[HN Gopher] Comfort of Bloated Web
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Comfort of Bloated Web
Author : susam
Score : 61 points
Date : 2022-03-12 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (susam.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (susam.net)
| saagarjha wrote:
| One thing you can do here (and I think Hacker News does this) is
| debounce comments, to reject submissions that come very quickly
| with the exact same content. Perhaps it was added for exactly
| this reason ;)
| dmitriid wrote:
| It's not entirely "comfort of the bloated web". We as humans have
| trouble perceiving something happening "faster than the blink of
| an eye". So, faster than 300ms or so. It's not uncommon for fast
| UIs to deliberately introduce delaying animations or some other
| indicators to trick us that yes, things did happen.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| I build front ends closely with a design/"UX" team, and this is a
| real thing. We intentionally add delays, especially on "save",
| like what the author is referring to. People expect there to be a
| delay, so a UI without the delay is unexpected. We have
| unintentionally trained users to expect to wait for the computer
| to do certain tasks.
| geuis wrote:
| This is a good explanation for some behavior I see on one of my
| sites. The site is barebones html with a tiny amount of js to
| support an email list signup form. There's some quick validation
| on the backend but the response cycle is super quick. I get
| double signups every now and then.
| tshanmu wrote:
| getting an invalid request consistently now :(
| noncoml wrote:
| Hmm. It's not even that fast...
|
| I don't think the problem is the speed. More likely the UX.
|
| I submitted a form. Don't show me the form again upon success. I
| am trained to think that I have to input everything again.
| jp57 wrote:
| I'm sure OP is getting lots of comments now! I'm not sure the
| rapid timing is really the cuprit here. I would argue that there
| are other UI factors at play:
|
| * The text doesn't get cleared from the comment box after the
| comment is sent
|
| * The submit button has no visual affordances to indicate whether
| it is valid. It looks exactly the same when the form is populated
| or empty. A conventional UI approach would inactivate the submit
| button until all the fields are filled.
|
| So despite the message that the comment has been posted, it
| doesn't appear as if the state has changed as a result of pushing
| the button.
|
| I think clearing the comment box and inactivating the submit
| button (which doesn't appear to be a native OS UI element) after
| submission would help users understand that the state has
| changed. Alternatively, I think displaying the acknowledgement
| message on a new page with no submission form would achieve
| something similar. It could even have a "post another comment"
| link back to an empty comment page.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| This is the real answer. Every other comment box or form I've
| seen on the Internet clears the content when the form has been
| submitted. I would suggest making them disappear altogether
| userbinator wrote:
| _Alternatively, I think displaying the acknowledgement message
| on a new page with no submission form would achieve something
| similar. It could even have a "post another comment" link back
| to an empty comment page._
|
| This is exactly what nearly every other form I've used in the
| past does. I didn't try this one but it sounds like it
| redirects back to the form again? If so, I can definitely see
| double/triple-posting happening.
|
| I know some forums will actually compare contents with the last
| post you made, and show a warning message "You already
| submitted this post".
| stevage wrote:
| It's just bad UX that has nothing to do with timing. Clicking
| submit doesn't change the state of the form in any other way. It
| should hide all the fields, include the button, and just show the
| message. Then they can't submit twice.
|
| This is really obvious.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Maybe it's not that obvious to someone who doesn't do UX?
|
| It seems most form builders either have the form clearing
| behavior by default, or redirect to a new page. The person
| creating the form never even has to think about it that much.
| alehlopeh wrote:
| The user explains that they expect some additional UI affordances
| to indicate that the comment was submitted, but the author
| chooses to interpret this in such a way as to tickle their
| personal web-so-bloated horn, and sounds very pleased with
| themselves for having done so.
| parksy wrote:
| One other thing I would check is disabling or removing the submit
| button after the first click. Just an onclicked event to set the
| disabled attribute will go a long way.
|
| Double-clicking on a lot of sites will submit the form twice. If
| people are waiting, they will click again, and again.
| lom wrote:
| I think what really throws people off is that they don't have any
| way of seeing their comment.
|
| e.g. on hackernews comments are submitted fairly quickly, and I
| find myself reloading very often to check if the comment really
| has been placed.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Yes I came here to say this.
|
| The users click the button, get told it worked, but their
| comment is not visible to them. The fact they can't see it is
| why they suspect a problem I think.
|
| A UX improvement might be to update the success page to show
| their message back to them with a prominent "Pending review"
| message very close and very obvious next to their message.
| z3t4 wrote:
| Similar blog post: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2019/11/12/post/
| eternityforest wrote:
| I think comment forms should not accept a double submit of the
| same thing within 10 seconds.
|
| Also, I suspect some of the delay in handwritten stuff is
| important processing like antispam checks.
|
| CPU and network efficiency are wonderful things. But if a
| lightweight solution can't provide the same level of features and
| convenience as a modern package, I would toss it without a second
| thought.
|
| My original personal site was handmade HTML with a PHP header. I
| eventually got rid of it for DokuWiki and never looked back.
|
| If it was a pro site, I think I would just use WordPress.
|
| It is an impressively high performance site you have though!
| ricardobeat wrote:
| This is the #1 heuristic in the old Nielsen usability principles.
| It's called 'visibility of system status'.
|
| Users have been trained by years of experience that errors are
| often immediate, while real 'work' takes a little while to
| happen. From that POV the conclusion is correct - adding an
| artificial delay is the common solution, though it can also be
| handled by other forms of feedback.
|
| In this case, the success message is appended after the form. A
| few tweaks that could help:
|
| - make the fields become read-only after submission
|
| - hide the submit button after success
|
| - replace the whole form with the success message
|
| These would help both to eliminate confusion, without the
| introduction of artificial delay, and to prevent double
| submission.
| yakubin wrote:
| If the comments aren't published automatically, but await your
| manual review, then why didn't you go with "comment by emailing
| me"? Was speed the motivation? (Obviously sending mails is far
| from fast.) Or did you consider a textbox to be a "smoother"
| experience for your users? Or just for the fun of implementing
| the comment system?
| [deleted]
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