I don’t read Gizmodo, but I stumbled upon its new (?), threaded commenting system today.
By paying a bit of attention to the way Gizmodo comments are designed, I encountered some flaws.
The notification rows for new replies under the comments are nice and big. They are also placed quite close to the original comment, a method that uses the idea of proximity to simulate relevance. So far, so good.
Nevertheless, they could use some more love: when opened up, the actual comment loads into another “module” (box), so the sense of proximity is ultimately lost and the user’s attention is fragmented between three different blocks – all parts of the same discussion. It gets worse with more replies – check it out:
Plus, why must a user click on either the linked “X replies from” or the author names or the nice big plus icon? For some weird reason, there are two links at the same phrase – both do the same thing. All of the row should be clickable – big shiny happy clickable areas, remember?
Another problematic aspect is the actual reply to comment form.
When the user clicks to add a comment, she’s presented with a threefold list of ways to reply – one of which (Facebook) is disabled for now. Then why even bother add it to the list? It only adds clutter to a supposedly simple thing as a comment form. Just add a tiny notice there somewhere, that Facebook comments will soon be supported, and tada.
Moreover, I’m sure that most users leave comments as guests – why not load automatically the guest comment form then and lose a click? Plus, after the user has chosen a way of commenting, lose the humongous list – it’s not needed anymore. Add a “change mode” link and give the user the chance to go back and choose another commenting method. Simple as that.
Also, what does the “Start a new discussion link” do anyway? I click it, zilch.
OK, enough ranting for the start of a month as productive as October. Have a nice autumn creativity boom, people!
