I want to always give a fair and honest review when sharing my opinions or thoughts on a product, place, or thing. I thought it would be best to write down and define how and why I choose to grade something. Not only for readers who want to better understand my thought process but also for myself to check back on to ensure I am following the same standard!

Overview:

To start, each review will be broken up into three criteria: Quality, Price, and Innovation. Each criteria is laid out below, based on the standards described each review will be given a score out of five (only whole numbers, nothing like 3.5/5). After that is a Pros and Cons list going over the keys things I think you will want to know that I might have missed or not had the opportunity to call out in the criteria section.

Quality:

Quality is the first of my three criteria and the most important (generally speaking) in my opinion. Doesn’t matter how “good” of a price it is or how potentially innovative it is, if the product doesn’t last under normal daily use then it is useless.

For a product, quality is simply: how well is the product made? As an example bicycle components can vary in quality in terms of entry-level vs mid-range vs high-end or can vary in quality when comparing the same “level” but different brands, like Shimano vs a knock-off China brand.

For a place, it can be a little more challenging at defining what makes it a high quality location. Everyone has different requirements or things they look for so for me the main things are: the place isn’t filled with sketchy individuals or littered with trash, people are overall welcoming or kind, and that the information online matches up with in person (like state park websites, event sites, etc.).

Price:

Price seems to be the easiest one to quantify but in my opinion can actually be one of the trickier ones. As we’ve learned with the boom in Chinese manufacturing, suspiciously low cost typically correlates with very low quality (no hate just is something to be aware of). When considering price, it is important to factor in things like place of origin, cost of raw materials and labor and how competitive the market is for this product. Another big factor when scoring price is to compare against other similar products, if it is the lowest cost option while still maintaining similar quality as it’s counter parts.

Ultimately in todays economy the average consumer is going to go for the lowest cost product that seems “good enough”. A big point of me making reviews is that I feel it is important to understand when spending a bit more (or sometimes a lot more) will actually save you money in the long run – if you’re unfamiliar with this idea and are interested check out this link! Sam Vimes – Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness.

Innovation

The last criteria I use is: Innovation. I want to make it clear I understand this is a dog-eat-dog world and people make things to sell them so they can keep a roof over their head and food in their bellies. I don’t expect every company to push the limits of how a product is made, or used, but that will be required to get a 5/5. It doesn’t need to be mind blowing but enough to show that they’re at least not copy and pasting. We have enough over consumption in this world so it is why I consider it an important criteria.

Generally speaking when I am grading a product or place I am judging it off of the following question – How did this impact the industry/people/place it is in?

Examples of Criteria Grade Sheet and Pros and Cons list:

Final Thoughts

Recently I have noticed that a lot of places I would typically go to for honest reviews have become places that now kiss-ass in fear of losing their relationship with the company. To me I think that is hypocritical. I wouldn’t want to work with a company I think makes low quality, expensive, and/or non-innovative products.