Reviews of Famous K-Pop Voting Apps (2020 Edition) Pt. 1
Everything is gonna be simple and easy, as well as voting for your idol.
After I wrote about the K-Pop revolution with technology, I was also reminded of the voting apps used by most K-Pop fans these days. In 2020, I managed to find 8 mobile voting apps that are mostly used by them (and me too hehe). I think it will be more mobile apps (I mean more than 8) or will add more in the future because, as we all know, practicality is the number one thing in this world, even though there are still some who use the web apps. I have taken a survey of my 23 friends who mostly use these apps but I wanna put my opinion too based on my experience. I’ll be more focus on the ranking based on mine and continued with my friends’ preferences and experiences. It’ll no right or wrong because it’s purely from opinion and it’s fully objective. I’ll start from the lowest rank.
8. THEKKING
THEKKING is an application where we can vote for our idols and if they win, the idols will be able to get ads in the New York Times. Looks tempting? Of course. In terms of design, I think this application is so simple. Very very minimalist. This is the first time I have come across a simple and minimal microcopy application in it. When creating an account, we are only limited to creating one account (you know it’s very very important thing for K-Pop fans to make more one account). Maybe, in fact, it is possible to create more than 1 account, but you have to go through the step of deleting data on your phone and re-login with another account. The menu provided is actually only 3 as shown in the picture. One menu is not yet available because it is still under development. It’s gonna be like love-hate relationship between me and THEKKING because it’s actually good app but no guide there so it makes me confused at first AND no microcopy which can guide user well, so in my opinion it tends to look empty. Besides, it gets me confused what app I should choose for #8 and #7 between STARPLAY or THEKKING (because both are so similar). Finally, I choose THEKKING for the last rank (sorry for TodayGift). Yeah, I just thought if they added more microcopy, it’d be good! Based on my survey, I think most of them agree with me though. There were 9 people who chose THEKKING in position 7.
7. STARPLAY
This application is not only for the pre-voting of The Show (music show from the SBS channel), there is also voting for idol birthday gifts in the form of ads and the like. After debating with myself whether I should put the #7 spot with STARPLAY or THEKKING, finally I choose STARPLAY. From the account-creation side is very easy and we can even create several accounts there. One of my reasons is it takes a lot of times to waiting. Even if we only move to one other menu, it also takes patience because it is so slow. There are also limitations for us to watch advertisements so that we can add to the silver star points used for voting, which is just once an hour. Even if we have more than 1 account there, we still can’t watch advertisements alternately. It looks like STARPLAY detected our account based on our IP address. Compared with THEKKING, there are still some microcopy and it doesn’t look empty. Based on the survey, 6 respondents chose STARPLAY for # 3 position.
6. CHOAEAEDOL
Its developer said that this app provides real-time idol rankings, idol schedules, and idol surveys (same as subtitle when you search it on google). CHOEAEDOL, like its name, is just for ranking for your idol who you love the most by voting using heart. Interestingly, this application also seems to collaborate with a certain organization in the social field, so that if our fav idol for a year (on anniversary day) can reach 55 million hearts, we will indirectly donate on behalf of our idol. Pretty impressed.
The first time I used this for voting for the SORIBADA Awards (which I thought it was a new application but it has been released since 2011) for the Popularity Award nomination and I continue to use it until now. At my “first trial” usage, in my opinion, is not too difficult, but quite confused because of the inappropriate placement. First, this is also the real basics. Why is “OK” preferred using gray color when usually we will often find “OK” button in colors (4th picture)? I don’t know why the UI designer made this but I find it a little annoying. People will tend to choose “cancel” rather than “OK” because the color is more striking. Actually, I have one more example for another bad design but I forgot to take a screenshot of it, so… I put it aside (but if I find it in the future, I’ll include it). Overall and its purpose, this application is very interesting and can inspire people to use it every day. However, the small things (which are actually quite fatal if ignored) that I mentioned earlier would be better to fix. Most of respondents chose this app is on #5 position with 5 votes.
Edit: I found the another one of example bad design (FINALLY!). This example shows at 5th and 6th picture. The “Accept” and “Refuse” buttons seem the placement is not quite right so that causing misunderstanding. The user will tend to choose “Refuse” button rather than “Accept” (it happened to me actually). I don’t know if the UI Designer made them as like that just for an “efficiency” so that the user can accept all friend requests (if there is more than one friend request). But, what if the case is just one friend request (like the in the 5th picture)? It’s quite annoying.
I think, it’ll be good if “Accept” and “Refuse” placed side by side for each friend requests. If there are more than one friend requests, just place “Accept All” button right at the top. The 6th picture is the same as 4th picture. It seems like all their “OK” and “Cancel” buttons are like the same placing and have the same format.
5. FANPLUS
FANPLUS actually is similar as THEKKING. They both facilitate fans to vote their idols to get ads, especially for their birthday. FANPLUS isn’t just voting app for winning ads but it includes community like we can post our favorite photos of our idol and chit chat with our friends and even we can post our story as fanfic. WOW! It’s kind of multifunctional app so that the user won’t be bored and can visit every time because there are features that support our fangirl activities.
Earlier I said that THEKKING and FANPLUS are kind of similar. But, the difference is, based on my experience, FANPLUS is more “crowded” than THEKKING from its design app. How to get voting tickets from friends, like CHOEAEDOL implemented, in my opinion is more convenient and we can also get tickets from watching advertisements. So far so good and hassle-free. But I’m not comfortable with choosing the word “Friends” to send voting tickets to friends and “Mail Box” to take tickets that our friends give us. For a moment, I thought it just like an email. But, after I clicked it, it appeared like 2nd, 3rd, and 5th picture below. However, it turned out that the “Mail Box” button, after I searched for it, it contained not only tickets from friends, but also there could be mail from the FANPLUS admin (3rd and 5th picture). I think the microcopy can be changed in the “My Friends” section for the feature to send tickets to all friends from “Send All” to “Send Ticket to All” (2nd picture with an arrow). Well, that’s just my opinion because “Send All” is little confusing and makes me think “send what?”. As well as for “Receive All”, maybe it can be “Receive All Tickets” (3rd picture with an arrow). One more, it seems like more convenient if “send-and-take-tickets” feature (I don’t know what is it called) put together in “Friends” menu so the user only need to click one button for those two activities. I think this feature is the most important and should not misunderstand the user so, again, it’s just an opinion. Overall, I like FANPLUS and I find it a “neat” application and not made carelessly. It got 8 votes making it in #6 position.
Phew! Looks like only 4 apps already long enough. So, I decided to divided this review into two parts. So, let’s continue it in another episode! Ciao!
