I mean that if the options are the same as they are currently, +1, 0 and −1, then the only difference that requiring to vote when commenting introduces is mandating a “click” on one of the voting options. Since you can always choose “0″, the same as ignoring the voting, there is no functional difference, only requirement for the additional “click”. This may bring the requirement to think about voting to user’s attention, but this is a one more mandatory click in the course of using the interface, inability for the users to avoid the click, loss of control. Users hate losing control.
I would not say that it is a priori a bad thing to complicate a user interface in order to guide users to a particular sort of behavior. Note the effects of defaults and compare Cass Sunstein’s ‘Nudge’.
Nonetheless, I completely agree with you that this is a bad design decision.
I would not say that it is a priori a bad thing to complicate a user interface in order to guide users to a particular sort of behavior.
This only applies to the optional features, where you need to discourage the users from doing something usually bad, so that they’ll only resort to that if they know that they do need to use the dangerous feature. In our case, the discussed feature wasn’t optional.
Just a grab for attention? That would be annoying for the users, bad interface design decision.
What did you mean here?
In what way would it be annoying? How is it bad interface design?
I mean that if the options are the same as they are currently, +1, 0 and −1, then the only difference that requiring to vote when commenting introduces is mandating a “click” on one of the voting options. Since you can always choose “0″, the same as ignoring the voting, there is no functional difference, only requirement for the additional “click”. This may bring the requirement to think about voting to user’s attention, but this is a one more mandatory click in the course of using the interface, inability for the users to avoid the click, loss of control. Users hate losing control.
I would not say that it is a priori a bad thing to complicate a user interface in order to guide users to a particular sort of behavior. Note the effects of defaults and compare Cass Sunstein’s ‘Nudge’.
Nonetheless, I completely agree with you that this is a bad design decision.
This only applies to the optional features, where you need to discourage the users from doing something usually bad, so that they’ll only resort to that if they know that they do need to use the dangerous feature. In our case, the discussed feature wasn’t optional.