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For our second computer prototype, we simplified the commenting interface. We had hint text in the comment box that would indicate that comments should be typed there, and we had it so that the submit button would only appear when you clicked in the comment text area. This was so we could have a very minimalistic effect, only having buttons and text when it was necessary to keep things clean.
Implementation
Sharing Groups
Our original idea was to make sharing groups and the people in a group more visual. We wanted to make it similar to the drag and drop functionality for photos. Specifically, we wanted people's emails to be objects that could be dragged into groups so there would be very little room for error when adding people. There would be an easy way to undo errors, and there would be a very visual depiction for all the people in a group. However, when we began our computer implementation, we realized that this implementation would take a lot of time, and would also require a good affordance and design so it would be easy to understand and use without taking away from the main focus of our site. We also realized that it would be hard to get users away from what they were used to, which was having emails being entered into a text box. For simplicity and to keep with what users were more comfortable with, we decided to stick with having a text box for inviting people into a group. We tried to minimize errors in this implementation as well with the share suggestions mentioned in the previous section.
Reordering Photos
Currently, photos are reordered linearly on our site. Each row of photos wraps around to the next row, and so moving a photo just pushes the other photos up linearly. However, our original plan was to allow users to reorder photos in 2 dimensions, specifying where they wanted it in space. When we began our implementation, we realized that this would be very complicated because we would have to deal with edge cases, considerations when there was a blank area, where we would put photos if a new upload was taking place, etc. It seemed like it would be sufficient, cleaner, and much easier for the linear implementation we ended up with.