I included a header to to reinforce the section the user is on. It also includes the submit action that is currently in the main navigation.

5. Submit Form

The current submit form

The current submit form has a few usability issues and an overall poor visual cohesiveness. As Nielsen Norman Group points out, placing a field title above an input is the most intelligible way to present a form.

The current version explains the distinctions on submitting a comment versus a url after the fields to do so, and is more wordy than it needs to be. In the redesign I simplified this by including “leave blank if submitting a comment” above the URL input, and created a divider between the URL and comment field to present a clear choice.

Redesigned submit form

Comment threading is another area to improve. This is probably the hardest area to get right. Multi-nested replies tend to make discussion incomprehensible. This subject warrants a deeper investigation, perhaps in another post.

Overall, I wonder how design impacts discourse within a community. I think subtle changes to our digital environments can have profound effects on the content of our interaction. However, I also understand how design styles, components, and patterns can be locked-in through heavy use, regardless of their merit. Design iteration is always a battle, and even more so in an online community. Any change will undoubtedly come with protest, but from my experience, it usually dissipates within a few days, and after a few months users don’t remember the previous version.