Change the copy from Read / Unread to "Mark as Read"

[guest20]

I have read the 'opinionated document"

For context: I've just come back from a 4 week vacation without reading news on my miniflux instance, and I guess I forgot what Read/Unread means while I was away.

In English, "Read" by itself is both a verb and an adjective. It's meaning is only made clear when other words are around it.

In these two sentences:

• "This has been read"
• "Mark as read" ... the same 4 letters indicate opposite states. You only mark it as read if it has not been read.

If it says "read" next to it in miniflux, it's not read.

Additionally the "tick in circle" and "dot in circle" icons in the ui are the opposite of the actual state of the entry - the tick appears on items that are not marked as read, that is, the icon shows the state after the button is activated rather than displaying the current state.

I propose:

• displaying the read status independently, not as part of the action button (either bold text or a clear icon for not read)
• making the copy for the action buttons "Mark as read" and "Mark as unread"

This might upset some folks, so maybe it needs to be guarded behind a user preference or something?

[moonagic]

I rather agree with you that the current setting does create ambiguity for users.

[miniyou]

I fully agree: it bothered me many times, I just never made an issue for it 😛 I never feel confident about whether I managed to reach the correct state.

As a detail, I don't think this warrants a config value.

[woj-tek]

I rather agree with you that the current setting does create ambiguity for users.

+1000

I'm never sure if the article was read or not and what will clicking on the icon do :)

[RichardUUU]

As a new Miniflux user I'm very impressed, but I'm constantly needing to remind myself if read/unread denotes the status, or an action. I've struggled with this in my own UI designs and concluded that the optimal solution for clarity and efficiency is a sliding toggle. It's easy to see the status at a glance and intuitive that clicking on it will make a change. (Changing the color or shade based on state can also be useful.)

[woj-tek]

@RichardUUU hmm... toggle would be quite "big" for an icon. I think the problem is with "english" and "read" word itself. I have no problem with "star", "unstar" (they, at least, seem to immediately click as a verb) but with "read"/"unread" i never now if its about action or a state...

[RichardUUU]

Make the word 'Unread' permanent, so the toggle is simply a true/false for if the item is unread. When it's off, make the green gray and, of course, move the ball to the left. Barely any bigger than what you have now,

[woj-tek]

Make the word 'Unread' permanent, so the toggle is simply a true/false for if the item is unread. When it's off, make the green gray and, of course, move the ball to the left. Barely any bigger than what you have now,

At first glance - I still have no idea what will it do. IMHO adding "Mark as …", even though it's looooong, would be the best thing…

[RichardUUU]

You could also use a check mark next to the word 'Unread' or maybe 'Unread?' I suspect people would adjust to that quickly, and you could glance at a page of items and get instant visual feedback of which ones are unread.

"Mark as read" and "Mark as unread" requires users to actually read something for each entity and then consider that there are two separate states, which state is it in, and which state would clicking take me to.

In fact, because the states are mutually exclusive, users should only need to consider one state: Is this unread or not. Or possibly: I Is this read or not. I think 'unread' is more useful because unread items often suggest what users need to focus on.

Or maybe it's just me. Seems like this issue might benefit from a user poll, testing, or maybe a global setting that lets users choose one way or the other.

[woj-tek]

I'm pondering this a bit more and I think the issue is also with the icon.

For "Star" it's clear when article is starred (icon filled) or not (empty icon). For read state it's somewhat confusing - for the unread we have tick, that indicates that something is done (it's already read?) and for unread we have (x) suggesting something not yet done? And if we consider that unread icons are sort of "to be done" having tick there could result in the confussion (just spitballing here and trying to understand why this one cause so much confussion for me but I have no problem with "star" :D)

EDIT: expanding on the above - just a silly crazy idea - for unread items leave only the circle (remove the tick; maybe add solid feel akin to "notification dots"?) and for read items add tick:

[guest20]

Quoth @RichardUUU

check mark next to the word 'Unread'

So, when the box is not checked, the item isn't not read? Sounds like it wouldn't not confuse anybody.

Quoth @woj-tek

trying to understand why this one cause so much confussion for me but I have no problem with "star"

A star is a pre-existing UI element, with uniform semantics everywhere you see it. It always toggles the "staredness" of the item. (The only exception I've seen is in gmail, where you can have multiple coloured stars, and then it cycles through coloured stars and back to unstarred)

There isn't a pre-existing UI element for readness because:

• email uses bold/not bold in the message list for this.
• Chat programs use unread counts in contact lists for this.
• Notification areas do a mix of these, with a count on the icon and a dropdown with bold message lists for unread.

The clearest thing to do is provide an explicit button that explains what the action is. One can tell from the action on the button what the state of the story is:

• [ mark as unread ] ... this story is already read - which isn't surprising because opening a story, and seeing this tool bar means miniflux already marked the story as read
• [ mark as read ] ... this really only shows up if you just clicked the "mark as unread"

[woj-tek]

@guest20 very well put!

With the empty circle / circle with tick I tried to mimic second point ("Chat programs use unread counts in contact lists for this.") to mimic the "unread dot" used by many apps but the problem is in Miniflux this is a button that can toggle the state and in other programs it's just an element of the UI signaling the state (and control of read/unread is done somewhere else). I was pondering adding blue dot next to the read/unread button+icon or at the end of article title but that could result in more clutter I think. Lighter font is already present in miniflux for read items.