# Polls UX: Problems and solutions

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-ux-problems-and-solutions/46722>\
**Category:** UX\
**Created:** [July 1, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-ux-problems-and-solutions/46722 "2016-07-01T19:18:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![claas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/claas/32/71725_2.png) [@claas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/claas)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-ux-problems-and-solutions/46722/1 "2016-07-01T19:18:53Z")

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I like Discourse’s poll feature, but I see a few minor problems:

**Problem 1** : New users have difficulties identifying a poll as such.  
**Explanation** : There are only implicit (i.e. no explicit) visual aids to help identify a poll: There are the option bars that change colour on hover and the number of voters as well as a description of what the user can do, yet there is nothing that lets the user intuitively and quickly realise “this is a poll and I can participate”.

**Problem 2** : Users have difficulties identifying a multi poll as such.  
**Explanation** : Again, there is no explicit visual aid in identifying that a poll allows multiple choice, except for the (textual) description and theoretically the additional button to submit the choice (cf. _Problem 3_).

**Problem 3** : Users tend to forget to submit their choice in a multi poll.  
**Explanation** : While the button “Vote now!” (why the exclamation mark?) slightly changes colour upon selecting a valid number of choices, this change is hardly noticeable. It doesn’t help either that the button lacks an icon (in contrast to the surrounding buttons). Also, the user doesn’t get a warning when leaving the topic without submitting the vote. (For consistency, I would re-label the button “Submit” – we don’t write “Show poll results” and “Close poll” either, do we? – or at least “Cast Vote” in accordance to “Create Topic” in the composer.)

**Problem 4** : The button for closing a poll is red, even though a closed poll can be re-opened again.  
**Explanation** : The button’s red colour has two effects here: First of all, it signals danger, even though this action is not dangerous. Secondly, it distracts from the surrounding buttons (which might not be such a big deal in the end, as moderators usually are experienced users, but why distract them anyway?).

**Solution** :  
My suggestion to face these problems would be to …

- Add icons to poll options ([PR #4265](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/4265)),
- Highlight cast votes button and add icon ([PR #4266](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/4266)) and
- Remove danger from close poll button. ([PR #4267](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/4267))

… and this would look like this:

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/c/0/c0dba4a6dd6420a22c0cf34be23c2f279312389b.png)

**Status** : Fixed. ✔

> <https://twitter.com/discourse/status/759071691385425920>

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