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Why are both buttons needed? Depending on whether I take action or not, I have to aim my mouse pointer or finger at a different location and it just seems inefficient to me. Is the intention to slow down the review process for some reason?

Seems to me like only "I'm Done" and "Skip" are required. Can anyone try to explain the reasoning behind the current design?

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    It allows you to Edit, look again, Edit a bit more before "I'm Done".
    – nhahtdh
    Sep 7, 2013 at 20:46
  • "No action needed" means the post is good and no review is required. It's like disputing a close flag by "Leave Open" in the 10K tools. "I'm Done" should be clicked only after you did something. That's quite different in my opinion.
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Sep 7, 2013 at 20:49
  • @ShaWizDowArd: Yes, I understand the difference between the captions. My question was about why they had to be two different buttons.
    – idoby
    Sep 7, 2013 at 20:52
  • If you mean why both "Skip" and "I'm Done" it's because "Skip" means something like "I'm not sure, I pass" and has no consequences whatsoever.
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Sep 7, 2013 at 21:07

2 Answers 2

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Originally, the review queues did not have a "No Action Needed" button. My understanding is the logic behind it was that every post reviewed deserved some action. Meaning, if there was nothing wrong with the post, then it was worthy of an upvote, but otherwise it needed an edit, comment, downvote, or any combination of the 3.

However, the "No Action" button was added for several reasons:

  • Conscientious reviewers felt there were just some posts that did not need an edit or comment, but were not worthy of an upvote or downvote, and didn't want to use "Skip" since it doesn't give credit for the review.
  • Robo-reviewers & badge hunters would upvote a post as it was the fastest way to review the post. This resulted in a lot of poor questions & answers getting unwarranted upvotes. (In addition, this kicks it out of the queue so it didn't get other, possibly valid, reviews)

I think the reasoning for the separate buttons is there is separate logic for it. "I'm Done" is supposed to signify that the reviewing is complete with the reviewer taking 1 or more actions on the post. "No Action Needed" was designed to give users an out to say "I don't need to do anything here, the post is fine as is". When you combine multiple functions into a single button, I think you run the risk of confusing some users.

Personally, I like the separate buttons. While you don't run into this much anymore as the First Posts/Late Answers queues do not get very large and you don't do a lot of these reviews en masse, the workflow is a lot easier when each button has a specific function and there are no "hidden" buttons that appear. Disabled buttons that enable after a period of time are much easier to work with.

Some related background:

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This is probably to make the usage of the buttons clearer. For a newbie, if they saw just an "I'm Done" and "Skip" button on a post that they feel needs no action, they might get confused and skip ("I didn't do anything, how can I be done?"). The buttons make it clear that if you feel that the post is perfect, you don't need to skip. If you don't, then you need to take some action against it.

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  • Then why not have a "No Action Needed" button that changes into "I'm done" when you do something?
    – idoby
    Sep 7, 2013 at 20:53
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    @busy_wait Because it's not immediately obvious when you look at the review that you're supposed to do something. "No action needed" and "skip" when presented as the only two options is even more confusing. The design is a visual cue to what one should do in the queues.
    – Manishearth
    Sep 7, 2013 at 20:55

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