The Question and Answer Board

[Tatari Gami]

It is your interface.

The "post new" button is the first one in line, so the tendency is to use that. Then you hide the "respond" button in the middle of everything.

I am no newby to message boards, and I still hit the "post new" button from time to time. Fortunately, most of the time I realize what I've done and back up to get the right one.

Your second problem is that you have the buttons named poorly. Ideally, you should code the "respond" button so that it says, "Respond to IH Admin (Matt), or to whoever wrote the post one is responding to.

"Post new" does not really indicate that you are not posting to anyone in particular. It should be called something like, "Stand-alone Post," or "Non-Threaded Submission" or something hopefully a little shorter than that.

Finally, the "respond" button should be moved to a more prominent position and highlighted, to indicate that it is probably the preferred way to respond.

That's my 2 cents anyway.