Hello new feature, goodbye typos

You can now edit comments that you’ve made on FutureLearn for up to 15 minutes. Our Product Manager, Tessa Cooper, discusses why we’ve introduced this new feature and how to use it.

Over the last few months, many of you have emailed us and voted in our feedback section for the ability to edit your comments due to sloppy spelling.

And you’re not the only ones to have fallen foul of unexpected auto-‘corrections’. It happens to us too…

I can’t even begin to imagine how embarrassed I would have been if I’d actually posted this on the Hadrian’s Wall course (luckily we’ve got a secret testing site which allows me to just pretend) – but I’m fairly certain I’ve published comments nearly as awful as this.

So we decided we needed to fix this problem once and for all. Hurrah! Last week we shipped a new feature, which enables you to edit your comment for 15 minutes after you’ve posted it. Some of you rejoiced and sent messages declaring your love for us:

“Thank you dear Futurelearn – we will all love you even more for this!!!!”

But for others, the introduction of this new feature did initially cause some mild confusion:

“Why does ‘edit’ and a 15 minute time notification appear after my comments? Am I doing something wrong?”

Have no fear, we replied – if you have impeccable grammar, feel free to ignore the option to edit your lovely comment. But perhaps, in the future, when you’re rushing to post something insightful and accidentally miss that all-important comma, or forget to include the link to that brilliant article you’ve just been raving about, you’ll thank us for implementing this option.

But hang on a second… why can you only edit comments for 15 minutes? There’s a few reasons for this, but the main one is that we want you to use this feature sensibly. We don’t want people to be cheekily amending the entire meaning of their comment when they’ve received replies and it causing a whole host of confusion among participants.

Happy learning!

P.S. Please forgive any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors in this post.