Revisiting changes to answer sorting menu: better use of space, moving menu into a dropdown, ascending/descending sort options, clearer descriptions

Question

Update (Mar 21, 2022): The dropdown menu for the answer-sorting options is now live.

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Update (Feb 9, 2022): I've added an additional question in the Feedback section below.

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Last week, I posted proposed changes to the answer-sorting menu. The changes I originally suggested were easy things we could do to make the existing implementation incrementally better, but they weren't the result of us taking a holistic view of how to improve the sorting menu. Based on your feedback, I asked our Design team to take a deeper look, and they went back to the drawing board (literally, ha ha) and came up with new ideas:

• Keeping the menu right-justified and making better use of space.

• Condensing the sort options into a dropdown menu. 

• Introducing ascending and descending sorts for most (if not all) of the options.

• Having clearer descriptions that eliminate the need for info icons and tooltips.

• Adding a “Sort by” label to describe what this UI element is for.

We will run an A/B test to make sure that this new design doesn't dramatically suppress clicks on the answer-sorting menu. Assuming no negative impact, we will implement these changes in the coming weeks across all of our Stack Exchange sites.

Here is what the current menu looks like:

Here is what the new menu looks like:

Making better use of space

I originally stated that we would run an experiment to test moving the menu from its current position — right-justified next to the number-of-answers header — to a new position underneath the header.

What was I thinking? Turns out you didn't like it, Design didn't like it, our own devs didn't like it... You get the (bad) idea.

So, we are NOT going to experiment with moving the menu. It's staying in its happy place on the right, and the menu now takes up less space overall.

Moving the sort menu into a dropdown menu

We took a number of things into consideration when settling on this new approach:

• A dropdown menu is a much more common pattern across the web for sorting menus.

• It scales better, allowing for a larger number of sort options. We are planning on introducing a Trending sort on Stack Overflow in the near future, and this change allows for more flexibility when it comes to adding additional sort options, without risking taking up too much horizontal space on the screen.

• It gives us future flexibility to separate sorts and filters on other areas of the site. For example, we could (eventually) have separate dropdowns for filters and sorting that would allow you to more easily control the sorting on filters – like unanswered or bountied questions – all in one interface, rather than both the button bar (which includes a dropdown) and the separate filter dropdown. (This is a future idea that is not yet on our roadmap, but highlights the consistency that a dropdown menu could help bring.)

• It gives us more room to explain how each sort works, without needing to rely on info icons and tooltips (more on that below).

We are aware that it has a couple of drawbacks, but we feel the benefits outweigh the inconveniences:

• It will now take two clicks to change the sort: one click to open the dropdown menu and another click to choose your desired sort. Currently, only about 0.25% of visitors click the existing sort buttons, so this isn't a common action that will greatly inconvenience a substantial number of users. In addition, even if we kept the existing buttons, we would have been heading into two-click territory anyway; one of the top suggestions from last week was to have a single button for Oldest/Newest, but to click twice to toggle between the two.

• You can no longer see the entire menu of sorts on the page at all times, but we don't feel we will lose much by tucking them away in a dropdown. We will run an A/B test prior to graduating the change to make sure we don't dramatically suppress clicks.

Introducing ascending and descending sorts for all of the options

We announced last week that we are creating a Newest sort to complement the existing Oldest sort. We decided for consistency’s sake to create ascending/descending versions of all of the existing sort options: Highest score (default), Newest modified, Oldest modified, Newest created, Oldest created, and, potentially, Lowest score.

Per the Feedback section below, we have some concerns about the Lowest score option and would love to hear your thoughts.

Having clearer descriptions

With more space, we are now able to write longer, clearer descriptions for each sort. This eliminates the need for tooltips and info icons. The new descriptions are:

• Highest score (default) – renames the previous "Votes" sort

• Lowest score

• Date modified (newest first) – renames the existing "Active" sort

• Date modified (oldest first)

• Date created (newest first)

• Date created (oldest first) – renames the existing "Oldest" sort

Feedback

I’ve posted this primarily to give the community advance notice on changes that are coming. We have settled on the dropdown menu as our preferred path forward, and aren't considering doing additional design work to come up with alternative solutions.

Lowest score sort: We are debating internally whether or not to include lowest score as a sorting option. Because we remember your sorting preferences, we are concerned that someone could set “lowest score” as their sorting preference, forget they chose it, and then be utterly perplexed as to why they are seeing so many low-scored answers.
Do you see any value in having a lowest-score sort? Why or why not? When and how would you use it?

How to handle deleted answers (for mods and users with 10K rep): See the answer below that suggests that deleted answers be segregated from other answers in the Date Modified and Date Created sorts, appearing at the bottom instead of being mixed in with the other posts. (For the Score sort, deleted answers are already sorted below visible answers.) Is there any reason we should keep the sorts as is, with deleted answers mixed in? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Looking at the lowest scored answers lets me find posts that may need to be flagged, try to help authors getting downvoted improve their answers, or quickly see the least popular option in a meta discussion, which might challenge my perspective. (I seek out opinions that are different from mine, because I like confirming that my certainty I'm right is warranted, and like to know how certain I should be before I open my mouth ;))

I would use both "lowest" and "highest" score sort orders, and would be mildly uncomfortable by the lack of symmetry if "lowest" wasn't there.

I really like the switch to a dropdown, and the explicit highest/lowest, newest/oldest type options instead of the ascending/descending toggle.

Answer 2

status-planned

TylerH makes a good argument in a comment. When changing the sort order, deleted answers should remain at the bottom. The current behavior of mixing them in when sorting on date ("active" or "oldest") is confusing.

Answer 3

Do you see any value in having a lowest-score sort? Why or why not? When and how would you use it?

That's certainly easier than having to scroll down or even paginate when there are lots of answers. Would it be an option to not store that specific sort option in your preferences? Perhaps with a banner notifying you of this, after you select it? Or would that be too confusing?

Answer 4

Regarding the handling of deleted answers...

My initial reaction is that all three of these views have value:

1. seeing the deleted answers in context of the other answers, sorted appropriately
2. seeing only deleted answers
3. hiding deleted answers

Pushing all deleted answers to the bottom is an easy way of handling #2 and #3. Leaving them interleaved for only some sort modes is a less than optimal way of handling #1.

When I was a mod, I would have liked a toggle to either include the deleted answers in my current sort, or push them to the bottom out of the way. I'm on the fence about whether hiding them entirely is a good idea. It's easy to forget you hid them and assume the question has no deleted answers. Pushing them to the end is good enough I think.

(And it would be nice if the deleted answers were sorted according to the current sort order even when they are being pushed to the bottom.)

Answer 5

On whether or not to mix in deleted answers:

There are an awful lot of 10k users, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of them are not super-active moderators. (If this is not true, then the remainder of my argument is moot.) I'm assuming that most, like me, are just looking for answers to their questions while also trying to give back to the community once in a while.

A deleted answer is almost never useful.

• If it was so far off the mark that the author and/or community decided the only option was total removal, then it probably won't be useful to me.
• If it was identical to another answer and the author felt it was not useful to have that answer twice, then it probably won't be useful to me.
• If it was spam, then it definitely won't be useful to me.

About the only time that a deleted answer is actually useful is when a new, dejected user deletes it after the first downvote because someone else didn't understand it. It's not unheard of, but I think it's fair to call it an exception to the norm.

As a 10k user, it's fun to be able to participate in meta discussions where I can see some problematic answer and weigh in on the conversation, but I also have no way of easily turning this "privilege" off. If I'm just trying to figure out why my foo won't bar when baz is set to bat, then cluttering the answers with useless junk, just because I wanted to be helpful to others, feels more like a punishment.

Please leave the deleted answers at the bottom of the stack, regardless of my chosen sort order.

Answer 6

status-declined

Can we separate sorting a single post's answers from the remembering my preferred settings for the site? Usually, my preferred order stays the same for any given site, and on the occasions I change to something different, it's frustrating to find the next post I read isn't sorted the usual way.

I'd envision a "remember this" button near the sort menu, and some indicator in the sort choice highlighting which option is default for me (giving an at-a-glance indication of "this isn't my default sort").

Answer 7

Interestingly, the change from "Activity" to "Modified" may have cleared up a misconception I had about the old sorting behavior:

• When I read "Modified," I think Post created and Post edited.
• When I read "Activity," I think Post created, Post edited, and Post commented on.

So if the real sort behavior has been the former all along, bravo for the changed text.

Answer 8

The wording of "Reset to default" is a bit misleading:

"Reset" sounds like a permanent action, but here it has no lasting effect. I clicked "Reset to default" on multiple questions before realizing it's apparently meant to be temporary and that we need to use the dropdown to permanently "reset" the sort order.

Perhaps "View as default" would better reflect that it's only a temporary view (assuming this is not a bug).

Answer 9

Regarding the sorting of deleted posts:

I use "Date modified (newest at top)" sort to answer the question "Why was this post bumped to the home page?" I wouldn't expect deleted posts to be always at the bottom and it would cause the sort not to be able to answer my question when a new answer that bumped the post is deleted.

I would expect I would use "Date created (newest at top)" sort to see what answers have a fresh perspective. For that, deleted answers would just get in the way.

Answer 10

Would it be possible to remove the sort option altogether when there's only one answer available? The option is meaningless in that context and it clutters the page

Answer 11

status-declined

I am not sure if this is a good idea, but I would like to propose it.

I certainly agree with ColleenV's answer. But, I also understand your concern about "someone could set “lowest score” as their sorting preference, forget they chose it, and then be utterly perplexed as to why they are seeing so many low-scored answers."

I am not sure if this concern would be valid to users who have spent a good amount of time in Stack Exchange and know how things work in Stack Exchange. But, it might be a problem to low-reputation users.

I propose that the Lowest score sort feature be available as a privilege to users only above a certain reputation (250 seems like a nice number). Of course, the exact reputation required for this privilege is debatable.