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This question focuses on the UI of the new tooltips (not the text), and it has the following sole focus: Completely undoing the recent change.

Just simply undoing this will be a single change with a single focus.

I originally posted this as an answer to this other question. However that question ended up going in a completely different direction, which basically just had to do with the text, with basically nothing to do with the UI. So whereas that question became about the text, I will now post my own equivalent about the UI. If this is a concern about duplication, let me know, and I'll delete the answer on the other thread to keep this question open.

Regarding the new tooltips around the upvote and downvote buttons, I strongly suggest changing the look and feel of the UI back to before.

enter image description here

The older style of tooltips that this site has used work great. In particular, they are unobtrusive. For example, there is a small, roughly 1-second delay before they appear. And even when they do appear, they are small and do not grab all attention away.

Unfortunately however, these new ones tend to look and feel more like pop-ups. They show instantly every single time the cursor hovers over one of the upvote/downvote buttons, they are much larger than before, and they immediately steal all attention from the rest of the page, over and over again.

On another question, I mentioned a few common reasons that these sorts of notifications are really a bad thing. I will use a similar, yet slightly different list here:

  1. They add clutter to the site's UI.

  2. They are typically not necessary or relevant for the user.

  3. They distract the user, and they are very stressful as a result.

Regarding reason #2, who on this site does not know what an upvote or a downvote is? This is extremely common and standard all throughout the Internet, and it is only a slightly different expression of the same mechanism as likes (such as on a Facebook post). Yet when blaring notifications instantly show every single time an upvote or downvote button is hovered over, it constantly distracts the user, and it creates stress.

If you really feel this information must be present, then please at least revert back to the standard, much less obtrusive tooltips, which have timed delays and do not use excessive space and glare.

Personally I feel like I'm using these sites less now, specifically as a result of this - yes, small, but nonetheless constantly recurring - stress factor. If not that, I'm probably at least casting fewer votes now, because of this being almost kind of a deterring factor.

If you feel this information is necessary, a perfect example of how these tooltips can be improved is as below:

enter image description here

This is the standard tooltip that is used not only on SE itself, but also all across the Internet and desktop applications (with minor variations). It contains a timed delay, and its layout is also unobtrusive. If you don't want to get rid of the upvote/downvote tooltips entirely, then I strongly suggest switching them back over to this standard, heavily user-accepted type.

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  • 2
    Would you be content if they just add a delay to the popup? See: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/349530/…
    – Cave Johnson
    Jul 17, 2020 at 17:23
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    @KodosJohnson That would help, although I feel the layout also needs to be changed back to normal, so it's less obtrusive when it does show.
    – Panzercrisis
    Jul 17, 2020 at 17:26
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    You're asking several different things at once. This question is partly about the wording, partly about the timing, and partly about just reverting the change. Each of these is a duplicate of a different specific question that's already been asked.
    – Jason Bassford
    Jul 17, 2020 at 17:58
  • @JasonBassford It can be summarized as, "Please undo the recent UI change." Undoing, in this case, is just one change to make.
    – Panzercrisis
    Jul 17, 2020 at 19:11
  • I think it's more important to get rid of those junk "thanks" reactions.
    – iBug says Reinstate Monica
    Jul 18, 2020 at 6:28
  • Unfortunately, this is Stacks' own design guideline for hover tooltips and they're trying to apply the guideline as possible as they can.
    – Meta Andrew T.
    Jul 20, 2020 at 14:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Before the change, there was a standard HTML title, which means the browser decides how to display the tooltip.

While this was fine and easy to get used to, it had no way to be customized. Sites with their own design sometimes need to change the look of the tooltips too, and using only the standard title, it's not possible.

Hence, I do support changing to custom tooltip, and against reverting back to the standard title.

That said, I'd also support changing the design of the tooltip, so if you have concrete change in mind (e.g. font, color, etc.) feel free to suggest.

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3
  • Why do sites need to change the look of tooltips? Should sites also be able to change my desktop background or alert sound? No, thanks.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Jul 18, 2020 at 8:10
  • @CodyGray why sites change colors and fonts? It's the same concept, IMO. To make it more attractive and nice looking for the users.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 18, 2020 at 11:54
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    I guess if it's kept, then just making it consistent with the standard and more normal kind that's already used in other places on the site, like the tooltip for "start a bounty".
    – Panzercrisis
    Jul 18, 2020 at 12:57

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