I hate to dig up this topic (it stresses me out!), but I had another idea.
First, a quick TL;DR for anyone new to this discussion. Back in July, the text below each discussion title in the discussion list used to say "Toby replied 5 hours ago". wizgriz pointed out that this was confusing, because the username was right next to the avatar of the discussion's author, and would often mismatch. Many others agreed so we started brainstorming solutions:
- Changing the discussion author avatar to that of the last poster ... But then the discussion loses its identity (Toby).
- Adding a smaller avatar of the last poster ... But that caused too much noise/clutter.
- Moving things around (e.g. having the last reply information on the right side) ... But that was a no-go (Toby).
- Changing the text so that the username came last ("Last reply 5 hours ago by Toby") ... Bingo! We stuck with this, but weren't ever 100% satisfied due to the repetition of "Last reply".
- Playing around with that terminology to use something shorter ("Updated 5 hours ago by Toby") ... But that wasn't actually any shorter.
- Removing the "Last reply" text completely to leave just the timestamp and the user ... But that looked like information about when the discussion was started.
- Replacing the "Last reply" text with an icon ... But there is still repetition, and it's too high-contrast.
We ended up sticking with the "Last reply 5 hours ago by Toby" solution.
Now, my idea ... Let's break down what information we're actually dealing with here, in order of priority:
- When, or how long ago, this discussion was updated (5 hours ago)
- Who updated the discussion (Toby)
- What they did (replied). This is least important because the other two bits of information (5 hours ago, Toby) are still useful without it.
The current solution puts the lowest priority information (the what) at the front. This is especially troubling on mobile when there is often not enough room for the when and the who to be displayed.
The idea to get rid of the "Last reply" text solved this problem, but it resulted in the what being completely omitted. Even though it's the lowest priority, it's still a valuable part of the information.
So what if we were to simply take that idea, and add the what back onto the end? i.e. display all of the information in the order of importance?
Try it for yourself by going to the discussion list and pasting this into your browser's URL bar (make sure javascript: is at the start):
javascript:app.translator.translations.core.discussion_replied = '{ago} {username} replied';app.translator.translations.core.discussion_started = '{ago} {username} started';app.cache.discussionList.refresh();m.redraw()
It may not make complete grammatical sense in all instances ("3 Jan Toby started"), but I don't think that matters because the bits of information are distinguished by making the username bold. The important thing is that all of the information is there, simply and clearly, and in order of priority.
What do you guys think?
