Suggestion Box

by The StoryMistress

Rated: ASR · Message Forum · Writing.Com · #102362

Drop your new ideas into the Writing.Com Suggestion Box!

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Mar 3, 2026 at 8:18pm

#3791847

Edited: March 3, 2026 at 8:44pm

Re: Re: Re: Review Tool Link / Review Template

by The StoryMaster

So here's the thing on this. New people to the site don't need a friction-filled choice between two large, equally prominent buttons. I mean a lot of what we're doing with some of these changes is to do the step back --> we've been staring at the same things for 10 to 15+ years, or longer. Certainly my youthful self was not this omnipotently correct about all the design decisions that we should never change some of the things 30+ year old SM did. We've stuck with a lot of them because it's easier to do nothing.

For these buttons, it doesn't tell a member what to do. They face a confusing choice: "Review" or "Review Tool?" Rather than the simple, clear action: Review. We really just want it to be less confusing and more inviting to just review.

The odd thing to me is that power users who already know the Review Tool exists can easily find and click the link, knowing now that it's there. Realistically, I can't add a setting for every individual UI change I make. That path leads to a settings screen that's just as overwhelming as the problem we're trying to solve. There's a trade-off to granularity. More options isn't always more usable, usually quite the opposite. Totally confusing, totally headache inducing "where is that setting in this mess of settings".

That said, I hear you both that the link could stand to be a bit more visible.

So... I'm going to try for some middle ground on this one. The "Review Tool" text and link are now a little bigger. The Review Tool text is bold. I'm hopeful with the size change and now that you and Jeff

know that's the link for the tool, you probably won't have the same wonder. It should be close to the same ease of clicking as the button and if we're being objective, the vast difference in the button and the link actually makes it visually easier to pick the tool over accidentally submitting a review because oops, that looked like the tool button.

Theoretically, this a once or twice mental change from button to link ... and then soon a "that was probably kinda confusing for people just trying to give a simple review" kind of thing.

Also Jeff

... If Templates are the key thing you're looking for with the tool, rather than carry the weight of that tool with every page that has a review field, I'm wondering if the Quick Text can't be used for what you're doing with templates. I trying to think of what special template things the tool offers that we would need to add to QT to make that similar. To me, the review tool is a bigger feature for drafts and storage, plus I always thought the preview system there was a little easier for when you had to type ML for the review.

I would think we could help facilitate templates in QT similarly for people who want to do that. So I guess my questions on that would be ... How big are your templates? Is the issue QT the amount of them or the amount of storage each QT can hold -- or both? That's something I'm open to looking at if we can help there.

As always, I appreciate the feedback.

Best,
~~SM