Most nights driving home from the office I listen to NPR.  As a proponent of user contribution, peer to peer sharing and most things Web-social I am always pleased to hear the comments of listeners read (or played) over the air.  Even if I disagree I enjoy hearing dissenting or opposing opinions. This is the new world publishers live in and clearly NPR gets it – right!  Well, maybe not.

Here’s how it unfolds.  Regardless of the particular program, each night after listener comments are aired the host typically says something to this effect:

“If you’ve got comments – we’d love to hear from you.  Go to our Web site and click on the link that says comments at the bottom of the page.”

Wait a minute, did you catch that?

If comments are desired and appreciated why is it that in order to make them you have to scroll to the bottom of the page?  In the Web design world we refer to anything below the viewable area on your browser as “below the fold”.  It’s generally where we put the less important stuff.  So users who want to comment are required to scroll through all kinds of content to find the link.  This is a mixed signal for sure.  Ultimately the motivated commenter will always find that link – they have a desire to contribute beyond the average listener.  That doesn’t make NPR’s handling of this feature right.

Here’s my solution.  If you REALLY want user feedback make it a design priority. To illustrate my solution I have tapped our expert interaction design team to produce these before and after images (actually I just did it myself with Photoshop). (more…)