New Like feature - Unliking UI

Development
#1

Hi devs,

Thanks to Simon we now have a Like feature in XWiki, yeah! :slight_smile:

We started a discussion on matrix about the unlike step. We have a UI disagreement so I’m bringing it to the dev community to discuss it further.

Right now when you click the Like button, the page is liked. However when you click the Like button again to unlike, it’s not unliked immediately. There’s this modal that appears:

Screenshot 2020-08-22 at 18.10.37

My POV is that unliking should be fast and simple, like like, and just clicking the button should do it. Simon’s POV is that the users could think that clicking the like button again would show the likers and not perform an unlike and this he proposed this modal. My POV is that users are used to the like/unlike toggle and having the modal gets into the way. And we need a different way to show likers (right now and FTM it’s a viewer that’s accessible in the “more actions” content menu).

More general philosophy: XWiki is too complex and users are looking for simplicity. Each feature should be as simple as it can possible be. This is why I’d prefer that unliking be just a single click, as liking.

WDYT?

Thanks

#2

Just to clarify a bit: my argument for having the modal is twofold:

  1. I consider that any “destructive” action should be always confirmed, since it might be an unexpected click and the user could have done it by mistake. For sure he could always perform again the like now you also have to consider that liking send events (unliking too btw but they are not binded right now) so performing a re-like will possibly send new notifications
  2. the like button currently have two functions: the first one is to allow to perform a like, the second one is to show the number of likes. It’s commonly accepted that a like button performs an immediate like when you click on it. Now I have myself been in the problem of looking for a way to display an info about likers (was on a wordpress blog AFAIR) and without much info I have tried back then to click on the like button, resulting to an immediate unlike that I didn’t expect at that moment. So displaying this modal also allows to display the link to the Like informations which is a bit hidden in the “More options” menu right now.

Globally I don’t think displaying a modal for the unlike action is a problem for having fast and simple feature in XWiki, since it’s not a feature we expect to be used very often (I mean the unlike action).

Now I’m definitely +1 for a solution with a configuration allowing to chose the default behaviour of the like button, for example:

  • config 1: Like / Unlike without confirmation (Vincent’s requested behaviour)
  • config 2: Immediate Like / Unlike with confirmation (my requested behaviour)
  • config 3: Like with confirmation / Unlike with confirmation
#3

+1 to toggle the like / unlike without any confirmation and without any additional configuration. Simple and clean. Viewing the list of likers is less common IMO than the need to unlike so I’m fine to expose it in the More options menu as Vincent suggested.

#4

Checking facebook, twitter and mastodon, I found a consistent pattern.

The like action is a toggle button with no confirmation step, one way or the other.
Another label positioned closely to the like action provide a partial information (eg, X likes, of “Manuel, Simon and 3 others”). This label is clickable and lead to a modal window with further information.

In conlusion:
+1 for the toggle without confirmation
For the more details information, I think it is better if we can find a way to place it nicely somewhere close to the like button.
Or as said @mflorea and @vmassol , we can place this action in the More options menu.

#5

Note that it’s already available there, see: https://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/Like%20Application#HViewLikesInformation

#6

Perhaps a combination could be a good way. I have only MS-Paint :confused: but this is what it could look like IMHO:

2020-09-02 05_20_43-Unbenannt_ ‎- Paint 3D

The Options could provide another way to the existing page that show the “likers” of the site, lead the way to the notification settings and, as the toggle does, give the user the option to like or unlike the page.

+1 for no confirmation

#7

Yes this is what I also originally suggested but it’s cluttering the UI a bit and makes the button bigger for a feature that doesn’t need to be always visible IMO. It’s important that we work on making the UI minimal as much as possible. So the question really is: can users who wish to see the list of persons who liked a page find the option in the menu.

#8

So given the reactions on the topic and unless someone arrives afterward with a strong opposition I’ll move on to remove the confirmation modal. However I won’t change - for now - the UI of the button, and as said already the list of likers is already available in the “More action” menu.

[Edit: I created https://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-17722 for it]