Relevant commercial, editorial and founder connections are stated where readers encounter the assessment.
Post-Social Reviews
The Human Lens Review Methodology
A product is never only a collection of features. It changes behaviour, attention, relationships, memory and dependence. The Human Lens framework measures those consequences through seven consistent questions.
Editorial Principles
What every review must do
Factual claims are based on product behaviour and published information; editorial judgement is identified as judgement.
Features matter only in relation to their effect on real people and real life.
Reviews distinguish immediate usefulness from long-term value, continuity and dependence.
The Seven Criteria
The Post-Social Human Lens Framework
Connection
Whether the product strengthens meaningful contact, participation and shared experience rather than merely increasing activity.
Presence
Whether the product supports attention to real life or competes with the moment it is supposed to help us experience.
Authenticity
Whether the product encourages genuine records and expression or rewards performance, distortion, excessive curation or external validation.
Revisitability
Whether important material, history or prior activity can be found, understood and meaningfully revisited after the immediate moment has passed. For products not designed as archives, a lower score can reflect limited relevance rather than a product defect.
Multi-Generational Accessibility
Whether people of different ages, devices and levels of technical confidence can participate without unnecessary exclusion.
Long-Term Value
Whether usefulness grows, survives or diminishes over time, including the value created for families and future users.
Permanence
Whether access, ownership, portability, user control and stewardship are resilient to account, device or platform change. For products that preserve material, this includes whether that material can survive independently of the service.
Scoring
Seven category scores, one transparent overall rating
Each Human Lens criterion is scored out of 10. The seven scores are averaged, divided by two and rounded to one decimal place to create the overall /5 rating used on review cards and comparison pages. The score describes performance across the whole framework; the recommendation is a separate editorial judgement about suitability for a particular use case.
- 5.0 — ExceptionalCategory-leading and unusually strong through the Human Lens.
- 4.0–4.9 — ExcellentStrong overall performance with identifiable trade-offs that should still be understood.
- 3.0–3.9 — Worth ConsideringUseful for the right person, but meaningfully dependent on needs and trade-offs.
- 2.0–2.9 — LimitedMaterial weaknesses reduce suitability, continuity or long-term value.
- 0–1.9 — PoorSerious shortcomings outweigh the available benefit through the Human Lens.
Connected Products
A different standard where independence is not possible
Where Post-Social’s founder or editor has a financial, ownership or operational connection to a product, the page is not presented as an independent review. It is labelled as a Founder-Connected Assessment, the connection is disclosed prominently, and no numerical score or comparative ranking is published.
The Human Lens framework may still be used to examine the product’s purpose, strengths, limitations and unresolved risks. That analysis is editorially useful, but it is not a substitute for independent assessment.
Review Process
How an assessment is produced
Define the use case
Identify who the product is for and the problem it claims to solve.
Examine the product
Assess documented behaviour, features, sharing, privacy, export, pricing and account dependence. Where direct use informs an assessment, it should not be confused with evidence that comes from published documentation.
Apply the framework
Evaluate all seven Human Lens criteria and record the reason behind every score.
Publish the trade-offs
State who should use it, who should avoid it, what the score does not imply and any relationship that could affect perceived independence.
Evidence & Verification
The research layer stays out of the way
Normal readers should not need to work through a bibliography to understand a Post-Social review. The supporting research therefore sits in a separate verification register containing the assessment basis, catalogue audit date and first-party source starting points.
The register is intended for readers who want to inspect the evidence, and for search engines, crawlers and other systems that need a clearer provenance trail behind factual claims.
Corrections, updates and commercial disclosure
Material errors are corrected under the Post-Social Corrections Policy. Reviews may be updated when a product changes substantially. Updated dates should reflect real editorial changes, not cosmetic edits. Any supplied access, affiliate relationship, ownership interest or other commercial connection must be disclosed on the relevant page.
Questions
Methodology FAQ
Are Post-Social reviews consumer reviews?
No. Post-Social Reviews are editorial assessments written and scored by Post-Social. They are not customer testimonials, crowdsourced ratings or aggregated consumer-review scores.
Are Post-Social reviews sponsored?
No score is changed in exchange for payment, access or commercial benefit. Supplied access, affiliate relationships and other relevant commercial connections are disclosed within the relevant page.
How are Post-Social scores calculated?
Each of the seven Human Lens criteria is scored out of 10. The public overall rating shown in review listings is the seven-category average converted to a five-point scale and rounded to one decimal place.
Why score categories out of 10 but show an overall score out of 5?
The ten-point category scale gives enough room for meaningful editorial distinction. The five-point overall rating keeps review listings easy to compare. The conversion is transparent: the category average is divided by two.
Does the recommendation label come directly from the score?
No. The numeric score measures performance across the seven Human Lens criteria. A recommendation is a separate editorial judgement about who the product is suitable for, what problem it solves and whether its trade-offs are acceptable in that use case. A highly useful specialist product can therefore be recommended despite weaknesses outside its core purpose, while a high-scoring product may still be only worth considering for some readers.
What evidence sits behind a review?
Factual claims are checked against first-party product material where available, including product, pricing, help, privacy and support documentation. Post-Social maintains a separate evidence and verification register so that this research layer remains available without cluttering the normal reading experience.
How are founder-connected products handled?
A product connected to the founder or editor is labelled as a Founder-Connected Assessment. It is not presented as an independent review, does not receive a numerical score and is excluded from comparative rankings unless an external independent assessment is commissioned.