Call to action: Turn the comment form upside down

Posted by Jaan on March 26th, 2009 | Add your comment

Look at the comment fields on the left (in post view). “Add your comment to…” sits at the top, you add your name and other bits at the end. Seems logical, doesn’t it?

Until an hour or so ago it wasn’t that way. It was the other way around: name first, email second,URL third, comment forth.

Why should anyone who’s about to share their thoughts with me have to write their name first? And why should the comment field, the purpose of the whole comment column, be last? Who signs an email or a letter by sticking their name at the very beginning? No one. Yet we do it on sites all the time without questioning it. On contact forms and for comments the name, email,  site URL etc. often go in first.

Not always mind you. Roam All Day and others get it right, the comment field sits at the top. Right after the post that inspired the visitor to share their feedback.

I hereby raise a simple call to action: Put the comment field first, and everything else can follow. It’s more natural. It removes the feeling of “filling in data” and creates a better overall user experience.

Let your visitors get on with things, like leaving a comment. Please do so, let me know what you think of this idea. What are the advantages and disadvantages of turning a comment form “upside down”? Why do you think the “name first” version is the more commonly used one? If anyone has usability thoughts on this I’d love to hear them.

Use the “upside down” fields on the left or tweet me @orvet . Thank you.

Thumbs up to @pht and @nofont for sharing their thoughts on the subject while I was writing this post.

All fired up about comment/feedback/signup forms? There’s more on the latter at A List Apart.