I recently decided to run a test to see how well users can collaborate using social bookmarking sites like reddit & digg. This was assuming that users will collaborate and can accomplish something together!

How the test works

1) Each visitor to the site will be given any ONE random letter of a phrase (one per IP address).

2) They have to use the comments or any method to share with other users know the letter they got.

3) All users have only two attempts to guess the phrase. After they have used their attempts they can share their guesses in the comments section.

EG: If the phrase was “wild goose chase”. Visitors to the page might get any letter from ‘w’ through to ‘e’ and so on. Users use the comment section to share their letters and work together and find out the phrase. This is how a test looked on reddit.

Result of test on Reddit

Phrase / Word Section posted Time to finish

Observatory Programming 14.5 minutes

Starbucks Coffee Entertainment 107.3 minutes

Wild Goose Chase WTF 225.6 minutes

Result of test on DIGG

Phrase / Word Time to finish



Spill the beans 580.5 minutes

Observations on the test results

1) Although more than 5000 visitors saw each page. There were around 105 comments and around 20 – 30 users who actively participate to guess the phrase.

2) Thanks to proxy servers used – Some users (esp in programming section) could get more letters from the system.

3) Reddit edit comments helps a lot as users can change their comments any number of times.

4) Another interesting observation was that some people lie that they got a letter which was not actually given to them. It was good to see users upvote the letters in the comments that they have also got to confirm a letter.

5) Reddit programming users managed to find the word in just under 15 minutes of starting the test. WOW!

I am looking for any other fun ideas of a collabortive test? Looking forward to hear your ideas!