Two common general terms on the same screen

Question

I recently raised an issue with my team about having two input areas on the screen using two similar terms that might cause confusion to the user. On the screen there is a field to enter comments and right below that we have another field labeled "Quality/Feedback" which to me implies "Quality" / (or) "Feedback".

Well that's the issue I raised, Comments and Feedback are very similar and simply removing the "/" and committing the bottom field to "Quality Feedback" would help differentiate which field should be used when.

This is incorrect right? Or am I crazy? I raised this issue on another section where we have two fields next to each other one called "Notes" and the other "Comments"...

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Any feedback to help justify against this would be greatly appreciated :)

Answer 1

I think your main problem here is that those fields are not necessarily exclusive.

I don't see how 'Comments' is any different from feedback, and while both are broad terms, comments is definitely more vague. Without knowing your product, I'd assume what you really want to get from users is the quality feedback, and the comments are an addition to that. If that's the case, the order should probably be inverted and the latter made optional (if they are not both so).

But I also think you have a 'bigger' problem, and that's the lack of instructions. If I find myself looking at those fields, I wouldn't know what to write... and would probably not write anything at all, or would write something terribly vague.

So I believe you definitely need some guidance for the feedback in order to make it a useful element. Feedback stars a great way of doing this, because you are asking the user to rate the service/products using something highly visual and familiar. You can add an input for details below the stars. See this example:

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Having chosen a rating (you can also have a tooltip saying what each star means, from 'not good' to 'excellent' going through 'meh'), it'd be much easier for th euser to explain why he/she has chosen that number.

Answer 2

I would question why there are two comment fields in the first place. You're essentially making users do the work of separating comment types, so you don't have to.

So it would be best if you just display one that is more important, which I assume is the Quality field. And if user is compelled to write additional comment that's non-quality related, then so be it.

However, if it is critical that you list out both fields, then as per Yisela's suggestion, more important one should come first.

But I would consider re-designing the form, so that the user has to explicitly acknowledge if he/she has quality concerns by specifying Yes/No. If answer is Yes, then open a "Detail" field below.

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