Explicit Comment Heirarchy Indicators

[jesse_the_k]

Howdy oh wise ones. There have been some juicy 200-comment threads lately, and I've been running up against a usability issue. I've drafted a post for the Suggestion Generator, and I want to run it by clearer minds than mine first.

So: can you understand what I'm talking about? If you're a large-print, audio, or small-screen user, does this match your experience? Does my proposed solution make things any better? Have at it!

=== begin draft suggestion
Title: Style Comments Page with Outline Indicators in Place of Indents

Summary: Improve UX for reading comments where indention implies structural hierarchy

Full Explanation: The structural hierarchy of comments -- who is replying to whom -- is implicit in the amount of white space between the left screen edge and the start of the comment. (How the comment begins varies, depending on the page's style: could be the words in the comment itself, or the user icon, or the optional subject title.)

For some users, inferring indention is difficult: large print, audio, phones, and other smaller-screen devices.

I'm a large print user, so I'll speak from my experience: It's easy to lose the context of long discussion threads, even with "style=light". (By the way, the help docs mention "format=light" not "style=light": which is preferred?)

The screen grab at this link
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk58/jesse_the_k/SharedPix/LosingCommentContext.png
shows the problem: it's like browsing the web through a soda straw. There are two comments in the middle of a long thread in a Firefox/Mac window with fonts at 20 pt. The earlier comment uses 2/3rd screen width; its reply is indented 1/4 in further. Vertically there's 14 lines of text plus two "header" lines containing user icons, subjects, usernames & dates.

My proposal is to provide a style that makes the outline of comments explicit with printing characters instead of implicit with indents.

I think alternating digits and alpha would suffice; the result would be prepended to the "subject" string, or *be* the subject string if none is present (which would also provide a handy way to reference comments...) An example follows

0. Original Post Subject Line
1. Base-level comment
1a. alpha's response
1a1. beta responds to alpha
1a1a. gamma responds to beta
1a2. epsilon responds to alpha
1b. gamma responds to alpha
2. epsilon responds to OP

Choosing to use it:
http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

I suggest three tick box options where the current choice is "View comment pages from your Reading Page in your own style":
View comments pages from your Reading Page
1. in your own style
2. in lynx/mobile style
3. in lynx/mobile style with comment outline format
(and it would be wonderful to have a hyperlink from "comment outline format" to a sample of it applied.)
=== draft ends