Review guidelines
Means & Methods Lab asks construction pros for their honest opinions of the AI software they use. These rules keep those opinions real and useful. They apply to every review, every reviewer and every vendor.
Who can review
- Anyone who uses or used the tool for real work, or ran a real trial or pilot with it. Sign in with a one-time email link; you post under a handle, and your email is never shown.
- One review per person per tool. You can edit or delete yours at any time; edited reviews are marked "edited".
- Say what role you have and how long you used the tool. Company type and size are optional.
Disclose any tie to a vendor
- Every review form asks for your relationship to the vendor. If you have no financial tie to the vendor or a competitor, you confirm that. If you do (employee, contractor, reseller, implementation partner, investor, consultant, or you work for a competitor), you must say so; the tie is shown with your review.
- Vendor staff: reviews by people who work for or are paid by the tool's own vendor are clearly labeled and are not counted in any average. Vendors must not ask staff, family or agencies to post reviews.
- Incentives: if you got anything for writing the review (free access, a discount, a gift card, payment, a raffle entry), disclose it; the review is labeled. Nobody may offer an incentive that depends on the review being positive or negative.
Not allowed
- Fake reviews: reviews of a tool you have not used, reviews written for someone else or by someone else, and reviews written by AI. Using a spell-checker is fine; having a chatbot write your opinion is not.
- Undisclosed ties to the vendor or a competitor, and reviews bought, traded or written to order.
- Spam, advertising, links to sell something, harassment, hate, threats and personal attacks on named individuals.
- Confidential or personal information: client names under NDA, bid numbers, pricing you are contractually bound not to share, other people's contact details.
Moderation
Reviews go live as soon as they are posted. Anyone can report a review. Moderators may hide a review only for one of these reasons, and keep a record of which:
- Spam or advertising
- Abuse, harassment or hate
- Off-topic (not about using this tool)
- Fake, AI-generated or written for someone else
- Undisclosed conflict of interest
- Personal or confidential information
- Unlawful content
We never hide, edit, down-rank or delay a review because it is negative, because a vendor complained, or because a vendor pays us or might in future. Moderators do not edit what reviewers wrote. Vendors can't pay to change, remove or reorder reviews, and nothing they buy from us (see how we make money) changes that.
Vendors who think a review breaks these rules can use the report button or the corrections form, like anyone else. A vendor may not offer a reviewer anything to change or remove a review.
How ratings are shown
Each review has an overall rating from 1 to 5, a would-recommend yes or no, and optional 1-5 ratings for accuracy, ease of use, support and value for money. Every rating is published with the review, high or low, newest first.
A tool's average appears only once it has at least 3 rated reviews; until then the page says there are not enough reviews yet. Vendor-staff reviews are left out of averages. The reviews hub lists tools by number of reviews; a "highest rated by users" list shows only tools with at least 5 rated reviews. These are member opinions, not Means & Methods Lab test results or an editorial ranking.
What we promise
- We do not write, buy, seed or AI-generate reviews, ratings or review counts, and we do not post sample or placeholder reviews.
- We do not offer reviewers incentives. If that ever changes, it will be offered for any honest review, positive or negative, and every such review will be labeled.
- These rules follow the US Federal Trade Commission's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465, in force since October 21, 2024): no fake or AI-generated reviews, no undisclosed insider reviews, no buying reviews for a particular sentiment, and no suppressing negative reviews.