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Re-designing comment forms

19th February 2004, the wee hours | Comments (66)

Here’s a question for you: why, in almost every comment form you see on the Web, do the Name, Email, and URL fields come before the Comment textarea?

The primary goal of a comment form is to collect a comment. So, why is the comment textarea almost the last thing the user gets to see?

Can you think of a good reason?

The only one I could come up with is that many comment forms have a number of required fields. Traditionally these required fields have been the Name and/or Email address, and so it makes sense to tell the user up-front that “Hey, if you want to post a comment here, be aware you have to fill this information in first.”

So, maybe this common layout has evolved to ensure that users see all you want them to see before they settle down to writing a comment.

That makes sense, right?

Well, yes and no. It certainly makes sense the first time around to show people all this information, but what about the second time they view the comment form? Or the third? Or the forty-fifth? Won’t they know what fields are there? Won’t they know what’s required and what’s not? Won’t they be okay with your demand for information? After all, they’ve submitted the form before, so your requirements have been met on at least one previous occasion.

And to top it all off, if they’ve chosen to store their name, email and URL in a cookie, those three fields will be automatically filled in anyway — they’re now practically redundant, and yet we still shove them in people’s faces.

I think this whole process could be improved.

Redesigning the form

What I’ve done on this site is try to satisfy all the points I raised above. First off I work out if a user has one of my comment-cookies set on their machine: if there is a cookie then I know they’ve posted here before; if there isn’t a cookie then I presume they haven’t posted here before.

For those who don’t have a cookie set I provide a regular comment form with a prominent spam warning. Nothing out of the ordinary.

For those who do have a cookie set I provide a re-ordered comment form. They get faster access to the comment textarea, the spam warning is removed, and their personal details are shifted down; they’re still visible and accessible, just not ‘in the way’ of the comment textarea.

Now when they scroll down to the comment form, what's the first thing they see? The comment textarea. What's the second? The submit button. Lovely job.

Does it work?

For me, yes it does. I can now ignore the Name, Email, URL and Cookie fields, and concentrate on writing my comment — and surely that’s what a well designed comment form should let its users do; write comments with the minimum of fuss.

The structure may seem odd to you at first glance, but that’s because we’re so accustomed to seeing the traditional layout… give it a chance, and I’m sure that like me, you’ll start to appreciate this re-organised form.

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Comments (66)

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  1. Keith:

    Interesting if nothing else. I'm curious to see how it works out. I myself don't see the order of these fields on a rather small form such a big deal. It's never occurred to me as a hassle. I also wonder if maybe folks will have a hard time getting used to it -- but I guess we shall see.

    Posted 22 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan
  2. Kevin:

    Let's see. Cookie being set.

    Posted 31 minutes after the fact
  3. DarkBlue:

    I did something similar (almost) with the Urban Mainframe. The comments system is open to all users but takes advantage of the details stored in the database for registered users.

    If a registered user has logged in (and this can be avoided if he/she chooses the "remember me" option - in which case they are identified by cookie), then he/she doesn't even see a name or URL field (I don't capture email addresses at the moment). All they see is the text area and the submit button.

    It's all about useability. Dunstan, I think your new system is very well thought out. It's certainly more accessible.

    Thank you.

    Posted 33 minutes after the fact
  4. Kevin:

    It appears so but you still have to preview it and then post it.

    I think it's easier if there is the option to preview or post there and then, as I expect few people actually preview their comments.

    Otherwise, top notch design and programming on this website Mr D.

    Posted 34 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ DarkBlue, ↓ Dunstan
  5. DarkBlue:

    The forced preview prevents bots from spamming the comments system.

    Posted 37 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Kevin
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan
  6. Dunstan:

    Ah, well the 'forced preview' isn't part of the layout thing - I removed the 'post straight off' button because I got lots of comments from people saying "Damn, I wish I could edit my comments for mistakes" - I figured this way people would be forced to check their comments first. I hope it will result in better quality entries.

    Plus it gets round people who write HTML into this textarea expecting it to work - at least in the preview they can say "Oh, HTML doesn't work here, I better change that."

    So, I realise that it's not quite so friendly to people who like to just hit 'post', but it should be better for the site.

    Posted 41 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Kevin
  7. Dunstan:

    Oh yes, that too :)

    Posted 44 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ DarkBlue
  8. Ste Grainer:

    What a great concept. I can't wait to see how others take to it. As I was reading, I couldn't help but wonder - once you have the cookie, are the other fields necessary at all? I realize that sometimes people might want to change or possibly remove their info, but do the fields even need to be there every time? It seems like you could put an option "link" to change them to make the form even simpler. (Just show the name and info so they know what *will* show up.)

    Posted 53 minutes after the fact
  9. Alex:

    It's tough to balance the benefit of 'doing it a better way' against the cost of familiarity in presentation...

    Posted 56 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Alex
  10. Dunstan:

    Keith, the level I'm looking at here is trying to remove those little bits of thoughtless design - the things that mean you have to scroll that extra inch, or look past that extra paragraph of bumf, or pause that quarter of a second longer [1].

    Sure those three fields don't take up much room on comment forms, but the point is - they just shouldn't be there (IMHO). And if that's the case then a redesign, however odd it may look, is a step in the right direction.

    I think there's lots of things that we all just copy-and-paste in blog design, it sometimes helps to sit back and think "Just because every other site in the world does it like this, who's to say it's right?" Maybe they all copied-and-pasted from one guy in 1996, and no-one thought to question it?

    I'm sure some people will have some short-term issues with this - I did when I was designing it (I actually dismissed it to start with, but ended up coming back to it) - but I think after a few goes at it people will see the benfits.

    I hope :o)

    I certainly am.

    [1] I realise my 'forced preview' thing could fall into that last category, but that's different (I think). That's a planned pause! :op

    Posted 57 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Keith
    Inspired: ↓ Margaret
  11. Joshua:

    i really like this idea Dunstan...

    be interesting to see if it appears in MT 3.0 :)

    Posted 58 minutes after the fact
  12. Keith:

    I agree about the "copy and paste" thing, but honestly, who (besides yourself) has the time to figure all of this out?

    I've got a great idea, provide your templates chock full of this good stuff and I'll copy and paste that!

    ;)

    Posted 1 hour, 9 minutes after the fact
  13. Margaret:

    very clever. It looks to me to be pretty usable, and not having to look at the spam warnings and so forth makes it nicer to post comments. I can really see how this could be useful. makes a lot of sense to me.

    Posted 1 hour, 29 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Dunstan
  14. Owen:

    It's a bit strange having the form separated as it is... looks like two distinct forms. I have always considered it disorienting to have forms with the submit button before the last field... perhaps duplicating the "preview" button at the bottom would alleviate that concern.

    Another choice is to hide the stored information fields (using JavaScript?) and prepend some kind of heading with the stored username and a link to allow changes to that stored information. That would maintain consistency for people who wonder what happened to their personal details after the first submission.

    When designing my current site, a kind of multiple-author weblog, I decided to order the fields as title, then content, then username, then submit. It forces a preview as well, partly because a password is required to finalise the post.

    I never really thought about why I designed it that way but it's essentially the same format as you've come up with so now I have my reasons!

    Posted 1 hour, 29 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Frank Geerlings
  15. Dave:

    Good point here. Something I've seen on most MT/TypePad pages is also just that the personal info section takes up so much space. Condensing it all would help focus on the comments as well.

    Posted 2 hours, 15 minutes after the fact
  16. Michael Sheets:

    I thought of this immediately after seeing Basecamp do it. Much nicer.

    Posted 2 hours, 42 minutes after the fact
  17. Jim Reverend:

    This is an excellent idea. I will surely implement it in my own software when I get to that point. Great observation!

    Posted 3 hours, 40 minutes after the fact
  18. Stephen:

    I've never commented on your site before, so I figured I'd try it out. Perhaps this is an ingenious way to get people to comment?

    Posted 3 hours, 41 minutes after the fact
  19. James Paden:

    Need to add something like the following javascript...

    if (decreasesize > 0) {
    }

    If you press "Decrease Size" a couple times you get an error. Very nice functionality though. Wish I had thought of it.

    Secondly, I think people should be smart enough to double check their comments before posting. I don't personally like loading an extra page just to post a comment.

    Posted 4 hours, 44 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Tim, ↓ Dunstan
  20. Tim:

    James,

    As has been mentioned, the comment preview is more of an anti-spambot measure than getting "stoopid" people up to speed with spelling, grammar and quality of thought ;)

    People should be smart enough to do a lot of things, but they're not. Users Are Stupid. Mostly...

    Posted 8 hours, 16 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ James Paden
  21. Frank Geerlings:

    Whenever the submit button is not the last button on the form I tend to get confused. Usually the submit button applies to all the fields _above_ the button, starting with the first field after the previous submit button, if any. I guess I am not the only one that has grown used to this idea.

    Maybe you can adjust the tabbing order so that you jump over the name, email and URL fields, but still have the submit button last? Not sure whether that's the best idea GUI-wise, but at least the input fields can be in the right place.

    Posted 9 hours, 39 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Owen
  22. Richard Allsebrook:

    When I read through your description Dunstan, I wasn't sold... until I got the bottom of the page ready to type in my comment.

    As I have previously commented here, the order of the fields made perfect sense and I could get right on and add my comment.

    I don't agree with hiding the contact details all together though - What If the PC is used by more than one person? A quick glance down is all that is required to make sure your posting as you and not someone else.

    I don't think this concept would work well in many other GUI's. Moving stuff around in a GUI is usually considered 'a bad thing'(tm). It forces the user to learn two (or more) layouts to achieve the same end and adds an element of initial confusion while they mentally shift gear to accomodate the new layout. It makes it quite difficult to document the proccess too... "Enter your search criteria in the Search box under the title, unless you have previously searched and the search criteria box will be under the list of your last searches..."

    Works great here though :-)

    Posted 9 hours, 51 minutes after the fact
  23. Dunstan:

    "I think people should be smart enough to double check their comments before posting"

    James, I'd love it if people checked what they wrote before posting, but many of them don't.

    Think of this as a quality barrier to entry:

    In his book 'Design for Community', Derek M. Powazek [1] talks about 'Barriers to Entry', and the benefits of introducing such elements into a web site. These barriers might be language-based (e.g. if you only talk about Perl programming on our site, you'll probably exclude people who aren't interested in Perl), time-based (e.g. Placing a comment form at the end of a four page story means that only those who persevered through the entire story will get to comment on it), or something as simple as a registration form.

    "A well-placed barrier to entry will develop your site's identity and filter your audience to those with the most knowledge and passion for the subject. The result is a successful, on-topic, well-behaved community." - Derek M. Powazek

    Hopefully this 'preview barrier to entry' will have a similar effect. If it doesn't, and everyone stops posting, then I'll have to remove it.

    I'm certainly not alone in forcing a preview, simon [2] does it as well. And as the comment form becomes more powerful (accepting XHTML) a preview will be even more necessary.

    If I could find a way that a preview wasn't needed, I'd jump at the chance. At the moment though, my little brain can't work out how to get around it, so just bare with me :o)

    [1] http://www.powazek.com/
    [2] http://simon.incutio.com/

    Posted 10 hours, 38 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ James Paden
    Inspired: ↓ Hadley
  24. Dunstan:

    Thanks for all the feeback people, and keep your comments coming.

    It's all very well me coding this stuff but I only have myself to test it on until it goes live, so all your thoughts and reactions are really helpful :o)

    Posted 10 hours, 42 minutes after the fact
  25. David House:

    Maybe you take this a step further and add a caption to the bottom of the comment field instead of a list of input boxes — something like 'Your stored details: name: Bob Jones; email: bobjones123@hotmail.com; url: www.bobjones.com; Delete or edit these details.'

    Posted 10 hours, 46 minutes after the fact
  26. David House:

    Oh, and the Increase size and Decrease size links no longer look like links, even on hover.

    Moz Fx 0.8 running Win XP Home.

    Posted 10 hours, 48 minutes after the fact
  27. Kevin Francis:

    That's a good idea, Dunstan. I'm going to try that for my own blog.

    Posted 11 hours, 16 minutes after the fact
  28. Matt:

    Why give people the option to except a cookie or not? Should the increase/decrease widget be below the texterea, being moved every time you change it and preventing multiple clicks? I think it would work better above.

    Posted 11 hours, 39 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan
  29. Dunstan:

    Good point about the cookie, Matt, personally I've never clicked the 'No' button on one of those things. I left it in because I couldn't understand why someone would _not_ want to store their details, and thought by removing that option I might cause a problem I couldn't forsee.

    As regards the textarea widget - yes, you're right about the multiple clicks. The reason it's at the bottom though is that that's where you'll be when you run out of room.

    Hopefully this will become a moot point as Stuart [1] is attempting to write some JS that will automatically resize the comment area as you type. If that can be got working then I can ditch my current method.

    [1] http://www.kryogenix.org/

    Posted 12 hours, 4 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Matt
  30. Ste Grainer:

    There is actually a very good reason for allowing people to choose whether to save a cookie or not: public computers. I'll admit it may not be a frequent consideration, but for the rare occurrence that someone wants to post a comment while on the go using a public computer, it's quite useful.

    I've posted one or two comments in my quick stops at Internet cafes while travelling, usually because I didn't quite use the 30 minutes I paid for just checking email and the weather. I didn't want my info stored on some random computer so I just unchecked the cookie box.

    Posted 12 hours, 41 minutes after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan
  31. Michael Heilemann:

    It's so simple I should've thought of it! Nonetheless I'm going to implement a similar solution on my blog asap, thanks a lot!

    Posted 13 hours after the fact
  32. Nicole:

    Once again, you've brought up an interesting subject. Reminds me of the calendar topic a while back.

    I must say it is nice to get right to writing my comment if my other details are already stored. I'm not sure how I feel about being forced to preview my comments, though I'll just think of it as Dunstan looking out for me and my typos.

    Also, now you have me thinking about this, and it makes sense (to me) to view most important/required stuff first in the commenting process. Why should I (or my website visitors) wade through an optional email and url textbox (on my site for example) to get to what I (they) really want to do?

    To do:
    1. get rid of unused entry calendar on weblog
    2. refactor commenting on weblog

    Dunstan, you're just creating more work for me. Geez. ;)

    Posted 15 hours, 14 minutes after the fact
  33. Dunstan:

    Thank you, Ste, for forseeing my 'unforseen problem'.
    The cookie option stays :o)

    Posted 15 hours, 51 minutes after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Ste Grainer
  34. Scott Johnson:

    Before I finished reading the text of this post, I immediately jumped to the bottom of the page to see what you'd done. Having my saved details out of the way in an entirely different box is brilliant!

    Great idea, Dunstan!

    Posted 20 hours, 10 minutes after the fact
  35. Patricia:

    I've seen a couple of sites that have put the comment text area first. I usually set cookies so I don't ever even look at the name/email fields.

    I experimented with putting the form on top and having the comments below that (using pop-up comments box), but that freaked people out so I had to go back to the standard. It will be interesting to see what people's reactions will be in the long run.

    As someone who doesn't always check my comments even though I should, the forced preview seems like a good idea except this just adds another page load. Probably not a big deal for most people but since I work at a place where they actually monitor which sites we visit the extra page load seems a bit troublesome.

    Of course, I could just not visit while at work, but that's more of a 'personal problem'. :D

    Posted 21 hours, 49 minutes after the fact
  36. Abe Fettig:

    Just testing the system here. Interesting ideas.

    Posted 22 hours, 38 minutes after the fact
  37. Elaine:

    just testing....

    Posted 23 hours, 3 minutes after the fact
  38. Chris Vincent:

    As I read it, I thought it might be a little odd to come to the site a second time and see everything all switched up, but the way you have it in different headings is actually pretty nice. Good work, and good thinking!

    If they've commented before, you may still want to include a link to a commenting policy or something similar, just so information doesn't just "disappear".

    Anyways, I appreciate the work! Lord knows what this piece of text would have become had I needed to look at three other fields first! ;)

    Posted 23 hours, 16 minutes after the fact
  39. Alex:

    One more on the 'familiarity' vein: e-mail is the most commonly used format for people to communicate on the internet. Having the fields above is consistent with an e-mail client. While it wastes space (actually, priority I guess) for people that understand how comment forms work, having a nice 'e-mail looking' form helps less technical users understand how to use the form.

    This is in no way an argument that you should undo what you've done, but I do think it's worth considering.

    Posted 1 day, 1 hour after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Alex
  40. Max:

    Testing too.

    It's a very interesting concept, it's something that I had never even considered. I think it would take a little getting used to, but once the initial weirdness had gone it would be very useful in streamlining the user experience. In particular for those who comment often.

    Posted 1 day, 1 hour after the fact
  41. Jkottke:

    I made this change several months ago for the same reason...see it in action here:

    http://www.kottke.org/04/02/innovation#addcomments

    I like it because the name/email/url seems like a signature...here's my comment and now I'm signing my name to it.

    Posted 1 day, 2 hours after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan
  42. Jack:

    Just testing and hugging the Cookie Monster.

    I'm surprised something so common has been overlooked for so long. Kudos, Dunstan.

    Posted 1 day, 2 hours after the fact
  43. Dunstan:

    Oh yes, so you did!

    Yours looks nicer than mine though, because it's more compact and with better instructions... hmm... damnit sometimes I hate my design.

    Also, your idea of the signature is a good one; it makes the idea more palatable and understandable. Unfortunately my name, email, url and cookie fields take up more room than yours, so if I moved the post button below them it'd remove some of the benefits from my design... yours works cause it's so nice and tidy.

    *puts re-thinking hat on*

    Anyway, that's a great post, Jason, with some interesting comments as well. This struck a chord with me:

    "...we've reached the point where website design is just iterating on the same handful of design patterns, and the gains made with each iteration are slowly lessening. If we were to start somewhere else, even if that something was rubbish, there is the potential for subsequent iterations to be significantly better." - Matt Webb

    Thanks for pointing it out :o)

    Posted 1 day, 8 hours after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Jkottke
  44. Derek:

    Excellent idea! I fully agree with that insight, and plan to implement it on my sites, too. New site version due out in a month or so, and I'll be sure to incorporate this. Love your content.

    Posted 1 day, 9 hours after the fact
  45. Trent:

    Why do the name/email/url appear at the top? Simple: it's a metaphor for real-life objects. When you write a letter, your personal information goes at the top. Same is true of most email systems, where the comment goes to the bottom.

    Also, if the name & email is required, it is good to put that at the top so people see it right away.

    Posted 1 day, 11 hours after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan, ↓ C. Litherland
  46. Dunstan:

    Trent, your points are valid (though I did mention the second one myself in the post), and that's why I've structured my 'first time' commentor form as I have, but I think that after that there's really no need to conform to the metaphor.

    When we meet new people we introduce ourselves, but after that we don't preface each of our comments to them with "My name is Dunstan:..."

    In the same vein I think there's no point in prefacing a comment form with information that they know, I know, and the system knows - it's an effort to left the conversation flow a little more freely, to get those words down as quickly and easily as possible.

    Also, as Jason says [1] when you write a letter you sign it at the bottom, so your letter metaphor goes both ways, and I think that this system matches both those examples: the first-time form tells people up-front what's required (nothing is required to post on this site, as it happens), and the second-time+ form lets people see their details, but keeps them out the way, below the comment area - in a similar way to their signiture, or email tagline.

    [1] http://www.1976design.com/blog/archive/2004/02/19/form-redesign/#cmnt1385

    Posted 1 day, 12 hours after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Trent
  47. Hadley:

    On the topic of post previews, you might be interested to read Joel Spolsky's article "Building Communities with Software" (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BuildingCommunitieswithSo.html). There he suggests that a preview box actually increases the number of mistakes - because people are less cautious.

    Posted 1 day, 19 hours after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Dunstan
  48. Lance E. Leonard:

    testing the comment cookie.

    Posted 2 days, 17 hours after the fact
  49. Lance E. Leonard:

    Very interesting, indeed. I think my main argument against it is consistency. I expect a form to look and act the same way every time I return to it.

    However, redundant information, or as you say information you know, i know and the system knows, is irrelevent on subsequent postings. Its definitely another one of those "can't please all of the people all the time" things.

    I, personally, would rather see the information in some summary/read-only format that doesn't take up so much space as form fields yet "feels" more a part of the form. Maybe I'll try some options on my own site when I finish the redesign.

    Posted 2 days, 17 hours after the fact
  50. Tijn:

    I think the change in interface is, as mentioned in earlier comments, violencing the rules of interface design.

    Me thinking of my parents, when they try to log in a website: it is really difficult enough to fill out the login form. Imagine now you're changing the behaviour of the site with each visit: ouch.

    What I can think of is that you switch the fields [name, email, url] with the comment box, just every where in your user interface. That maintains consistency and is more clear to the end user imho.

    [Btw. you're 'hit Post' internal link does not work in Firefox correctly. It seems that there isn't an anchor named #post-me]

    Posted 4 days, 21 hours after the fact
  51. Ross:

    Testing the post.

    It's good to see people experimenting with UI design, it's only through trying these things out that we learn what works.

    I personally prefer the concept of writing the comment before the name, email and url on the first and other occassions. The reason I'm at this part of a page is to post a comment, which often is currently on the tip of my virtual tongue. Filling in sundry details such as those above should be a simple affair and not distract from why I'm here. I can easily complete them post-commenting.

    As to the preview/not preview option, what about two separate submission buttons? 'Preview your comment' and 'Post immediately'. I accept that there is the spamming issue here, does someone have a link to what the two stage post prevents and how?

    Posted 6 days, 12 hours after the fact
    Inspired: ↓ Dunstan
  52. Dunstan:

    I used to have two buttons here, and in fact the code for all that to work is still in place, it's just a case of me re-inserting the 'post' button... but I'm going to keep it like this for a wee while longer, and see how things go.

    Maybe I'll put a poll up and see what the general concensus is?

    Except that means I have to write some polling scripts... so, I'll do that when I have a little more time :o)

    Posted 6 days, 12 hours after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Ross
  53. Angus:

    I suppose it does get annyoing. But what if I'm one of those people who never clear their cookies (I'm not saying that I am, however) and I come back in say, 2 months. This is my first time visiting the site. I may forget what the fields are, where they go, and where I'm supposed to put all my info in (like all the other comment forms).

    Interesting idea, though.

    Posted 3 weeks after the fact
  54. Steve:

    curious... cookie in jar.

    Posted 3 weeks, 5 days after the fact
  55. Chippy:

    another testing comment. Seems good idea. Feel free to delete this
    (like the increase size thing - but what are scroll bars for)

    Posted 1 month after the fact
  56. Mo:

    Interesting idea. I wonder howlong would that cookie be stored for?

    Posted 4 months after the fact
  57. MaThIbUs:

    WordPress (1) users can now have their forms this way (2).

    (1) http://wordpress.org/
    (2) http://mathibus.com/archives/2004/06/21/wp-form-redesign/

    Posted 4 months after the fact
  58. Matthew:

    Setting a cookie to see the new form...

    I like the cartoon location/weather header by the way!

    Posted 4 months after the fact
  59. Christina:

    just a bit curious :)

    Posted 4 months after the fact
  60. Neild:

    How could I use this form as a stand-alone and not part of a comment-feed?

    What MT script would it be associated with?

    Thanks
    Neil

    Posted 4 months, 2 weeks after the fact
  61. David:

    Totally agree Dunstan, I been getting some really irrelevant comments on my Blog - guess what - I been busy deleting them. Sad but true.

    Best,

    David

    Posted 6 months after the fact
  62. Zack:

    This is only a test!

    Posted 7 months after the fact
  63. Josh:

    Just setting a cookie to see this.

    Posted 1 year after the fact
  64. Josh:

    Impressive.

    Posted 1 year after the fact
  65. C. Litherland:

    "if the name & email is required . . . "

    for me, the comment is the essential thing (and therefore i always make it required). sure, it's great to have a means of contacting authors of comments, but more often than not people enter fake names and email addresses anyway. so the idea of putting the comment field on top is quite interesting to me, and i'm loving this entire discussion.

    i can see pros and cons both ways. user familiarity is a good argument for putting the comment field last, but visual novelty/stimulation for users is an equally compelling argument, methinks.

    frankly the only reason that i *might* consider putting the comment form last is simple: size. it's visually heavy. it grounds the form, in a sense. if i put the comment field on top, i might be left with a form that looks...i don't know, kind of like the pirelli building in new haven ;->

    but, hey--i always liked the pirelli building! so i think i'll give this a whirl.

    thanks for a great discussion and my compliments on a well-designed, thought-provoking site.

    Posted 1 year, 2 months after the fact
    Inspired by: ↑ Trent
  66. Thomas:

    testing the post

    Posted 1 year, 6 months after the fact

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