Comment timestamps as (tiny) designed objects

Realizing that apps are the byproduct of hundreds of small, intentional decisions

While working on a mobile app design project last night, I was struck all over again by the many tiny questions you need to answer when designing even the simplest digital interfaces.

Yesternight’s conundrum: timestamps on comments. What’s the best way to implement them?

Some apps have them:

• on a separate line, immediately below the comment
• written in full (eg. 2 seconds ago, 5 days ago, etc)

Other apps will put them:

• in a right justified alignment on the same line as the name of the person who posted the comment
• written in shorthand (eg. 2s, 5d, etc.)

The second method comes with its own set of questions. For example, how do you distinguish between “minutes” and “months”? Is it 5m for the former and 5mnths for the latter? 5min vs 5mn? Something else entirely? Is there a standard somewhere that all interface designers refer to?

There’s likely no “right” way to do it — it all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish — but when you’ve never previously given any significant thought to comment timestamps, it can be disarming to realize the many questions you need to answer before you get to something that feels right.

Learning to see micro-elements

It’s easy to overthink this stuff — I suspect that most of the time, it’s good enough to make the obvious design decision and move on, rather than let yourself become paralyzed — but now that I have to consider these things in my own work, I’ve become painfully sensitive to small details of the digital products I use.

Beyond the mere look of the thing, you begin to wonder about the tradeoffs and constraints that resulted in a certain outcome. Why is this here instead of there? How does it frustrate or enable something that’s planned in the product roadmap? And what do those design decisions say about the larger message that the app’s creator is trying to communicate about the thing they’ve made?

The more I understand how much goes into making such decisions, the more in awe I become of the people who make my favourite apps. This stuff is really hard. Apologies for stating the obvious, but it really does blow my mind.

It’s amazing that we get to play with literally hundreds of thousands of these tiny jewelry boxes of intention and narrative every day.