Poll: How to display a comment timeline

This is a good group of people for questions like this: http://ux.stackexchange.com/ for future reference.

(BTW, not saying this is off-topic or anything, just that that stack exchange is a really good resource, IMO)

I think both are pretty awful (if conventional for contemporary UIs) -- way too little emphasis on the text (too hard to read as a conversation). That said, if you have to have that much whitespace, and ridiculously long lines, a box helps repair the damage done by the basic layout.

I never understood why the various variants of "phpBB"-style, table-like layouts became so popular. I much prefer something that looks like irssi (perhaps with some support for indenting blocks, with optional syntax colouring).

Or, if the goal is "long form" comments, something that reads more or less like properly quoted, properly re-flowed text emails:

    >>> Example line, but too short paragraph to
    >>> adequately illustrate superiority
    >>
    >> With a response that is similarly afflicted
    >
    > Another line -- you'd probably have to have sender
    > somewhere, maybe in the margins, if we're trying to
    > move beyond simple text?
    
    I think margins would work.

I'm not saying that one has to use brackets and only text, I'm fine with using fonts, colours and white space -- just make sure you're improving on the UIs from the 70s with the bling-bling.

Are we to assume through the context provided, that this poll is for the specifically linked designs, or if the poll is meant to inform a general design aesthetic?

If the former, I'd say balloons, as there's very little other grouping indicators present in the individual comments (and the page design looks pretty flat in general).

If it's the later, we'd need to consider the design of the elements of the page and the relationship between various headers and text elements before a good decision could be reached. As well, more color/size/contrast elements in a potential design may force the balloon elements to be of a much higher contrast themselves, which could ultimately overload the page.

Neither, sorry. I can't see why the avatar icons are left out of the balloons. Also the balloons would be unnecessary if there was a little more space between comments.

I like balloons or some other kind of containers for threaded forums. For flat forums it seems they're useless.

I like how with the balloons the different messages are really separated, and you don't risk not seeing the boundary if someone has an avatar that happens to blend in. But I like that the minimal chrome fits a bit more messages on the screen.

Overall I don't feel strongly towards either, but I'd maybe pick the balloons if I had to pick something.

Clickables:

http://i.imgur.com/EWicL11.png

http://i.imgur.com/TtehVD6.png

In this example text balloons are more clear for me. The background of the balloon seems to 'tie' the comment to the user, and it's easier to spot the end of a comment. In the minimal chrome example you need a line to separate comments which is less distinctive, i guess this makes it harder for me to notice

Take a look at how Discourse has done it. They thought long and hard about threaded v. non-threaded, etc.

http://try.discourse.org/

The text-balloons look better but also less clean, I'm not sure.

Text balloons have a nice separation from the rest of the timeline http://605.wikispaces.com/Closure

The line between the avatars in the second one is pointless.

I'd vote for a tree-like structure, where you can actually see the discussion structure (what post is the answer for what post).

I think the text balloons have too much going on, and don't provide much benefit since the avatars already demarcate the posts.

IMO the text balloons is more user friendly :) .

I like minimal way. It`s more clear (IMO). I like to see a conversation with replies to see how to solve indentations.

Looks like people like the text-balloons, we'll proceed with implementing them.