"Well, let me say that if they figured out how to get on to your site in the first place, and into the discussion, then they can understand what the word "next" or "reply" means, I think. (or hope!)"
"next" WHAT??? next board? next message? next bunch of messages?
same for "previous".
also, "expanded" and "collapsed" are nearly zeros, in terms of explanation for newbies.
your "flat" and "threaded" buttons are, likewise, an improvement but not an entire solution. The terms are geek-speak.
also, from newbie perspective, you have a very prominent button labeled "post", but does that mean that's the ONLY way to post to this board? what if a newbie wants to reply to another message? We get this sometimes on our matt wright board, where we make the distinction even CLEARER. About 10% of newbies nonetheless try to reply by hitting the "new message compose" link. This implementation is even more prone to that...I'm guessing 25% newbie problem. Moronic? Yes, from our perspective. But there are increasing numbers of blue haired hinterland grandmas out there; the percentage of clueless users skyrockets as the bottom of the pyramid goes online. To neglect them is to neglect huge masses. I'm not sure how to fix. Ideally, the button would read "start new topic" but that's too verbose....maybe a cursor pass-over could help here?
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