of content Both Sad face, heartbroken Emotions Funny A feeling of amusement was provoked by a piece of content Both "Lol", "funny", laughing face Emotions Puzzled A feeling of confusion was provoked by a piece of content Both "Weird", thinking face Emotions Inspired A feeling of admiration was provoked by a piece of content Both "Hero", "inspiring", applause emoji Emotions Disgusted A feeling of disgust was provoked by a piece of content Both "Disgusting", "gross" Emotions Shocked A feeling of surprise was provoked by a piece of content Both "OMG!", "OMD!", shocked face If you have questions about this guideline, please get in touch with the contributors at the top of this page. 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