Community comments are the lifeblood of our platform; they help our visitors to find and share information, ask questions and clarify details about deals, retailers, products, vouchers and more. As our platform continues to grow, it can become difficult for users to find the most useful information (which is why we recently introduced the Most Helpful tag and sorting option).
In longer threads, however, tracking responses to a certain question that you or another user may have asked could become difficult. We could see the logic of the quote feature was no longer providing a great experience, so we surveyed members (including prototype testing with registered users) and ran multiple usability tests in order to find a better solution.
This research has led us to our new reply functionality; replying to a comment will create a “thread” beneath that original comment. You can then join in with that conversation, or leave a new comment. Users of other community platforms will already be familiar with this way of doing things; it’s a logic which is used frequently.
Reply logic key points:
What else is changing?
We already mentioned the “most helpful” comments feature we released recently; the ability to sort comments accordingly will also be available on the app.
Now users are able to sort by helpful, new etc, we are going to remove the top comments section as it’s redundant. If they want, users can use the “Top First” sorting option which will show pinned comments, otherwise users can sort using the helpful / newest / oldest options.
As frequently requested, app users will finally have the option to sort by helpful / oldest / newest / top.
Due to exceedingly low usage, comment format options are being removed from the comment submission form (block quote formatting option will be included on web (app to follow) however, to refer to previous comments.)
And finally..
We appreciate this is a huge change and while these iterations were made based on user feedback, research and testing, we still would love your input so we can continue to improve this feature and the wider platform.
Thanks for your patience and feedback!
Hi,
We wanted to share a quick note to thank you for your valuable feedback regarding the changes we made to the replies feature. We understand that it takes time to adjust to major changes; in the meantime, we're considering some of your suggestions to ensure the comment section works well for all of you. We're confident that the recent changes will help to improve readability and organise the comment section more logically, but we're also aware that we can still make some improvements.
Tracking Unread (New) Comments: We will add a visual clue next to new comments in the comment section so it’s easier for you to spot them. We will also look into alternative solutions to the "unread" comment problem. As a priority, we're working on the best solution for this.
Highlighted Reply Logic Improvements: We're looking into ways to improve the logic that selects a highlighted response. We currently highlight the "Top Reply," but we're considering other options, such as showing multiple replies (which would reduce the number of "Show More" buttons throughout the comments).
Replies readability: We're considering ways to improve readability in replies where multiple conversations are taking place, for example by providing more context on the replies.
Sorting Option: We intend to save your sorting order preference when you change the sorting options in the comment section.
App Notification Redirection: When you tap on a reply notification, we intend to include the thread summary to which the replies are related, so you have context and can easily return to the thread.
Redirection in Web: We'll be implementing a redirection to direct you to the most recent unread comments in replies when you access a comment via notification.
Content Improvements: We'll improve notification content so that it is easier to understand and digest quickly while still providing the necessary context.
New Subscription Flow for Comments: The subscribe button will be added to the comment header, while the button under the deal description and the checkbox which shows beneath the comment submission box will be removed on the website. This was one of the changes we worked on prior to the release of replies, so it should be released soon.
We’ll continue to keep you updated on this feature as it evolves and look forward to your comments and suggestions
In longer threads, however, tracking responses to a certain question that you or another user may have asked could become difficult. We could see the logic of the quote feature was no longer providing a great experience, so we surveyed members (including prototype testing with registered users) and ran multiple usability tests in order to find a better solution.
This research has led us to our new reply functionality; replying to a comment will create a “thread” beneath that original comment. You can then join in with that conversation, or leave a new comment. Users of other community platforms will already be familiar with this way of doing things; it’s a logic which is used frequently.
Reply logic key points:
- Users will be able to reply to comments directly. Quote feature is to be deprecated
- Comment submission form will have a design change to help users easily reply-to older comments or leave a new comment
- Change has been made as a result of extensive user-surveys and usability tests to our comment section
What else is changing?
We already mentioned the “most helpful” comments feature we released recently; the ability to sort comments accordingly will also be available on the app.
Now users are able to sort by helpful, new etc, we are going to remove the top comments section as it’s redundant. If they want, users can use the “Top First” sorting option which will show pinned comments, otherwise users can sort using the helpful / newest / oldest options.
As frequently requested, app users will finally have the option to sort by helpful / oldest / newest / top.
Due to exceedingly low usage, comment format options are being removed from the comment submission form (block quote formatting option will be included on web (app to follow) however, to refer to previous comments.)
And finally..
We appreciate this is a huge change and while these iterations were made based on user feedback, research and testing, we still would love your input so we can continue to improve this feature and the wider platform.
Thanks for your patience and feedback!
Hi,
We wanted to share a quick note to thank you for your valuable feedback regarding the changes we made to the replies feature. We understand that it takes time to adjust to major changes; in the meantime, we're considering some of your suggestions to ensure the comment section works well for all of you. We're confident that the recent changes will help to improve readability and organise the comment section more logically, but we're also aware that we can still make some improvements.
Tracking Unread (New) Comments: We will add a visual clue next to new comments in the comment section so it’s easier for you to spot them. We will also look into alternative solutions to the "unread" comment problem. As a priority, we're working on the best solution for this.
Highlighted Reply Logic Improvements: We're looking into ways to improve the logic that selects a highlighted response. We currently highlight the "Top Reply," but we're considering other options, such as showing multiple replies (which would reduce the number of "Show More" buttons throughout the comments).
Replies readability: We're considering ways to improve readability in replies where multiple conversations are taking place, for example by providing more context on the replies.
Sorting Option: We intend to save your sorting order preference when you change the sorting options in the comment section.
App Notification Redirection: When you tap on a reply notification, we intend to include the thread summary to which the replies are related, so you have context and can easily return to the thread.
Redirection in Web: We'll be implementing a redirection to direct you to the most recent unread comments in replies when you access a comment via notification.
Content Improvements: We'll improve notification content so that it is easier to understand and digest quickly while still providing the necessary context.
New Subscription Flow for Comments: The subscribe button will be added to the comment header, while the button under the deal description and the checkbox which shows beneath the comment submission box will be removed on the website. This was one of the changes we worked on prior to the release of replies, so it should be released soon.
We’ll continue to keep you updated on this feature as it evolves and look forward to your comments and suggestions
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sorted byThank you to everyone who has taken the time to give their feedback since this release. We've spent the weekend and this morning going through it - and I first want to thank and the other Community Support team for spending time from their bank holiday to respond and let you know our thoughts and approach on this topic.
As has been mentioned before, this change was the result of user surveys, testing and actually some test runs in other Pepper countries. We genuinely do not want or try to release anything that we think is going to cause frustration, a worse user experience or anything of that nature. In fact the aims here were pretty simple - make comments as a whole easier to navigate, and hopefully encourage more comments. There's no incentive for us to launch something that annoys, makes the site harder or worse to use or creates knock on effects of stress or higher workload for the staff here
While all that is true, it doesn't mean every change lands perfectly - in fact that is rare. There is the chance of bugs (however hard we test something, this is true across the web) and there are some of those here - they are already being looked at and fixed (though the long UK bank holiday weekend, coupled with the fact our teams in Berlin have a Bank Holiday today have stretched that process - so apologies on the delays).
But there is also the chance that a change isn't right or needs significant revamp. I can't commit to an answer on that for this change now, as we need to speak with the product development teams, share the feedback here in detail and come up with a plan. As mentioned, the feedback here directly contrasts with the pre-launch feedback and data, so it will be one we need to puzzle through. I absolutely recognise many points here as valid though - one I personally hadn't seen clearly before is about the difficulty in seeing a new reply under a comment I had previously read but not replied to myself. Useful comments could easily be missed this way.
So again, thanks for the feedback and apologies for the frustration both from bugs and the overall change. If you can give us a couple of days to come up with an action plan, we'll get back to you here with some updates when we think we have the right next move
Judging by what has happened over the years, I'm not holding out much hope though..
If it ain't broke......... (edited)
If you can't see the issue here then wow.
Couple of requests please:
Can we please include feedback responses related to this release. This will help the team collate the responses too.
** Mini update - the team would be grateful if members are able to share wider constructive feedback on hotukdeals, so looking at recent changes and sharing your opinions on the community forum for example, as well as recent updates including 'thread replies' and the 'For You' Feed .
Also, please ensure all feedback is polite - I appreciate this is a given for most, but we do get the odd member who can sometimes use profanity or be quite aggressive, and we would kindly ask that members avoid this.
And please share honest feedback and responses - good and bad, how you have found the update and any suggestions for making it better.
Thank you to everyone responding for your help
>>>> If you do have any issues opening the survey pop-up, please send me a PM message to , and I'll respond with a link that will open the survey <<<<
(edited)
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Notifications are still not working correctly for me. I have this as a subscribed thread; there was quite a few new messages yet did not receive notification.
Edit: Using Opera browser on Android. (edited)
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But surely, the reason you subscribe to a thread is so that you can be notified of all new replies regardless of whether you contributed or not? The logic used by the product team does not work for me. (edited)
However those collapsed sub threads where replies are lurking absolutely does not make sense in anything but the posted order, and showing only the "most helpful" or whatever first makes no sense as others have demonstrated above. Especially when you click to show all replies and you have some then appearing above where you are meaning you have to scroll back up then back down again.
But the biggest problem for me as I have said before and which it feels like still isn't being understood by the team, is when you do then subscribe to that topic/thread/conversation, when you open the nofitication of new activity you are no longer taken to a hard stop point where everything after it is new and unread, and instead the new comments are scattered throught the entire topic which could be several pages long. Equally I do not want a notification for each and every new reply/comment - again there could be loads. What I want is for all the new stuff to be in one place with one notification - like it was before. You have one notification/"bookmark" and you know that everything after that point is new with no need to go back over anything that came before as you will have already seen it.
In case there is still any doubt, this is what I see as the biggest problem with this revamp:
Please explain again to me and the rest of the community how this new format is better for keeping track of conversations? How am I to find comments 2,3,4,5? (edited)
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(edited)
Instead of replying by clicking on the Reply button, copy the text of the original comment and post it as a new comment with your reply.
It's near-impossible to follow discussions of all but the shortest length, as they're no longer presented in chronological order corresponding with when comments were posted. New comments can appear at any point within a discussion, rather than being easy to find at the of the page. (edited)
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But just to summarise again, the main issue is that all the new comments cannot be found together so a person has to visit each page (if more than one - which it usually is for a hot deal) and manually look for these new comments.
New layout is just so frustrating. (edited)
The responses are now grouped into replies, which are hidden until you click on the drop down menu. I understand that this is meant to make things clearer, so that people can see who has replied to which post, however the way it has been done is not well executed and actually has the opposite effect of making things cluttered and unclear.
The old format was very good and so I do not see why this has to be changed at all, and certainly to this new view display. I am a member of other sites and one of the thing I have noticed is the clarity of the HUKD site in display of comments and likes compared to other sites, that is it is much clearer on here than other sites, but now it is really bad with this new format.
As others have said, please put the display view back as this new display is not working and makes it difficult to read the comments and replies.
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I know you often say you test these changes before you make them live, but where? I've never seen you promote anything about testing on the UK site with your actual users and never came across anyone who perhaps saw the feature earlier or something. I remember way back when you revamped the site, I'm sure you had a beta first and took feedback before making it live.
I think an option would be a happy medium. I don't really think this style of commenting works for a shopping forum personally
This has completely killed keeping track of posts on here, completely impossible now. I get a notification of new replies to a post and it takes me to a reply to a specific comment, I've absolutely no idea what or where the rest of the replies to the post are, I have to scroll through every single old post that I've already seen to find the threaded comment that might contain the new comments that I haven't seen. Tedious to the point I'm not even bothering now and just deleting reply notifications. I've got better things to do with my day than spend half of it hunting for comments. Ultimately you've killed off discussion here. Quite an achievement for what is supposed to be a community, one that has been thriving for years, and in one fell swoop you've instantly crippled it. So well done.
(I would have used some bold and italics for emphasis, but you'll just have to guess where as apparently that's not needed either. Why not just dumb it down completely to no more that txt spk and emojis allowed ) (edited)
I asked what benefit this brought, but didn't get an answer, other than relatively low usage - which doesn't answer the question.
a suggestion above of search within threads is great - for the big chat threads, it’s impossible to find anything
Replying to
I've seen this too, using the Android app (sorry, I can't get a screenshot right now).
I don't think that it's a display issue; has probably just deleted the extra space manually before posting, as I try to do.
I think I see the issue illustrated in the posts from and just above. (edited)
The biggest drawback is if someone replies to an old comment with useful information, then that is not visible to others. Nobody is going to check all the replies on a popular deal and there are hundreds of comments. (edited)
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Really don't see how the website will function at all without people getting notifications of replies.
Would urge people to just tag folks instead of replying only way I can see of making this work.
Also newest comments will tell you if out of stock ect. The current system is fine as is in my opinion (edited)
Personally I will be on here a lot less but when I am I shall be copying and pasting my quotes in any replies, eg:
chocci
1 h, 50 m ago
I made a comment in this thread 5 minutes ago but for the life of me, I can't see it
What a shambles
Replying to
No one will use reply and the context of who'se comments relates to who will become even more confusing.
Imagine a glitch thread where people are refreshing new comments to see helpful tips, tricks or workarounds for the glitch. Then someone shares a really useful piece of info but because they 'replied' to someone earlier in thread it is missed. Understandably the sort by 'top' comments is designed to improve this but that's only if enough people see it at first.
Regardless, I understand there is no going back from this change. So what I would like to see at the very least is all replies expanded by default as mentioned by others. Also an arrow to jump to next comment as with Reddit. See more replies does not work, it is a massive inconvenience. (edited)
Look at this mess.
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This is a very unnecessary change that’s making the comments and replies unusable. You can’t see if someone has replied, and it’s not working at all on the App (there is the bell icon, but it just goes to an error when you press it).
I'll try and be as constructive as possible.
Firstly, can changes like this be made more prominent to the users leading up to and during for launch. I had no idea why the site looked all wonky. To get here I had come to discussions and then find the announcements page. This is a wider issue but I feel the discussions section itself feels very hidden from the main site and imagine gets far less traffic; I'm not privvy to the data though.
What would help, for major changes like this, is to have them more in focus on the landing pages of the site. I tested on another browser logged out to check it wasn't to do with any script blockers/add-ons etc on my usual setup but still the same, no clear update that the way the site works is changing up. A banner or prominent link to the announcement or discussion would help generate more feedback.
Much like the new system itself, however uninentional, it creates the impression info is being hidden.
Secondly, when I eventually find the announcement of the changes it appears I'm not to worry as the changes were made 'based on user feedback, research and testing'. Yet here it looks like lots of people (including myself) don't appear to have been included in that feedback and research and that the changes that were pushed live had technical issues or missing features.
I'm reminded of when my mobile network launched a revamp of their app. I updated it and soon needed a top-up. Whoops! My top-up method was no longer supported. That's problematic so I got in touch via their community pages. 'We're so sorry for the hassle we were committed to getting the fresh new design out the door to our customers. Rest assured we're working on it and hope to have it up and running in weeks.' I politely suggested they might want to wait 'til they had everything ready to go for all customers, preventing leaving them greatly inconvenienced, before committing to launch to which they agreed with and committed to not repeating that in the future. (cool story bro, I know).
In regards to the changes themselves, I understand the logic behind them but I don't see them effectively solving the problem of making info easier to parse. Maybe it'll visually reduce off topic clutter by hiding it away but seemingly at the cost of useful answers/replies being drowned in multiple conversations now. Presumbly they'll be even less impetus to reduce off-topic spam due to it being out of sight but users will still have to wade through it for fear that the answer they need is buried within.
If you've added search tools and filters to aid with this I don't see why keeping the 'top comment' old format as it generally served well to promote useful info. It took a bit of revision with likes evolving to 'helps' and a weight added that promoted helpful content above joke posts but you'd finally got that working well and now are removing it???
I'm noticing that alot of the top visible replies are usually from the authour of the original comment replying to a reply. Which seems counterproductive.
e.g
'Is this the way to Amarillo?'
|
|
| Thanks Tony!
It's double whammy bad. Firstly, for a redesign to help make info tidier to find I now need to skim until I see the question, then click the replies tab to see the answer and potentially wade through 30 replies of 'Garlic bread?!' being spammed. Secondly, in the old format as I scrolled, even though I wasn't looking for an answer to that question I'd see a post with the quote of the question and then an answer. I can see that is helpful and click like....helpful. The answer is now promoted towards the 'top comments'. In the new format I scroll past the question and don't bother to check the threaded answers therefore do not help promote the helpful answer in this instance.
It feels very much a change that promotes form over function in that it might reduce clutter but does so by tidying up the useful bits.
On the positive side it does look neater on mobile, which I assume was the lead platform intended for this. I don't like it on Desktop. With a small line of grey and tiny indent it doesn't stand out well to my eyes and my brain still registers as a quote rather than a reply. Needs to be bolder perhaps.
Also won't this make the deals look dead, especially for the smaller/less hot deals? If 2 pages of comments stem from 2 questions about that deal, that'll be condensed to replies with long threads but only 4 comments are visible by default.
Like this thread, if everyone just replied to the first 'I don't like this' reply and added feedback via the thread there wouldn't be the same level of engagment. Then sigma would still have to trawl through the comments to get the feedback they wanted anyway. If a conversation looks dead I'd bet you'd get less engagment because of it.
Thanks for attending my TED talk.
Ah, is this using the app? If so, I see your problem and is indeed correct that you can't
If you're on Android, get yourself a pre-6.11 version of the app from apkmirror.com/?po…als (edited)
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I just don't see why they didn't just roll back as soon as there where reported problems. There must have been a backup "full break" plan incase of issues they could have just implemented
Trying to keep track of this discussion and I don't get replies about notifications and the notifications I do get take me out of the app.
It's just frustrating and, even though it won't greatly affect most of my usage, that frustration is making me want to give up completely.
I also feel really sorry for you and the others in the support team, you shouldn't have felt you had to comment while on holiday, but it feels like there is so this user frustration but you're taking the flack and shielding the anonymous "Devs".
If only a Dev could have hopped on here and explained it.
(Also, if I suggested rolling out a change at work immediately before a long break holiday weekend, if rightly get told to do it after.)
You have to remember that this site is part of a much bigger company that encompasses multiple sites so if the order has come down from head office that this new change will be implemented, then the people who work for HUKD pretty much have no choice but to make that happen if they want to keep their jobs.
Sure, it seems unfair that this change seems to be being forced on to us in the UK based very likely on feedback from other countries but unless there is a massive downturn in site and comment usage, it's going to be a permanent change.
If there was even a 1% chance of this being rolled back, I think that would have been evident by now.
Pepper have decided to fix a non-existent problem that wasn't asked for, at least in the UK, so we're just going to have to accept it.
However, this particular attempt has failed and I hope Pepper have the sense to revert or find something better.
HUKD admin, please read the room. The people here are telling you how much they dislike this new system and what a backwards step it is. This truly is a dreadful change that benefits nobody.
Imagine the postman had five letters for you. And they think, wow, five letters. I think I’m only going to deliver one, and hide the rest. Maybe you’ll come across them at some point. Maybe you won’t. And even the one letter that has been delivered, is starting from the bottom to the top.
That’s basically what’s happening.
There is no way to know whether someone else has replied to a comment after the one initial notification.
(Notice the use of Italics). (edited)
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Valid criticism isn't "whining". (edited)
This.
When I come on to a topic I have been following I used to just go to "new comments". Now that is pointless.
I'm not going to go back to the start of the thread and expand every post on the off chance I missed an interesting comment.
I just don't understand the change, before it was a linear flow of conversation, now it's a jumbled mess.
OMG, it's taken me nearly an hour to trawl through this discussion, I'm still none the wiser as why this change has been implemented.
It's a complete mess!
Worryingly, there are many unresolved issues. It seems to create new and worse problems than the lesser issues it's trying to solve.
I can recall seeing just 1 positive comment amongst a dearth of negative ones. This in itself is completely at odds with the "user survey" that's claimed to have been carried out. Maybe all the other positive comments are buried in collapsed conversations I missed!
Missing notifications is a massive problem, and looks like no fix for a week.
Hidden conversations is another massive issue, people will miss loads of new and relevant comments dotted all over the place.
This change is god-awful (edited)
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The old way of just opening a tab for a deal you were interested in and then hitting refresh and scrolling down to the orange new comments bar when you wanted to check for anything new meant you could keep up to date in seconds. Inline comments will also be even worse for those people who are too lazy to read a whole thread and ask the same question over and over again.
Maybe this has a place in your discussion area where posts do have a longer life but not on the deals side.
Removing the formatting buttons is a bizarre decision alongside this, but I'm at least grateful that we can still use keyboard shortcuts - despite how wholly illogical that is. We still have them for posting opening posts for a thread too, thankfully. (edited)
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Did you actually test this particular approach with members (practically), after those interviews?
The point here (and made above) is that there's generally no willingness to revert changes *unless* they break something else badly - and in particular, reversion won't happen due to negative feedback, regardless how universally negative that may be. (edited)
That's my use case/user requirement.
The new threading model not only doesn't support that, but actually makes it worse than the old method.
Since I'm still seeing unthreaded on the app then the current implementation must support both views. Could they both be supported and a "threaded" vs "flat"option provided?
But then what do I know, I liked compact view. (edited)
open up a deal and there’s replies to comments but no actual comment.
also when you reply or one person it just randomly appears in another area with no idea or quote as to who or what you’re replying to.
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