Rethinking the Comment Form
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Although frequency has an impact on acceptance and usability (eg. dropdown menus are now used for navigation), it’s not because a solution is widely-accepted that it is the right solution for your site.
A standard comment form on blogs or news sites often looks like this:
Now, have you ever stopped to wonder if this is the right design for your site? In any design process, it’s important to understand why a certain design was chosen and benchmark alternatives. This, in turn, allows you to create a solution adapted to your site objectives.
What should my site objectives be?
If you’re adding a comment system, one of your objectives should be to generate as much quality discussion as possible. Your system should not be limiting discussion in any way. But, to do this, it’s important to understand what people comment on.
Do users comment on the topic or on the discussion?
In other words, do users read the discussion before commenting or comment without reading the discussion? The answer to this is: some do, some don’t. Your system should be able to support both.
Improving the Comment Form
One of the challenges with designing for the Social Web is creating interfaces that will be completed by user input. It’s important to plan for a no comment, some comments and lots of comments states. Lets look at how we can improve the previous comment form:
- Set a default value. Not everyone will want to read every comment. Displaying all comments can make for long and intimidating pages. Lets set the default display value to the last 3 (or 5) comments with an option to see the full discussion. This will allow users to get an idea of the discussion without having to read it all.
- Show the number of comments. The number of comments often influences readership. The more comments an article has, the more interesting the discussion seems to be. Displaying the number of comments at the top of the article and at the end helps give an overview of the discussion. An anchor link at the top of the post will make commenting easier for users who only read the beginning.
- Manage multiple discussions. Some people will want to reply to other users. Threaded comments allow for side discussions. These discussions should not interfere with the main discussion. Imagine trying to follow all discussions at a party…
- Style comments. Comments should be numbered and separated to increase scanability. Personalization through avatars, usernames, etc reinforces the sense of community and will lead to increased discussion. MyBlogLog can help you do this.
- Don’t ask for useless information. Unless you intend on communicating directly to users, you don’t need an email field. A Captcha will do the trick if your spam filters are not cutting it.
- Make it fast. Positionning the comment field first will make the process seem faster. Don’t force signup and reduce the number of mandatory fields to reduce friction. Use cookies for returning users.
- Get users to follow discussions. A checkbox to be notified of replies via email (or a RSS feed) will help users track the discussion and increase user participation. This is where you can ask for the email address…
The following HTML prototype should give you an idea of what the redesigned form could look like:
Why isn’t Kotsego using this?
As with everything in design, there is no one-size-fit-all solution. We don’t currently need a system as robust as the one proposed.
Suggested Reading:
Like this post? Stay Connected with us and Receive Updates Right Away (via RSS)
Most of your bullet points flow from the initial assumption that “If you’re adding a comment system, one of your objectives should be to generate as much discussion as possible. Your system should not be limiting discussion in any way.” I disagree with this core assumption.
When adding a comment system to a blog (forums or other cases may be different), I want to maximize the *quality* of comments, not the sheer volume of them. (As do you, at least to some small extent. If you really just wanted to pull the most possible comments, you wouldn’t bother with trying to filter out spam.)
I do still agree with most of your points – using cookies to remember user information is nearly mandatory and threading is far too often neglected – but I don’t think it’s necessary to cater to those who want to comment without first reading at least the most recent comments (do you really need to have them repeating things that have already been said?) and I strongly disagree with the suggestion of “An anchor link at the top of the post will make commenting easier for users who only read the beginning.” If they read only the beginning of the post and jump to the end without even skimming the rest, then how likely are they to know enough about what was posted to be able to make a comment that’s at all relevant?
Also, minor nitpick on your “improved comment form” example… You left the “Follow discussion via email” checkbox alone, but removed the ability for users to provide an email address for it to be sent to.
Thanks for the feedback Dave.
Your are right, I should have stated “quality comments and discussion”.
As far as commenting without reading the full text, it’s unavoidable. Studies on reading and usability tests I have conducted have shown this to be true.
It is also consistent with the Inverted Pyramid where core ideas are exposed at the beginning of the text.
For the “improved comment form”, the email field only appears when the user checks the “Follow discussion via email” checkbox (It only works on the first screen).
Personally, I don’t mind using the standard comment form. And I do love reading the comments from other people (but not the repetitive ones). I hate short comments though, unless it’s a useful additional info. It’s the ‘quality’ comments that matters.
exciting and educational, but would be suffering with something more on this topic?
Nice. I’ll share this post with my students if that’s okay. They seem to want to skip the process.
This comment was originally posted on http://www.kotsego.com/blog)“>Kotsego Design
Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad if it can help.
This comment was originally posted on http://www.kotsego.com/blog)“>Kotsego Design
Loading of site is very slow. Is it because of server or because of images, i am not sure, but it seems the server needs a tune up. Home page news listing is a bit too long for my taste. It should be shorter or it could be followed by some sidebar content, which is empty at the end. Overall i like the concept.
This comment was originally posted on http://www.kotsego.com/blog)“>Kotsego Design
Thanks for the feedback. I agree, load time could be better and the homepage is a bit long. It’ll definitely get better as they get to it.
This comment was originally posted on http://www.kotsego.com/blog)“>Kotsego Design