Will Evans — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:20:11 GMT

Praveen – actually two column is addressed in the book – look at Chapter 3: Paths to Completion – specifically, look at page 53. There are numerous reasons why 2 column layout is not a great idea for form design. The first is scan-lines. A single column means the user can scan right down the form. Two columns adds cognitive load because, depending on layout – they may go down one column, jump up and to the right for the second column – somewhat jarring, or go across left to right, down to the left – over to the right in a zig-zag. Users that tab from field to field will find either experience nasty.
I don’t agree that the right side white space is an issue – and if the want to use it – use it for contextual help – or tips. You can also use it for validation messages…. if you are going to make people fill out a form – tell them why the information is needed, and make it easy to correct problems through the use of that space. With 2 column layouts – you lose that real estate to the form. Thats my 2 cents at least.

Will Evans — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:11:55 GMT

Very interesting, but I think your article, while the title didn’t imply it, focused mostly on the use of rating systems in mitigating risk for e-commerce sites, for instance, but not for social media sites. I can understand, and it seems rather easy – when anonymous, or even named, users, are rating on something relatively objective – a movie, or an artist, or a song or a book. What about user-generated content, when authors/users trade reputation and ratings for friendship, thus skewing effective use of ratings at all – if I publish an article, and all my friends rate it a 10 on a scale of 1-10, and every other article gets a 10, 10 has no meaning.
I notice a number of IAs out there designing rating systems for social media systems, social networks, and user generated media, and are either completely ignorant of the psycho-social aspects, or willfully ignoring the sociology and psychology of ‘members’ using social media tools to mediate conversations and create content.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Will Evans