[Zope-dev] Threaded discussion usability (ZDiscussion inspired)

[Ross Boylan]

I posted this at a site I'm working on which uses ZDiscussions.  I thought
it might be of some interest for the Zope-dev list too.  I know that a
number of these ideas are in a squishdot direction, so I've added a few
thoughts on that at the bottom.

------------------ original post
------------------------------------------------
Apparently it is not obvious that clicking the plus sign next to a
discussion item expands to show subtopics.  Kathy, who was intrepid enough
to make it to the new forum, did not know that.

I think this strongly suggests that the default format should simply show
all posts flattened out.  It might be best if they were expanded out,
rather than simply showing the subject headline.

Also, anything which is on the "next" screen (deja.com has a "view previous
messages" button which most people didn't follow, in both senses of the
word follow) tends to be out of sight and mind.

I think it might be a good idea to sort in reverse chronological order,
though the default ZDiscussion format is probably more natural for most
people.

It is very unfortunate that the current ZDiscussions (0.3) not only hides
the responses to a message under the +, but gives no easy way to tell if
one of the hidden items is a recent post.
------------------------ sqishdot postscript
------------------------------------------------
In the above, all the following are squishy:
* flat hierarchy
* expand out the postings under the heading
* reverse chrono sort

But I think squishdot has some major usability issues itself:
* The screen is way too busy, and having multiple things going on in
different subareas of the screen is going to lose people.  I say this based
partly on general principles, and partly based on having watched a couple
of people navigating around some sites.
* As far as I can tell, once stuff disappears off the bottom of squishdot,
it's just gone.  And there isn't room for that much.
* The novice view should not be the only option.

Well, this seems like a natural for cross-posting to squishdot, but since
that is frowned on, I won't.