I hope creating two posts with feedback isn't intrusive, but I feel this topic is different than the earlier one I posted.
As someone who's been following the 3D printing technology for a while, I understand the "First to Try" concept. I dare say that everyone on this forum understands it as well. If they see a picture of a item of jewelry that's been printed in brass, choose Raw Silver as the material, and see the "First to Try" icon, they'll understand what it means. They'll also have a good understanding of Shapeways' printing process through reading the articles on the site. They'll understand the risks. They'll appreciate the transparency you offer.
I'm trying to market my Shapeways shop to folks who have no understanding of 3D printing. The transparency that you're trying to offer in the printing process will confuse them, if not scare them outright. Consider the example in the previous paragraph: if they click on "Raw Silver" and see "First to Try", they're not going to buy that item. They may very well lose confidence in me and not purchase anything from my shop at all.
This may be a major issue for new shops such as mine, for which I'm still trying to figure out an affordable marketing strategy. It's going to be a long time, if ever, before I have customers order enough of the same item to accumulate statistics for a success rate. In the meantime, they're going to see an indicator that suggests I don't know what I'm doing. (Maybe I don't, but can we can keep that between me and Shapeways?)
Suppose there is a problem with a model that requires a trivial change? For example, in one of my pendants (
https://www.shapeways.com/model/1908552/pentacle-pendant.htm l?beta=1), I trivially increased the size of the loop so it could accommodate a leather thong. As a result of this change, the success rate for all of the materials for that item would go to zero, tossing away any confidence I might have had with a new customer.
I'd like the option to keep printing success statistics private, to just the shop's owner. If a print fails or a customer complains, I certainly want to know about it so I can fix the problem. I'd rather not have to expose my n00bishness or my product fixes in such a way that might scare away customers.