Use of Display Names in icon hover text

[mirthalia]

Title:
Use of Display Names in icon hover text

Area:
Icons

Summary:
That the username display in an icon's hover text be changed to the user's display name instead.

Description:
We already know the username on a comment due to it always being included in a comment's header, so it seems silly to have that information reiterated when we could have the user's display name instead, especially when the display name can often be more helpful. (I know <i>I</i> continually forget which people go with which username, at least.)

I know this is particularly noted among roleplayers, some of whom employ an (admittedly awkward) script to apply a display name hover to the username link itself.

I also know that part of the reason it's not currently implemented is because display names can be stupidly long. I personally suggest shortening the allowed max length for display names, but that's probably best discussed as a separate issue (?). I would like to note, however, that a lot of people use the display names for content that should rightfully go in the journal title, and discouraging that kind of behaviour would be a plus in my book.

Poll #8424 Use of Display Names in icon hover text

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 145

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
92 (63.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
12 (8.3%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
17 (11.7%)

(I have no opinion)
23 (15.9%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (0.7%)

Comments

[ratcreature]

I'm against this because many people have very long display names, like full sentences and such, that would make for a very long hover text.

[aeon]

the username limit is 25 characters so i think that's slightly irrational reasoning

[denise]

Just FYI, it's okay to disagree with people (suggestions discussion is full of disagreeing with people!) but please try to refrain from language that can be taken as a personal attack! Everybody's got the same goal here, or should: to make DW better for everybody, and to thoroughly consider all sides of a suggestion as much as possible.

(And, for the record, usernames can be 25 characters long, but display names can be much longer. I don't know the length limit off the top of my head, but I think it's either 100 or 255 characters. There absolutely is a qualitative difference.)

[aeon]

i don't think "irrational reasoning" could really be construed as a personal attack unless you were trying to be offended, but alright! i wasn't aware the given name field was much longer here than LJ's, where people primarily put a fancy three word sentence or symbols, or a character's rp name. it wasn't normally used to convey a long message.

[ratcreature]

In my circle very often they are sentences, which I would find disorienting in front of the icon text, even if they aren't excessively long. A few actual examples picked from my circle's display names: "I have a mitten and a chicken puppet!" "fifty frenchmen can't be wrong" or "Keep Hoping Machine Running"

[aeon]

Okay, I see.

See, in that respect I think making it a feature you can turn on or off satisfies everyone. That way if you are in a circle that has longer text, you can switch it off. :)

[denise]

It's the kind of aggressive language that we try to discourage in discussions around here, because it can make people reluctant to participate in the discussion. Thanks for understanding. :)

And the "display name" field isn't longer here than it is on LJ -- we haven't expanded it at all. It may be common in your communities, etc, on LJ to use shorter display names, but there are other areas where it's common to max out the space you get -- if you want to see a sample of some of the ways people use the display name, you can look at the LJ support high scores list and the DW support high scores list, both of which show the display name as well as the username, or check out (for instance) the recently active communities module, which shows both username and display name (and yes, that's communities, not personal journals, but same principle). Any question of what you're going to display to people, and how you display it, has to take into account, design for, and test both "what if someone uses one character of the available space" and "what if somebody uses every last character of the available space", and it has to work in both cases!

[devilbear]

I never actually realized this wasn't a feature on DW. I'm a roleplayer over on IJ, and I'm completely spoiled to being able to use this feature so much that I automatically assumed it was included with Dreamwidth. (I've yet to pay much attention to hover text on DW except when curious about an icon's title; in roleplaying it's essential in larger games when I want to see a character's name at a glance.)

[denise]

Hover text is icon keyword and username right now. There's a discussion of this in dw-accessibility, too, since this has accessibility implications.

[devilbear]

I think I might have suffered lack of clarity related to lack of caffeine. Oops. By "this feature" I meant to refer to having the display name and keyword rather than username and keyword.

Either way, thanks so much for linking me to the accessibility discussion. And for the speedy reply.

[arethinn]

... I don't see a keyword? I'm just seeing everyone's username. (It might be that everyone has used default here, but if that's the case should I be seeing "default"?)

[azurelunatic]

*comments non-default*

If you've the beta turned on, there's a thing.

[arethinn]

Oh, the tooltip. I thought we were talking about the hover menu here (since the OP used the language "hover text" rather than "alt text"). Didn't realize I was supposed to be waiting an extra fraction of a second.

[denise]

Yeah, I realized after I commented that I might be simplifying: I think alt text is username and keyword and title text is just username, and browsers differ as to whether they display alt text or title text on hover-over.

You see why this issue is hard!

[arethinn]

I see the keyword. I didn't realize I was supposed to be waiting an extra fraction of a second for a tooltip. I thought we were talking about the hover menu with the links in it.

[mirthalia]

To be fair it should probably be applied to the hover menu as well.

[musyc]

I'm up for showing display names if they truncate to something relatively short. Otherwise, I'm not keen on this. I can't ever use them for identification purposes because not one of my friends puts anything in there that isn't directly related to their username already (or isn't completely nonsensical). I recognize usernames far more easily. (denise or mark = oh, right, I know who they are. Display name of "Darby O'Gill" is a whothehell moment every time.)

[kyrielle]

Some of my friends - at least on LJ - routinely change theirs for amusement purposes. They're likely to be half a sentence or more and indicate *nothing* about who it is.

[delladea]

I would not be opposed to implementing this suggestion if display names had an upper character limit, or if long names were truncated to a certain length within the hover. I don't consider truncating the name ideal, but it would prevent the hover box from being huge.

[lorax]

My with-changes is I'd be in favor of display names showing, or being truncated somehow to show, but would prefer not to have the max length for display names lowered. Most of my flist use them for funny things, and I like that.

[zaluzianskya]

I really wish display names showed up somewhere -- on the title text, the hover menu, somewhere. There doesn't seem to be much point to them if they don't appear anywhere in a comment.

[denise]

They appear in comment notifications (and always confuse the hell out of me) and when you're replying to a comment on a separate page; i'm right now looking at: "Aleph-Naught (transfinite) wrote in dw_suggestions,"

[zaluzianskya]

Ah. I always kind of skim notifs and hardly ever use the separate reply page, so I forgot about that.

I'm mostly thinking about it as a roleplayer. On LJ, it's a faux pas to not have your character name in the display field, so if someone wants to know who you're playing they can just hover over your icon instead of going to your profile page or opening a new reply page.

[susanreads]

I'd say yes to this if not for the length problem. How about putting them in the hover menu? There's a lot more room there. (Then we need to make the hover menu accessible somehow ...)

[arethinn]

If it were to change, I would like it to be display name and then username in parentheses.

Mirth Alia (mirthalia)


edit: as in emailed comment notifications, as denise notes above.

[cesy]

Either hover text or in the hover popup, and truncated display, sounds like a good idea to me.

[ciaan]

I think truncating the name sounds awful. That's not going to display what the person wants, and it's also not going to display what the reader remembers/recognizes.

I agree that having the username twice is redundant, and having the display name somewhere in comments would be quite nice, but I'm not sure where to put it.

[tricia868]

Is there any way it could, rather than truncate, just revert to username in the case of too-long display names? That seems to be the primary concern, from what I'm seeing here. Length, and a comment on the negatives of truncating.

I've no idea how much additional work this would make, but it could be a potential solution to the concerns voiced here if it isn't terribly difficult to implement. It would take care of the roleplayers who rely on the feature to view character names, along with other users who were accustomed to using it on LJ, while still maintaining the status quo for people who use display names for other purposes than displaying a name.

[tricia868]

...Thinking further after commenting, though, it might be a problem to have some information display over some users and other information over others. I know this site has a very heavy emphasis on accessibility, something for which I'm grateful as a person prone to migraines. Accessibility issues get addressed here, another thing helping make me comfortable on dreamwidth.

I'm not sure what the accessibility implications are in terms of the whole issue, let alone my suggestion.

[cesy]

That sounds like a good solution to me.

[aeon]

The long and short of this is, just make it an option you can turn off if you think it's bothering you or you don't care.

I never saw any absurdly long LJ given name fields, myself. It tells me the names of characters I'm RPing with and lets me see people who have gotten creative with that field as well.

[simplypip]

+1 to making it an option at the very least.

While I have read that many individuals here are worried about what their friends already put in Display Name fields for fun can bloat the alt-text, consider then that when the system changes those same people might stop doing that and/or put in shorter items to compensate. Much like those who are on LJ or IJ or other journaling sites do at present.

It would, hopefully, only be a temporary inconvenience.

[cesy]

Not necessarily temporary - there are still circles on LJ where people stick to long names despite the inconvenience it causes for others.

[simplypip]

Could you perhaps illustrate exactly what these inconveniences are? I am having trouble picturing what this would mean, as the only thing that would happen is that the keywords are pushed to the far right of the tooltip and thus, perhaps, off of the edge of smaller screens.

And, even so, if it is a friend, it could just be a simple matter of asking them to trim it down a bit if it becomes such a hassle.

At this point, it becomes more of "let's fill the space with potentially usable information" and not "repeat information that is accessibly a half inch away from where it is already shown" which would already be an improvement.

[cesy]

Yeah, it's mainly the way it makes things less readable - in email notifications, when browsing journals, reading comments, etc. as well as the tooltip.

[simplypip]

I still don't quite follow. I can see how it affects tooltips IF one mouses over it, and the names already display in the email notifications, so that cannot be helped. What I mean is: the suggested change by the OP... how does the rest change if the Display Name is used instead of the Journal Name?

[cesy]

The rest doesn't change - I was just explaining the general problems with long names. In this case, the suggested "with changes" of truncating or switching to journal name for very long display names would be fine.

[simplypip]

Ah! I was commenting on the changes of a different nature. Miscommunication on my end. ^^; Carry on!

[cesy]

Note that in general, more options are bad UI, though there are times when it's still the best solution. Also, just because you didn't see them, doesn't mean they don't exist. Truncation or reverting to the username if the display name is too long would achieve the aim of the option without degrading the UI, and make everybody happy.

[luckalike]

...Oh, oops, I didn't realize I was on an RP account.

I'd definitely like it as an option! It'd be easy enough to turn on or off, after all, and I like being able to check display names.

[coffeerocket]

As someone who uses the "display name" feature in a silly way--(my name is not "a muppet of a (wo)man") I still like to see them when I scroll over the icons. Partially because I like seeing what my friends put in the section without having to open new pages on their profile. I get a chuckle out of them. To be honest, I was incredibly amused by whoever's name is "fifty french men can't be wrong," and I would probably miss that completely.

But mostly because I have a really hard time spelling names. While that's not going to help much with people who label them silly things, it at least gives people the option to put names there (and in RP, that's a big thing. I can't tell you how many times "Hououji" or "Satonaka" have been misspelled. To complicate things further, there are people who use various spellings of names, like "Shidou" vs "Shido").

I like the idea of shortening the length, though, or making hovering display names optional, though that might be some work for the people running the site (s-sorry, guys, we're already giving you enough work ;A;). It's my personal preference to see the display name, but for other people, it might be too long.

[justice]

Perhaps with a name-field limit of what can go into the keyword field, thus circumventing the issue of "too long display names," and then it can be Name (username): keyword, and it doesn't turn out being too long. I'm not sure how that would work for screenreaders, but I've wanted this feature for a while.

I admit having names in notifs help, but having something available on the site would be nice. But I also don't want to hurt screen-readers.

[bluepard]

If length is a problem, I would automatically shorten it. Since moving to DW, I suddenly have to keep checking people's userinfo to find out who they are, and it is a bit of an annoying extra step. After all, I already knew their username before I hovered!