Styling comments

Many designers do not pay any or way to little attention to the comment sections. Something that is really foolish if the site want users to interact with the content and leave their comments.

Here is a few guidelines to think about when doing the comment section of a page:

Gudielines for styling comment sections

• The comment section must be clearly separated from the main, non-user submited content.
• The user sould not have to leave the page they are viewing to leave a comment.
• Always clearly separate every comment so they do not blur together into one, big chunk.
• Give each commentator proper attribution. Do not display their names with tiny, unreadable letters or represent them by number nor display pictures.
• Do not give the section a fancy heading. Call it Comments and not Unique, user input-thiny field section.
• If the page require a long text field to explain how to leave a comment (standard behavior of most blog, especially WordPress, themes) it should be considered for redesigning.

By following this guidelines; all the most common problems with stylong of comment sections sould be avoided.

Note: By seperating comments and giving proper attribution to the commentators they are likely too comment on other things as well. So this should be high priority.