Conversation with a Comment Form
Me: Hey, I want to say something.
CF (Comment Form): Wait, what’s your name?
Me: I’m Amrinder and I’m trying to say… [interrupted]
CF: What’s your email address?
Me: … it’s amrinder@xyz.com. So I was saying that… [interrupted]
CF: Do you have a website? If yes, what’s the URL?
Me: … yes, I have it, but… anyway it’s http://designbyanaami.com
CF: Now please leave your comment.
Me: Ohk, I was saying that… your article is… good. Actually there was something else in my mind which I forgot…
This was my conversation with a comment form. Following are some good and bad practices, and alternatives of comment form design.
Bad Practices
- Labels on right-side of input box
- Using icons instead of/with labels
- “required or *” is not required, “optional” is the option: “If most of the inputs on a form are required, indicate the few that are optional.” says Luke Wroblewski in his book “Web Form Design“.
Good Practices
- Top-aligned labels: UX matters article about label placement recommends using top-aligned labels because this minimizes the distance your eye has to travel from the label to the input field.
- Using “optional” instead of “required/*”
- Putting comment input on top of the form
I believe following layouts A) and B) are good comment form layouts.
Alternatives
- Use @twittername to comment: With comment input box at top followed by just one input box asking for @twittername can be a good alternative.
- Tweet a reply using #tag: For a beautiful Web has implemented this method for commenting which I tested today.
- Twitter for comments: Daniel Sandler has done some good research on this method and has lots to say about it.
Disqus is another solution for comments implemented by Usability Post but it has too many options which I don’t prefer. So for the time being I’m sticking with simple comment-form-method until some neat and lean method comes up.
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