Displaying Asynchronous Reactions to a Document: Two Goals and a Design

TL;DR

This paper presents a new display design for asynchronous document discussions that improves visibility of relationships and distinguishability of boundaries, enhancing online deliberation interfaces.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel interface design for Deme that better achieves visibility and boundary distinction in asynchronous document discussions.

Findings

Improved visibility of comment relationships

Enhanced distinguishability of discussion boundaries

Better support for online deliberation

Abstract

We describe and motivate three goals for the screen display of asynchronous text deliberation pertaining to a document: (1) visibility of relationships between comments and the text they reference, between different comments, and between group members and the document and discussion, and (2) distinguishability of boundaries between contextually related and unrelated text and comments and between individual authors of documents and comments. Interfaces for document-centered discussion generally fail to fulfill one or both of these goals as well as they could. We describe the design of the new version of Deme, a Web-based platform for online deliberation, and argue that it achieves the two goals better than other recent designs.