Compact mode

I really like Teams. I do. But the current chat layout is not suited for professional chats. It's way to space consuming. It looks like something imported from MSN with smiley's that take half of the screen. I would say that Slack have nailed it because they focused on the ability keeping a tight window with lots of chat text visible. In Teams the window is full and starts scrolling after like 10 sentences.

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Thomas Nimstad shared this idea · December 12, 2016 · Flag idea as inappropriate… · Admin →

planned ·

AdminAlex (Teams Engineering, Microsoft Teams) responded · March 12, 2019

This suggestion is still planned. I don’t have further updates on timing, but will share as we have them. Thanks.

Show previous admin responses (19)

needs your feedback ·

AdminAlex (Teams Engineering, Microsoft Teams) responded · March 12, 2019

planned ·

Suphatra responded · December 15, 2018

Hi everyone, thank you for your patience since the last update.

We want to extend a huge thanks to all of you who have engaged with us on this topic of compact chat. Your input has been invaluable and helped inform our design and decision-making.

As we look to 2019, we will be pursuing plans to continue to make the product more and more space efficient. We see this as a guiding design principle, as well as a backlog of requests from UserVoice that we catalogue, discuss, debate, brainstorm and problem solve.

This principle is also why we will not be making a sharp design turn towards a permanently heavy dense design. Our user base is a wide range of people — such as high school students, the visually impaired, open source developers, and your every day knowledge worker. Because of our broad reach, we must maintain a standard of usability that meets many visual needs.

Lastly, we are seriously considering a compact mode. This would be an option — a switch, you might say — that makes everything quite dense. We are entering a new phase of product development that makes this more possible than before. To that end, I’m changing the title of this request to “Compact Mode.” We’ll keep you abreast of these plans as we learn more ourselves.

Meanwhile, we really appreciate your patience, your feedback, and your support of Teams. Thank you for being part of #MicrosoftTeams!

Sincerely,
Suphatra

working on it ·

Warren responded · August 06, 2018

This feature is still in the works. I hope to have more info in the coming weeks.

-Warren

working on it ·

Warren responded · June 02, 2018

This feature request is still in the works. No additional details are available at this time.
-Warren

working on it ·

Warren responded · April 24, 2018

This feature request is still being worked upon. No additional updates are available at the moment.

-Warren

working on it ·

Warren responded · March 12, 2018

Great news everyone, we have made a first step towards a professional compact chat layout.

We have released density changes including updates to how message threads collapse. :)

There are more changes in the works to bring you a true professional compact layout.

Thank you all for the support and feedback!
-Warren

partially done ·

Warren responded · March 06, 2018

Great news everyone, we have made a first large step towards a professional compact chat layout.

We have released density changes including updates to how message threads collapse! :)

There are more changes in the works to bring you a true professional compact layout.

Thank you all for the support and feedback!
-Warren

working on it ·

Warren responded · February 12, 2018

We are still working on this. There won’t be one huge update, but instead we will release small updates over time which will help with the request.

There are two things in particular we are focusing on. One being an increase in density and two, a more compact mode.

“Density” would be a reduction of the overall white space you see on your screen.
“Compact” would be more about a reduction in overall size which is most beneficial to smaller screens and mobile devices.

I would be interested in seeing in the comments which piece feels more important to you all. The density or compact view?

If you could comment and let me know, it would be helpful information to provide to the feature team!

Thank you for all your suggestions and feedback!

-Warren

working on it ·

Warren responded · December 15, 2017

This is still being worked upon. I don’t have any additional update details to share at this time, but hopefully soon I will have some further details.
-Warren

working on it ·

Gino Buzzelli responded · September 22, 2017

Hi everyone,

I’m Gino and I’m the Product Manager that’s been hard at work to bring you a more compact chat design. First, I really want to thank you for your patience while we worked on this request. We spent months testing designs with users, reiterating concepts, and reading through your feedback, to make sure we could meet as many of your common needs as we could.

Secondly, I’m really happy to announce the changes that will be rolling out soon. We’ve made product-wide improvements to the UI that give you greater overall density. Here are some things you’ll see:
- Left rail more condensed vertically
- Gutters reduced
- Line heights reduced
- Emojis will be smaller
- Links for inline attachments

Please note that these changes will first ship on desktop, then later mobile. I’ll keep checking this forum to read your feedback as you experience the new design. We really value your thoughts and ideas. Thank you for supporting Teams!

Sincerely,
Gino

working on it ·

Suphatra responded · July 25, 2017

Hi everyone,

Quick update that we have made incremental changes and you should start to see those white margins becoming much thinner and chat getting more dense in the coming weeks. It will not be the fully dense mode, but it will be moderate changes so not to jar our full user base. These changes are being implemented across the board, so this is NOT a compact chat mode that is an optional setting, but permanent changes to the UI to increase density.

I’m keeping this item on the “working on it” status because we are going to continue making the product more dense overall. We’ll continue to update you as we make progress.

Big and special thanks to the hundreds of you who participated in the user research. It gave us really great information to make these permanent changes. THANK YOU!

Sincerely,
Suphatra

working on it ·

Suphatra responded · June 26, 2017

needs your feedback ·

Suphatra responded · June 06, 2017

Hi everyone! Thanks again for helping us improve the Microsoft Teams density. Your feedback is highly valued and we take it very seriously. To summarize, here’s what we’ve heard from you so far:

Not enough content visible without scrolling.
There is a lot of unused, wasted space.
Messages are not wide enough.
Emojis are too large.
Reply button takes up too much space.

We are working on changes that will be made in the coming weeks, and just need one last round of your input to help inform our design. Please click here to take the survey: https://microsoft.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1RJsc3gJjkn77mJ

Thanks again and if you have any questions on the survey, please reach out to Erin Arcuri (Erin.Arcuri@microsoft.com).

Cheers,
Suphatra

working on it ·

Suphatra responded · April 26, 2017

Hi everyone, thanks for your help on this item and all the feedback you’ve sent. Special thanks to the kind folks who participated in the Twitter Q&A and subsequent research studies.

We now have a design and are conducting 1:1 research testing with users. We need an even representation of demographics, so we can’t take all users. But if you are interested in possibly being someone for testing, please just email me directly (sparavi@microsoft.com) with your name, age, gender, location, industry, job title and experience with Teams (how long you’ve been using it, how often). I’ll forward that on to our research team who will intake you from there.

We’re getting closer to the finish line! Thank you for your patience and your support. Message me or tweet me if you need anything at all.

Sincerely,
Suphatra

needs your feedback ·

Suphatra responded · March 22, 2017

Hi everyone, reminder that we are hosting the user feedback round table on Twitter tomorrow (3/23) @ 10am Pacific Time.

To participate, just log into Twitter and follow the hashtag #CompactChat. You’ll be able to share your feedback directly with the designers and engineers who put together our framework.

If you have any questions, just ping me at twitter.com/skprufo and I can help you.

Suphatra

P.S. I would have put this live chat session in Teams, but we don’t have Guest Access (coming soon!), so for now — Twitter it is. Hope to see you there, and looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

working on it ·

Suphatra responded · March 20, 2017

Hi everyone,

We would love to hear your feedback. Please join us for a live round table on Twitter. See details below:

Attend a live chat with us on Twitter on 3/23 @ 10am Pacific Time. To participate, just sign into Twitter and follow the hashtag #CompactChat. When you want to contribute to the conversation, just tweet with that same hashtag. If you get confused, just tweet to me at @skprufo or Gino Buzzelli at @ginobuzz.

Thank you and looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this user idea!

Suphatra
Microsoft Teams

needs your feedback ·

Suphatra responded · March 13, 2017

Hi everyone, we’re working on this but we need more feedback.

We’d like to invite you to a feedback roundtable about this item. You’ll share your thoughts directly with the design team, and be shown some examples.

If you are interested, please sign up here: https://1drv.ms/xs/s!AryUNzh1ogZzif8pDcOcx2pW45I87w and in the “What feature set?” question, please write that you’re interested in the “Professional Compact Chat Layout” roundtable.

I hope to see many of you sign up and to hear you bring your voice to the design table.

Thank you for helping us make Teams better and better.

Sincerely,
Suphatra

working on it ·

Suphatra responded · February 08, 2017

Its happening. We’re working on this!

If you’re interested in participating in design and usability testing for this feature, just submit your info here and we’ll get loop you in: https://1drv.ms/xs/s!AryUNzh1ogZzif8pDcOcx2pW45I87w

Thanks,
Suphatra

under review ·

Suphatra responded · January 27, 2017

Hi everyone, this has been routed to the Design team. The suggestion is under review.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ping me via email or on Twitter @skprufo.

Suphatra
Microsoft Teams

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Anonymous commented · May 27, 2019 21:46 · Flag as inappropriate

Hurry up
Anonymous commented · May 26, 2019 14:22 · Flag as inappropriate

Hurry up
Anonymous commented · May 24, 2019 18:34 · Flag as inappropriate

Hurry up
Joel commented · May 24, 2019 07:28 · Flag as inappropriate

😴
B commented · May 23, 2019 09:02 · Flag as inappropriate

I am truly surprised this isn't the #1 priority now and is only in the "Being planned" phase.
It's like someone took my tv remote control and replaced it with one of those really ridiculously large ones.
I am looking my teams right now and only like 7 lines of actual text are on the screen. Soooo much wasted space and I can't even collapse the "Your Teams" window how is that not possible?
z commented · May 23, 2019 07:30 · Flag as inappropriate

I simply want to make the window width smaller than 1080 pixels!!! Meanwhile a full inch on the right is totally unused. Idiotic.
Anthony commented · May 23, 2019 07:28 · Flag as inappropriate

A while ago I shared a new idea that I think would be a simple solution for this - The Android app has a brilliant interface that covers about 80% of my teams usage very well on a ~4-6 inch screen with roughly the same dimensions as the Skype IM windows I use. Why not just make that already built Android interface an option on the desktop build and maybe relabel it as "compact Mode"? It would be minimal dev time and would make a number of users very happy.

My Submission
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/37582114-bring-the-android-ui-to-windows-and-mac-desktop
David commented · May 22, 2019 12:08 · Flag as inappropriate

The conversation tab inside the actual teams is useless for conversations. The chat is better (more like messanger, less like an action feed), but still really bad and does not relate directly to an actual team, just to a group of people.

I pushed to use Slack but too many people were already using Whatsapp for internal communications. Now I'm pushing to use teams to try to function in a more professional environment and I still cannot escape whatsapp.

People are leaving Slack for the ideal of Office365 and integration but the reality is far more fragmented.

Honestly, if you took Whatsapp web, removed the phone anchor, added domain account access and allowed some sorting and separation between channels and generic chat would fill most of my communication needs with my staff and project management. I keep trying to use Teams and feel like that uncomfortable feeling of newness will go away but it never does, it never gets comfortable, where Slack was comfortable in 5 minutes.
Anonymous commented · May 21, 2019 11:42 · Flag as inappropriate

"As we look to 2019, we will be pursuing plans to continue to make the product more and more space efficient. We see this as a guiding design principle, as well as a backlog of requests from UserVoice that we catalogue, discuss, debate, brainstorm and problem solve."

The very first reaction I had to the migration from Skype to MS Teams was "how do I reduce the amount of unnecessary whitespace"

This is a basic necessity for any sort competitive, modern application, and it appears like this has not been made a priority, judging by the sheer amount of conversation and the complete lack of this option in the latest version of MSTeams.
Anon commented · May 21, 2019 11:36 · Flag as inappropriate

There's a reason AOL and MySpace died. Those don't look, and act, in a way that suits the professional user. Instead of taking social/silly tools and trying to move them towards professionalism, go the other direction and try starting with a professional product and adding lighter features or make them more accessible. The interface looks like what my employees do on break, not like work. I don't want random whitespace and huge icon encouragement to "Add a Team Member!" and chats that are designed for the depth of twitter. If you want me to use the tool in a professional setting, either provide me an environment that suits that workflow, OR let me customize it so that I don't deal with the extraneous stuff. Productivity and work is about focus and about the WORK, not about the software's attempts to help me with my work and guide me and invite me through every little action- with NO WAY TO CUSTOMIZE THAT OUT OF MY %$@#! WAY. Teams, you're trying too hard to get me to like you. Assume that we're all professionals and can navigate an Office app already. The constant attempt to try to make an interface welcoming to someone new is alienating ALL of the people who already know how to navigate a menu and now have 4 click-throughs where one should do. That's not productive, at all. Yes, I have plenty of real estate on my screen. Yes, appropriate use of white space makes a GUI better. But I also have 3 screens full of work to do and the capability to multitask, process information, AND remember directions. I don't WANT my hand held- I want to do my job. It's like a term paper written in big type to try to disguise it has no substance. To see comments like this, about simple things, from 2016- that just shows there's no point in commenting at all. It's not going to change, because at this point the assessment has to move from "oversight/you care" to "intentional/you really don't".
Habeej commented · May 19, 2019 19:43 · Flag as inappropriate

bump (+ vote)
Anonymous commented · May 19, 2019 14:16 · Flag as inappropriate

make the user interface more like skype
[Deleted User] commented · May 17, 2019 01:55 · Flag as inappropriate

It's not just a compact version that the chat needs, it's also the possibility to extend the text area to use all the space available. On 16/9 screens, the text barely use 50% of the screen.
Ove commented · May 16, 2019 05:04 · Flag as inappropriate

Please hurry up with a more compact version or option customize it more ourselves.
Why not resizeable separators/areas or similar?
Right now it is using way to much screen real estate in my professional setup.
Anonymous commented · May 16, 2019 01:05 · Flag as inappropriate

Hurry up
Annoyed commented · May 15, 2019 14:12 · Flag as inappropriate

720x500 is far too large of a window size for a simple chat program. Please do your jobs instead of just throwing hipster web admins at us to tell us it's "being worked on" when your survey did not even capture the essence of the one complaint everyone has here.
Anonymous commented · May 15, 2019 07:54 · Flag as inappropriate

Bump! Please prioritize this.
Eric Baer commented · May 13, 2019 08:51 · Flag as inappropriate

Duplicate issue:

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18621928-support-a-more-dense-layout
Anonymous commented · May 10, 2019 04:40 · Flag as inappropriate

Hurry up.
Anonymous commented · May 09, 2019 12:43 · Flag as inappropriate

This is horrible, you all have known for 2+ years that Teams chats takes up way too much space, yet you still haven't done anything about it and now you are pushing people off of Skype ... learn from Skype and make the chat similar; it's own application that doesn't bother anybody off to the side of the screen.