How to Design a Successful Talkback Service

By professor Jacob Palme,
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences
KTH Technical University

 

  
 

Abstract

  
 

By a talkback service is meant a service which allows people to not only read web pages, but also comment on them and discuss them with other readers of the same web page. This paper discusses how to design a successful such service.

For information about talkback services in general, see my paper Talking back to the WWW and the links in the references chapter of that paper.

  

 

In order to design a successful talkback service, you must put yourself into the position of the user of the service. What is important to the user, and what is not important to the user.

What is important to the user is:

  1. To easily read what other have written about a web page.
  2. To easily write your own contribution.
  3. To be notified when additional, future comments have been written about the web page, especially comments on what you have written yourself.

What is not important to the user is:

  1. Administrative requests, especially if these requests are made before the user has done what is important to the user (see above).
  2. Requests for information about the user which might be used to infringe on your privacy, for example be used for future spams sent to you.
  
 

Conclusions

When a user indicates a wish to participate in talkback, for example by pushing a talkback button, the user should get directly into a position to read other contributions and write own contributions.

The user should not be required to register or log in first.

It is, however, OK if the user is asked for name and e-mail address, provided that the user is clearly told how this information is to be used and is not to be used.

 

  
 

Example of how a good
talkback page might look like

(This example is simplified, to just show the main principles. You may prefer to use more fancy layout in your design. The example is just a mockup, you cannot use it.)

Comments from readers

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