Display user's display name when hovering over userpic

[zaluzianskya]

Title:
Display user's display name when hovering over userpic

Area:
comments

Summary:
Currently, when you hover over the icon someone's used on a comment, the title text displays their screen name and icon keyword. Instead of the screen name, it should display their display name.

Description:
This behavior is a little confusing for people who are used to how it works on Livejournal and its clone sites; it's become commonplace to hover over a userpic to see what name someone has chosen to use. Here, though, it just displays their screen name, which is already available just a few pixels to the right of the picture.

There are many benefits to showing the display name in title text rather than the user name -- Depending on what's been set, it can help let you know what name someone prefers to go by, and it can help you use the appropriate gender pronoun for someone you're talking to, if their screen name is ambiguous. These benefits don't apply 100% of the time -- for example, my display name, ℵ0, is neither gender-specific nor the name I prefer to go by -- but I think they apply often enough that it's worth looking at. You can still see the display name by going to their profile, but it's an added, unnecessary step.

Another major use of the display name is that it's where roleplayers put their characters' names, so that you can see them at a glance, just by hovering over the icon. This is so prevalent among roleplayers that some games make it a rule to put your character's name in the name field, and some people on Livejournal actually complain loudly when they come across journals that haven't done so. In this case, you can -- again -- see the character name by going to the journal's profile, but it's still inconvenient to have to do that.

The fact that this behavior is so different from LJ and its clone sites suggests that there was some reason for this change, but I can't find any documentation anywhere explaining it, and I can't think of a single good thing that comes of it.

Poll #3094 Display user's display name when hovering over userpic

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 69

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
29 (42.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (1.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
21 (30.4%)

(I have no opinion)
16 (23.2%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (2.9%)

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

I don't like this as the default. I would be ok with people having the option to use one or the other but I don't think that having their display name used should be forced on a user.

[zaluzianskya]

Isn't that what it's for, though? It's the display name.

[jumpuphigh]

People use their journals differently. There is no one size fits all in this community and I was taking that into consideration. My display name, for example, is the same as my user name so there is no difference. However, I have seen other people who have display names along the lines of "Sparkly Unicorn dances on the back of a Purple Porpoise". Your display name is two characters. I'm sure that there are a ton of other ways that people have approached using that field. If we are going to make changes, I think we need to be aware of the different ways that people have approached that field and the different ways that they use it to communicate information to other users. I don't think it is a good idea to change it to suit just one group of people without taking into consideration how that change will affect other users and their expectations.

I like that you said, "Hey, this doesn't work for me, can we change it?" I like it the way it is now and don't want it to be changed. My suggestion of having the option to choose is an attempt to satisfy both sides of the discussion.

[zaluzianskya]

I apologize for bring a little brusque in my response to you, that was uncalled-for and I didn't think my comment through very well.

I agree that making it an option might solve the issue. If it were optional, I think it'd be best for it to be an option set per viewer rather than per... displayer, is that a word? But then, given what denise has said in the past about options being bad, I'm not sure how likely that would be.

[jumpuphigh]

Apology accepted.

I don't know what denise has said regarding options being bad in the past. Do you have a reference?

One of the things I am thinking about in reference to this idea is not breaking the coding with a display name that is extremely long. Most people don't have particularly long usernames and perhaps a super-long display name wouldn't be an issue but it would have to be taken into account somehow.

[zaluzianskya]

I'm trying to find it, but I can't seem to locate it; I distinctly remember it came up in a discussion on, I think, someone who wanted to have the entry he replied to truncated in the email notifications he got for comments he himself posted, and someone else didn't want it? Arrrgh I wish I could find that entry.

Anyway, it was along the lines of, more options are bad because they confuse people, and the site experience will be less uniform, or something like that. It's been a long time since I read it.

[jumpuphigh]

I vaguely remember that. Thanks for looking.

[denise]

It's under the 'admin' tag -- Why more options are generally bad UI

[jumpuphigh]

I worship your brain.

[denise]

Hee! You can have it this week, it's being silly about letting me sleep again. *g*

[jumpuphigh]

Do you think incense and chanting will help?

;)

[zaluzianskya]

Thank you! *adds to memories!!!*

[broker]

This is such a trivial change which wouldn't affect you at all.

tl;dring about it seems really unnecessary considering you just said you never fill out your given name. I want to know the names of characters in RP when I hover over their icons. It's obnoxious not to have this implemented.

[zaluzianskya]

I wouldn't say "obnoxious" -- the fact that every single LJ clone has it implemented implies that it's the default, and since Dreamwidth doesn't have it, there must be some specific reason for that. But it is annoying, yes ^^;

[broker]

I guess obnoxious is the wrong word but I'm sort of tired and frumpy I guess.

Also I was about to post here asking the same thing so I'm glad I checked?? lmao

[jadelennox]

Huh; I thought title was still being set to the alt text (which gives the image description). Not that I care, as long as title text doesn't give information that can't be easily obtained accessibly (which this bug wouldn't affect) -- I'm just surprised.

[broker]

Honestly wondering why this isn't the default option, considering it's half the reason anyone bothers with a given name field to start with.

[vane_nt]

I couldn't agree more.

[ratcreature]

I like that it is the username because a lot of people pick some clever phrases as their journal name that they change all the time, and that are quite long.

[zaluzianskya]

I don't get the point of it being the username, though, since it's literally just right there. I can't really think of a happy medium, though...

[ratcreature]

For the most part I would not care, but there are many styles that actually do not show the usernames near the icon but in some other place (like the icons right, the name left), and while I mostly browse with default style, I appreciate them being there in those other designs. I also ike that the name is just the short username, not a chunk of text like for example someone on my flist has in the name field "I have a mitten and a chicken puppet!" and that is quite a bit that shows before seeing the icon keyword.

[sorchasilver]

+1

[calime]

+1

[helens78]

+1

[helens78]

This was exactly my thought. Many people use incredibly long phrases for their journal name; this would mean that every time the hover menu popped up, it would expand the text box phenomenally, blocking a good portion of the screen. And since it's a hover menu, that would happen with annoying frequency during normal browsing.

[inarticulate]

If this doesn't go through, I'd really like opportunity to make the given name more obvious to people in conversations somehow-- it's how I want to be addressed, and I hadn't realized until this suggestion that it was only visible on the profile page. I can't really think of a happy medium for people who use it differently, but it's really important to me that it be easily accessible to people somehow.

And, looking over this, it looks like the username is two places-- in the hover menu and hover text for the icon. Would it be possible to add the display name to the hover menu, possibly below the username, or would that be too long? That way the journal would still be recognizable, but the display name would also be there for those of us who use it.

[karayan]

My screenname (the name I go by online in conversations) isn't the same as my username. It would be nice if the hover displayed my screenname, since my username is already prominently displayed.

[sky]

Yeah, lack of easily being able to see the display name really bugs the crap out of me, especially when RPing.

[azurelunatic]

Display both; I like knowing that the menu is for the user I thought it was for; if there are a bunch of usernames close together, and a slow computer, it can be very much a question which user this particular contextual hover menu is for.

[zaluzianskya]

Oh joy, I totally got distracted from the comments here.

Just to clarify the post, I didn't mean to replace the username in the contextual hover menu with the display name; I meant the username in the title text, as seen here.

Would type something longer and more intelligent but I'm dead tired right now, apologies.