Misplaced "More Inside"

March 9, 2005 1:55 PM

Small UI problem? A couple of times in the last week or so, people have typed their askme question in the title box, and their "more inside" in the question box. Could the interface be made a bit clearer somehow?
posted by andrew cooke to Bugs at 1:55 PM (26 comments total)

Any suggestions? I thought it was pretty clear.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:03 PM on March 9, 2005

Also, any links to examples? I haven't seen exactly what you're talking about happen before.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:04 PM on March 9, 2005

Here's the one andrew cooke is probably talking aboot.
posted by Capn at 2:09 PM on March 9, 2005

I don't think there's anything to improve upon. Probably, no one will do it twice, once they realize their redundancy...
posted by Specklet at 2:12 PM on March 9, 2005

fixed that example.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:20 PM on March 9, 2005

A second example.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:26 PM on March 9, 2005

I suppose the confusion is because in MetaFilter-proper the "link title" shows up as the first words of your post. Putting "Short title for your question" after "Your question" on the Ask.Me posting page would probably bring the number of similar future mistakes down to zero.
posted by nobody at 2:45 PM on March 9, 2005

I suppose the confusion is because in MetaFilter-proper the "link title" shows up as the first words of your post.

The title form field is in the same place on both posting forms and marked off as "title for your post", so I don't follow you. The ask metafilter form even says "this will only show up as a page title and in RSS feeds" under title, to make that more obvious.

I believe this is a one-time mistake of people not reading and going through it too fast. The preview should show them that the question won't show up on the front page.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:52 PM on March 9, 2005

this will only show up as a page title

Maybe it would be even more clear if this bit said "in the title bar of the browser window"?
posted by redfoxtail at 3:16 PM on March 9, 2005

I believe this is a one-time mistake

Third example.
posted by rafter at 4:28 PM on March 9, 2005

uh, rafter? I believe matt means that a user will only make the mistake once, not that it only happened once. I think that's what you're trying to say there.
posted by puke & cry at 4:40 PM on March 9, 2005

It's not as well-written as it could be, Matt, and nobody's very simple solution will almost certainly fix it so that we won't even get the first-time error. Honestly, I can't understand your resistance here to making a simple switch between the two boxes so that "Your question" - which is clearly the more important box - comes before "Short title for your question."

But then again, I learned long ago as a tech writer that logic doesn't always sway designers. :)
posted by mediareport at 10:53 PM on March 9, 2005

sorry for not giving examples. i've only seen three, and i guess they're the ones now listed here. i don't have a solution either - it just seemed odd that it kept happening.
posted by andrew cooke at 9:01 AM on March 10, 2005

Honestly, I can't understand your resistance here to

I'm just not convinced it will reduce confusion.

making a simple switch between the two boxes so that "Your question" - which is clearly the more important box - comes before "Short title for your question."

The question is more important, maybe I'll move the title down to the bottom. It's pretty much the least vital bit of data.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:13 AM on March 10, 2005

For what it's worth, I've also been a bit confused by the "Short title" box, because when I read Metafilter, it's not visible until one actually clicks on the thread (to see comments), and even then, it's at the top of the window (were I almost never look).

If this box is at the bottom of the input screen, then it's more likely to be taken as some sort of additional information of value to someone (for folks like me, who don't "get it"), and not confused with the main event (the question and the "more inside" comment).

And if there isn't an edit to force the user to put something in this box, there should be, particularly if it gets moved to the bottom, where a user may be tempted to ignore it.

[Also, for what it's worth, if three different people make the same mistake, then it's worth trying a UI change to see if that will prevent similar mistakes in the future.]
posted by WestCoaster at 11:17 AM on March 10, 2005

Also, for what it's worth, if three different people make the same mistake, then it's worth trying a UI change to see if that will prevent similar mistakes in the future.

Agreed, 100%, but I was still waiting to hear a better suggestion than what is currently there. Simply switching their order didn't sound right to me. Putting it down on the bottom with other metadata type things seems like a better approach and I had to think of it before I could try it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:58 AM on March 10, 2005

How about using the same short field for both the question and the title? We have [More Inside] for clarification and explanation.
posted by timeistight at 1:03 PM on March 10, 2005

There's no limit on the question field. A title could be several paragraphs long.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:08 PM on March 10, 2005

mathowie: The title form field is in the same place on both posting forms and marked off as "title for your post", so I don't follow you. The ask metafilter form even says "this will only show up as a page title and in RSS feeds" under title, to make that more obvious.

The confusion, though, is that a very small number of quickly-clicking people are intuitively seeing the Ask.Me title field as analogous not to MeFi's "Post Title" (which is in the same place in that it comes first among the fields) but rather to MeFi's "Link Title" (which is in the same place in that it comes right before the Description/Question). Any change in ordering would break that intuitive connection (and I suspect solve the small problem on its own).

That said, changing "This will only show up as a page title..." to something like "This will only show up as the HTML title..." would probably also help.
posted by nobody at 2:19 PM on March 10, 2005

People don't necessarily read web pages; they scan them looking for something (see Don't Make Me Think). When they're trying to submit a question, they'll tend to type the question into the first field they come across.

Moving the title field is a good idea, but it may result in more blank titles unless you force them to fill it in.
posted by timeistight at 3:30 PM on March 10, 2005

happened again. see. it's an epidemic! chickens are typing at the computer! we're all going to die!
posted by andrew cooke at 8:32 AM on March 12, 2005

And again.
posted by xil at 2:53 PM on March 12, 2005

This is one of those really simple "dumb user" problems. Just think like a dumb/thoughtless/rushed/distracted user, note the mistake those users are making, and alter their experience of the site/software/manual so that particular mistake doesn't appear as an option anymore. Simple.

They'll move on to another mistake, probably, but that's life. In this case, there are two things I'd do: First, the obvious placement of "Your question" as the first thing an AskMe poster types. Second, change "Short title for your question" to "Short title for your question, which will show up only in RSS feeds and the title of the AskMe page for your question."

My experience pretending to be dumb users tells me that would eliminate 95% of the mistakes we're now seeing.
posted by mediareport at 10:38 PM on March 12, 2005

again
posted by andrew cooke at 9:40 AM on March 16, 2005

and what on earth is happening here?
posted by andrew cooke at 5:29 AM on March 18, 2005

Twice more, within three hours of each other.

I think collecting these mistakes is going to be my new dumb hobby.
posted by xil at 1:50 AM on March 28, 2005