Topic: A small merit-sending UI tweak (Read 752 times)

Thinking of the input alone, yes. But it does say "Merit points" right next to it, so I can't see anyone missing that.

Seriously? If someone misinterprets the merit page in such a way, (s)he should probably fail hard on that page for the better of the merit system. Just my opinion: we don't need to make it such easy for the dumbest imaginable so that no user needs to flex even a single cell of his brain muscle. How deep can humanity sink?

If you find traces of S, Ar, Ca, Sm you can keep the primary elements of humor...^srcs

I hadn't thought about that. Information can be misinterpreted. 

Maybe actually leaving it blank could be a good option, putting a caption below saying:

Suchmoon has a point: everything is turned into a captcha nowadays, and someone might think he has to solve the equation to continue.

Yep. That's something shahzadafzal suggested, too (approach B with "1" instead of "0" as the default). I do like that approach, but it relies exclusively on JavaScript, and leaves the no-JS folks with basically the same problem as before (only now, instead of 0-based mistakes being easy to make, 1-based mistakes would be easy to make: accidentally sending 20 merits when you meant to send 2 would just become accidentally sending 21 merits). Catering to people that have JavaScript disabled is getting a bit silly these days, but it's still the way I lean when it's easy to do so. I also think that having a sendable default value will likely skew the statistics (that is, people will probably send exactly the default amount more often than they would have if they had to type something into an empty field).

Hmm. You and Loyce can duke it out. "0" as a placeholder is the least distruptive change, I suppose (it's what people have gotten used to seeing in that field, anyway).

Even compared to a "0" placeholder?

You didn't read the P.S. in my previous post, did you?

I don't like "1-50" as a placeholder. If you know nothing about merits, that doesn't really help you. 1 minus 50 so... -49 ??

I'm not a fan of placeholders in general, they tend to be styled barely visible and disappear when you need them.

I'd say leave it empty. Add an explanation above/below if needed. That page has enough space, even on a phone screen. Ensure the field is focused automatically so that the user can just type in the number and hit enter ("autofocus" attribute IIRC).

I like approach B with the default value=1 instead of 0. I think it won't confuse newbies because they'll definitely realize it's a numeric field and 1 is the average value most users send. This saves the user a few seconds without touching the keyboard at all. This is a fair convenience imo.

"1-50" placeholder I think is unnecessary because theymos has by default applied sendable limits. After all, it would be a very rare case where a newbie had more than 50 smerits. And I'd exclude merit sources from needing approach C or D because they certainly know its limitations without placeholder text.

In this sense, I choose approach D.

This idea, that when you click, the numbers are automatically selected, would also be a good solution.

Another excellent job PowerGlove.

Having had some time to think about this one, it's occurred to me that approaches B and C can actually be (harmoniously) combined (that is, approach C + the onclick="this.select();" JavaScript from approach B will lead to an approach that works just like approach C does when JavaScript isn't available, but that will still be able to catch a wider range of mistakes when JavaScript is enabled).

I like Loyce's refinement of Trawda's idea: "1-50" makes more sense as placeholder text than "0" does.

So, combining the above thoughts, and following the format in the OP, we have:

Approach D

This approach would replace the pre-populated "0" with the placeholder text "1-50" (which acts as a hint, and is only visible while the field is empty). This approach also adds a bit of JavaScript that "selects" the value whenever the field is clicked, so that whatever you type in will replace whatever was already there (meaning that, in addition to 0-based mistakes like 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 being mitigated, 1-based mistakes, 2-based mistakes, etc. are also mitigated).

That would look like this:



And this (after entering a value, and then clicking on the field):



The HTML would change to: (that is, value="0" would change to placeholder="1-50", and onclick="this.select();" would be added).

(I did read and appreciate all of the posts/suggestions in this thread, and while a lot of them make sense, some of them are likely to create new problems; they're worth revisiting at another point, I think. Getting bogged down in an overhaul that tries to fix too many problems at once will likely result in something that doesn't get merged. For now, I think a strict improvement that isn't too complicated has the best shot at getting accepted, IMHO.)

P.S. I also like Cricktor's suggestion to have the field automatically take input focus, so that all you have to do is type the number of merits and then hit "Send". But, there are some accessibility notes on MDN about how that might interact poorly with screen readers, and I'm not sure how people on mobile devices would feel about the on-screen-keyboard automatically appearing on that page (maybe they'd prefer it?). Anyway, if theymos thinks it's a good idea, then the HTML would change to: (that is, same as approach D above, but with autofocus added).

Another great idea @PowerGlove


I also agree with the Approach C. It is informative and avoids errors, without having to resort to extra scripts.

But, just rectifying the suggested code: 

Indeed I am not in the favor of button and I think the default manual putting number is better then all. If you want to send 5 merit, just input 5 which is much easier than tapping + button five times. I don't think LoyceV will think, This default Merit system will waste his time as he is old member and If he thought that, he would have expressed it already.

How will the button actually work? Suppose I want to send 5 merits. Do I have to press (+) five times then? Won't that take much of my time? As LoyceV said, "He wouldn't want to waste a single second".

In my opinion, by default, it should be 1. And even if a user sent smerits rushed, only 1 merit would be sent. After that, he or she can make changes to how much they want to send anyone. Previously, I suggested there should be a confirmation message. But now I see it will only create more problems.

The problem of sending more merits happens to those who generally send merit in two figure. I didn't face any problem so far when sending Merit but some members facing issue so I think Approach C is best suitable to solve the problem and if initial value remain 1 instead of zero , it will be more helpful


I am active here for almost year and visited so many threads and observed that sharing 100  or 50 merit is very rare. A high number of merits given to the some old threads. Some Useful Thread Iike Talkimg and threads in technical Bitcoin discussion  also got so many merit. Normally Merit source send 10-30 merit for good post/transaltion while people like me has limit of 5 maximum per post.

I've thought of it in my imagination but never knew the mistake was real. I pray to have this kind of luck one day...lol.

It's good that the OP is pointing this out and is very thoughtful of him at the same time for the betterment of the forum and to guide against it in the future. I hope his proposal will be granted.

No one is above mistakes but I don't think I can make this one since I'm always careful and attentive when sending merits. The mistake I can only make is to send my merit twice due to the way the page goes back to how it was at times after sending the first merit.

I think the initial value could just be settled to "value=1" the place holder will always dissappear  after an input so if there's no input we can just set it to a text to display the user needs an input

Why is the "type=text"? it could be number with a max value and minimum value "type=number max=.... min=....."
Since it will be authenticated before storage in BE a more secure way is used already.




Text area keyboard mode and increase and decrease mode


With this input is set to null initially  and the arrow will help to add and decrease to the max and min value with, users can also make use of keyboard  to type numbers from min value  to max value if users don't want the increase and decrease button.
Then,we could have a modal prompt before submittion for confirmation.

It's appropriate for low ranks users who only shares a small amount of merits. But those with high rank or those who are merit source might think this as inappropriate as they distribute hundreds or thousands (I don't know the numbers) of merits each day. So sending out merits, selecting how much to send can be seen as a headache to them. Even a loss of one second is unacceptable for some members. Again I'm not any merit source or high ranked user, so I don't know if I'm right or wrong. Only they can give the correct insight of the situation.

I think Approach A will be better, because it will leave the field completely empty to avoid any error. You can manually insert a particular number of your choice. Or the approach of @mk4 which you will add or reduce the number of merits.

Yep . I am laying in my bed watching my Giants lose to the Raiders as I type this.

I Gave you a merit because I likely spend an hour a day typing on the iPad mini while lying in bed. It is the most likely time To make the 10 or 20 error. So C is certainly best for me.

While I like when systems look and act smart, this would be really going overboard and the added complexity isn't worth it in my opinion (I'm quite sure you're not serious with your suggestion).

If I had to vote for an option, I'm fine with option C and I'd prefer to have the cursor already in the entry box so that I'd only have to type the number of merit points to send.

Good point. Let's go overboard and change the amount depending on how many sMerits the user sent to that post already, how many were sent in the past 30 days, and how many sMerit he has left. So it can be anywhere from 1-50 to 0-0.