Hide the reply button under every message
The "reply" button is WAY too large under each message. I recommend either making the button just a smaller icon and off to the side of a message, or only showing it on hover.
Anonymous
shared this idea
Hate to be the bearer of bad news. This item has been declined. There will be no work to hide or remove the reply button.
As many people have commented, a big ask is to help improve how people distinguish between giving a reply and starting a new message.
For that the focus will be on this item. “Better visual delineation between `Reply` and `Start a new conversation`”
http://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103/suggestions/19224826
205 comments
Comments are closed-
eric
commented
This is fine. Nobody in my org even uses team chats because they're totally pointless on top of the confusing and terrible UI. We'll just stick to regular chats
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Robert
commented
Is this a joke? It's not about removing this action but about not wasting too much space! I cannot understand why this is a problem. It should be obvious and should not even pass trough the Teams UI design phase...
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Matthew Salvoni
commented
Write a chrome extension to remove it client side.
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Sean Ellis
commented
I notice that the reply/continue confusion is *still* coming up regularly as a problem. It especially seems to confuse new users, and once a new conversation has been started there is no way to merge it back into the flow of the original conversation. The whole multi-threaded chat interaction is an anti-pattern that needs to be rethought, so that the "reply" buttons are no longer required at all.
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Sean Ellis
commented
This defect is still present in the August update.
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AM
commented
Declining this was a very poor decision, I feel. Teams looks very unprofessional with how much space the Reply option takes up.
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Anonymous
commented
Who at Microsoft is looking at this and saying....yes, this is Ok. Let's add a bunch of visual noise in between a conversation because it would make the conversation flow better??????????????????????????????????? Seriously, I want to know who this person is.
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System Administrator
commented
Nobody in my environment even uses the Teams area because the inline replies are confusing and annoying. They all just use the chat rooms generated by recurring meetings. This completely defeats the purpose of teams.
You need to undecline this, this is insane.
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Ted
commented
It should not be declined - the reply bar is way too big, and everyone of us just now testing Teams all agree. Its a very strange decision.
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Giuseppe Brancato
commented
This is ridiculous. Please reconsider opening this. Your obsession with threaded communication is so terrible. First with Sfb, then focused inbox, now teams. Just copy everything slack does and stop sucking
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Sean Ellis
commented
Since MS have declined this particular idea, I have created a more general "improve multithreaded chat" which suggests a coherent set of changes for improving chat.
Have a read, and please vote and comment if you support a better chat experience.
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Adondriel
commented
What's up with microsoft and all these devs who hate the idea of just making it an option in the settings menu? GIVE THE USER CONTROL OF THEIR UI! Give us a compact view!!!!
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Sean Ellis
commented
June update, and still we have the basic UI 101 problem of not working like every other chat application continues to confound users' expectations, cause errors, and waste screen real estate at the same time.
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Anonymous
commented
when i click on a conversation the border turns yellow, so it is selected. i see nothing else happening. why isn't this selection the "reply button" that opens a reply text field?
really i see no reason for a “Better visual delineation between `Reply` and `Start a new conversation`”, i rather see too much visual "delineation".i want to be able to have a dense chat on the side of my screen in the background where i can read anything without having to stop working. i don't want to go full-screen to be able to read the ginourmous amount of _2 and a half_ conversations.
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Sean Ellis
commented
I've said this elsewhere, but I'll say it again here.
I think that this has a more fundamental problem. We have been trained by pretty much every other chat program in the world that the box at the bottom of the screen is for typing a reply to the current conversation. To change this behavior requires Teams users to un-learn a common behavior and re-learn it just for this program.
UI guru Bruce Tognazzi sums this up exactly right:
"It doesn’t matter how fine a logical argument you can put together for how something should work. If users expect it to work a different way, you will be facing an uphill and often unwinnable battle to change those expectations. If your way offers no clear advantage, go with what your users expect."
This strongly suggests that this should be used to continue a conversation in Teams too, and that the "start a new conversation" action should be the exception that requires its own button.
This also ties in nicely with the request to "tear off" individual conversations into their own windows
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System Administrator
commented
I would also like to request this be reconsidered. I would prefer if inline replies in Teams Chat could be completely disabled, it's not necessary at all. You reply by adding another chat response. All the individual reply buttons are superfluous and make it hard to read the chat. At least move it over to the bottom right of the text as a small icon so it doesn't take up so much space in the window.
Thanks...
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Anonymous
commented
Please hide it but also make the reply option available under options of each message below mark as unread option.
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Libbie
commented
Absolutely agree that this should be a user configurable option, not just declined. I think you should listen to the 1713 users who agree the reply button takes up too much room.
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NJR
commented
The biggest weakness of Teams is the layout. Communication should be about content. Content should be front and centre. Instead at least 50% of screen real-estate is taken up with avatars, names, dates, buttons, etc. Reading a long thread gives me a headache. With so many upvotes I'm amazed this has been declined.
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Anonymous
commented
Declined? seriously? this reply button kills the entire UX experience, it is so huge and an obstacle from continuous reading experience perspective. Ideally, these should be a icon on hover, just like like button or at the extreme right a dedicated reply icon/text/button. It's like currently I am being forced to use this feature.