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Now you lost me

krista.cc

1–10 of 18 posts

Re: Now you lost me

#2
I like the reasoning behind this and I really welcome the simplicity of giving feedback, but the way it is implemented here does not really make things clearer. The link makes me think I'll get a simplified summary of the paragraph, instantly. It's not clear that it sends an email to the writer.

Also, the writer will never know if a feedback-email comes from a genuinely confused reader or from someone like me who simply though 'what does this button do?'.

A solution would be to show a message after clicking the link, saying something like 'thank you for your feedback, we've send an email to the writer' together with a Cancel button.

Re: Now you lost me

#3
I find feedback mechanisms that allow readers to react to individual parts of text to be useful, especially when the text is of a technical nature.

What I dislike about this particular implementation is the UI: You don't know what happens when you click the button until you have actually clicked it (the same problem has for example the 'kudos' widget on Svbtle[0]). Also the button is slightly obtrusive. Something more subtle with an explanation on hover or a confirmation dialog would IMO do a better job.

A good example of something similar is (the now obsolete) Django Book[1] where people can comment on any paragraph.

[0] e.g. http://500hats.com/late-bloomer/

[1] http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/chapter05/

Re: Now you lost me

#4
post #3

I find feedback mechanisms that allow readers to react to individual parts of text to be useful, especially when the text is of a technical nature. What I dislike about this particular implementation is the UI: You don't know what happens when you click the button until you have actually clicked it (the same problem has for example the 'kudos' widget on Svbtle[0]). Also the button is slightly obtrusive. Something mor…

I really like that comment feature on Django Book. Are there any drop-in widgets that can accomplish that, or would it require some custom coding?

Edit: Found a few (for wordpress anyway):

http://digress.it/

https://fascinator.usq.edu.au/trac/wiki/Annotate

http://www.futureofthebook.org/commentpress/

Edit 2: I take that back...these plugins attempt to restructure your blog into a book. So they really aren't the same =(

Re: Now you lost me

#5
This is a really awesome idea, but it's missing an option to give a comment with my confusion. It would be much clearer for the author if I could specify what exactly confuses me.

Re: Now you lost me

#6
I love the idea and not just for blogs. Think about this button's application in learning environments like Coursera lecture notes or a Now You Lost Me! button that allow users to append their thoughts to specific parts of a lecture or video. Or what about a button you can press in a physical classroom? It's really quite wonderful.

I agree with some of the comments though, my first reaction was, "Don't leave it at where they got lost, let them tell you why." Maybe when users click the button a text box can fly out (gethopper.com does this really well) that allows users to append notes. In some cases admins will read all the feedback, but if you want to get really fancy you could parse the responses for common themes, keywords, etc to identify the most common points of confusion.

Looking forward to seeing this develop, this is great.

Re: Now you lost me

#8
post #5

This is a really awesome idea, but it's missing an option to give a comment with my confusion. It would be much clearer for the author if I could specify what exactly confuses me.

Your comment confuses me.

Were you trying to say Krista lost you before the first PS ?

Re: Now you lost me

#9
post #3

I find feedback mechanisms that allow readers to react to individual parts of text to be useful, especially when the text is of a technical nature. What I dislike about this particular implementation is the UI: You don't know what happens when you click the button until you have actually clicked it (the same problem has for example the 'kudos' widget on Svbtle[0]). Also the button is slightly obtrusive. Something mor…

The same thing is done in the online version of Real World Haskell and is used fairly effectively by the readers to share solutions and clarify concepts.

http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/getting-started.html

I believe this input was used in revising the book for the print version.

Re: Now you lost me

#10
post #9
post #3

I find feedback mechanisms that allow readers to react to individual parts of text to be useful, especially when the text is of a technical nature. What I dislike about this particular implementation is the UI: You don't know what happens when you click the button until you have actually clicked it (the same problem has for example the 'kudos' widget on Svbtle[0]). Also the button is slightly obtrusive. Something mor…

The same thing is done in the online version of Real World Haskell and is used fairly effectively by the readers to share solutions and clarify concepts. http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/getting-started.html I believe this input was used in revising the book for the print version.

It is used effectively. Of course, programmers being programmers, it's also used to point out errors and typos. I've also read a bunch of good comments about choosing clearer wording for some parts.

If I was writing a blog (and I'll start one one of these days :P), I would definitely want free, crowd-sourced editing that way!

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