changing the heart button menu to improve accessibility

[anotherriddle]

When you click on the, what I call, "heart menu" and then not click on one of the options and move the cursor away, obviously the menu goes away again - as designed. The problem I have, is that with a higher resolution display and my mouse set to move the cursor relatively fast, when I overshoot the menu area the menu closes instantly, so I have to click the heart again.

I have the same problem on the trackpad of my older laptop that is a bit glitchy. Also I know there are people that have some kind of motor skill impediment (for example because of disability or a medical condition).

To improve accessibility of the like-, funny- and informative- buttons I would propose one of the following solutions:

• remove the heart button again and make the like-, funny- and informative- buttons directly accessible in the bottom strip of the comments. This would remove one click and solve the problem. However, I can see that this might not be desireable because of the look, the responsive design or the available space on lower resolution displays.
• keep the heart menu open when it was clicked until one of the menu items was chosen and then let the menu close
• implement a delay after the heart button was clicked so the menu only closes after a certain amount of time

I have a few other thoughts on functional elements of the forum but these are more a matter of personal taste. Changing the heart button would be a small change that would make it easier to use.

[kelvinhall05]

It used to be like this, so I doubt they'll change it back.

[anotherriddle]

3 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

It used to be like this, so I doubt they'll change it back.

You mean all of the three options are not viable? I don't think so.

[kelvinhall05]

4 minutes ago, anotherriddle said:

You mean all of the three options are not viable? I don't think so.

The first option used to be the old reaction menu. The other two would be annoying for 99% of people on this forum, and only beneficial to a handful of people.

[anotherriddle]

20 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

The first option used to be the old reaction menu. The other two would be annoying for 99% of people on this forum, and only beneficial to a handful of people.

In which way would the other options be annoying? The only space it would cover would be a part of the bar in the bottom, it does not get in the way.

Edit: It would essentially be like it is now, only that the menu does not close on you unexpectedly.

[colonel_mortis]

44 minutes ago, anotherriddle said:

remove the heart button again and make the like-, funny- and informative- buttons directly accessible in the bottom strip of the comments. This would remove one click and solve the problem. However, I can see that this might not be desireable because of the look, the responsive design or the available space on lower resolution displays.

It used to be like this, but the reactions are provided by a different system now, which doesn't make it easy for us to use an interface like that. However, several people have said that they preferred the old system, so it is something that I have been planning to investigate further.

47 minutes ago, anotherriddle said:

keep the heart menu open when it was clicked until one of the menu items was chosen and then let the menu close

I don't think this is something we can control at all unfortunately.

48 minutes ago, anotherriddle said:

implement a delay after the heart button was clicked so the menu only closes after a certain amount of time

There was originally a delay (I can't remember how much, probably of the order 500ms to 1s) between your mouse leaving and the menu closing, but several people complained that it made it feel sluggish and unresponsive.

 

Improving the reaction interface is definitely on my radar, but my time is unfortunately quite limited and the system doesn't have much room for flexibility by default, so I don't know whether much will be realistically able to be changed, or whether I'll be able to make any changes soon.

[kelvinhall05]

37 minutes ago, anotherriddle said:

In which way would the other options be annoying? The only space it would cover would be a part of the bar in the bottom, it does not get in the way.

Edit: It would essentially be like it is now, only that the menu does not close on you unexpectedly.

 

15 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

There was originally a delay (I can't remember how much, probably of the order 500ms to 1s) between your mouse leaving and the menu closing, but several people complained that it made it feel sluggish and unresponsive.

 

 

[anotherriddle]

28 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

It used to be like this, but the reactions are provided by a different system now, which doesn't make it easy for us to use an interface like that. However, several people have said that they preferred the old system, so it is something that I have been planning to investigate further.

I don't think this is something we can control at all unfortunately.

There was originally a delay (I can't remember how much, probably of the order 500ms to 1s) between your mouse leaving and the menu closing, but several people complained that it made it feel sluggish and unresponsive.

 

Improving the reaction interface is definitely on my radar, but my time is unfortunately quite limited and the system doesn't have much room for flexibility by default, so I don't know whether much will be realistically able to be changed, or whether I'll be able to make any changes soon.

Thanks for the reply. I didn't realise that people complained about a delay. Too bad that the second option is not possible, I thought that could be easily handled by like four lines of javascript.

 

Anyways, thanks for all the good work on the forum I know that it's hard to strike the right balance and that it takes a lot of time. I am currently reading a bit on UI-design and now I start realizing annoying things on websites more conciously just wanted to throw this suggestion out there

[LogicalDrm]

The button has delay for desktop. To both after selection and after mouse has moved over. On mobile/low-res you need to click 2nd time to close or click/tap somewhere else.

 

I found bug also while looking for more "accessible" options. The other buttons have alt-text pop-up when moving with tabulator, but like button doesn't. It only shows after selection was made. I had to guess what link meant it.

[anotherriddle]

1 hour ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

The button has delay for desktop. To both after selection and after mouse has moved over. On mobile/low-res you need to click 2nd time to close or click/tap somewhere else.

 

I found bug also while looking for more "accessible" options. The other buttons have alt-text pop-up when moving with tabulator, but like button doesn't. It only shows after selection was made. I had to guess what link meant it.

Interestingly I don't have a delay in desktop browsers (Firefox, Edge)

[LogicalDrm]

4 minutes ago, anotherriddle said:

Interestingly I don't have a delay in desktop browsers (Firefox, Edge)

Its really short, but its there.

[Delicieuxz]

The old system was a lot slicker / cleaner looking, IMO.