Better visual delineation between `Reply` and `Start a new conversation`
It's very confusing to new users that there is a difference between replying to an existing conversation and starting a new one within a channel. This is a visual thing as much as anything else. The 'reply' buttons are not naturally attractive if you just want to start typing a message. There should be a logical gap between the bottom of a conversation and 'start a new conversation'. 'Start a new conversation' needs to be separated visually, as if it's a second order command rather than a first order...reply.
Stephen Ellis
shared this idea
We have been iterating on different designs and are starting to test internally. I don’t have a timeframe but will keep you posted.
432 comments
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calvin
commented
NEED IT!!!!
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Alex Mang
commented
I find myself telling people too often to click the reply input rather than starting a new conversation, which is annoying. At least if it would default to the reply input when I click on a notification....
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Jussi Palo
commented
Not sure the proposed solution is the one I'd vote for, but the described issue is very real. People (me included) keep creating new conversations by mistake all the time when they just want to reply to the latest conversation.
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Joshua Holden
commented
Definitely agree, I think the whole conversation thing should be a passive option. If I want to talk about something very specific with a select group of people. If I'm giving general information, what's wrong with the way all chats have worked for the last 30 years? It's what works, it's what's natural and what everyone is used to. Please stop trying to reinvent wheel that don't need to be.
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Anonymous
commented
This really is an issue. I can see an unread badge on the chat tab for instance, click on it and the unread message is just barely more bold than the rest. The unread chat also DOES NOT show up in Recent. I am moving our company from Skype for Business. Does not have to be the same, but there is a way to do notifications in an app and this is not the way. Please figure this out soon.
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JAK
commented
Please do this! We end up using the group chat instead because its so much less annoying to reply with
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Clayton Taylor
commented
The threaded history view is very useful, especially in teams where chat is consistent throughout the day. That being said, it's not very easy to distinguish between replying and starting a new thread when you're transferring from another tool or just in a hurry (chats are single threaded while channels are not, but the UI is almost identical).
My suggestion would be to replace the current message field with one that has the capability to be both a reply to the most recent thread or start a new one. The UX might be that the right/left ends (respectively) of the field are a button/icon that switches between the two, it might be a set of tabs, etc. The point is that you wouldn't require much more space to add the functionality, it would be far less confusing and you could add functionality on top of it such as a keyboard shortcut to switch between the two or a default preference based on the user.
Replying to an old thread warrants using the mouse, but replying to the current thread and creating a new one do not. -
Anonymous
commented
Agreed! Although, I believe the solution should be to fix the poor user experience which results in the orphaned responses rather than band-aiding the issue. We receive daily complains about this. Many times, the messages do not scroll and the reply box sits behind the new conversation box, amplifying the problem even more.
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Andrzej
commented
Notyfication of new messages is almost not recognizable. Could it somehow notyfing me by some popup messages that somebody wrote to me ?
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Jennifer
commented
Yes, please do something here. This happens constantly & makes discussing an issue in the channel much less useful. Even if the "new conversation" in the bottom line was somehow emphasized / more obvious, that may help.
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Tony Reynolds
commented
On the App for android it shows a nice plus button for start a conversation and the field for replying to an existing is the one at the bottom.
The trouble is when you are chatting to a user directly, the field for your text looks the same as the one for a new conversation in the group chat... so it is very easy to do the wrong thing.. also after you make a new conversation and hit send the field for starting a new conversation is the default field for when you start typing the reply. so it also contributes to the mistake. it should be automatically in the field for a reply to your last conversation.
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Anonymous
commented
Need this.
In addition, when the user clicks an activity and is redirected to a new message the reply area should be activated and focused. -
Miguel Caldeira
commented
I totally support this! It gets a mess when users just hit the START A CONVERSATION box instead of using the REPLY box when replying to an existing conversation.
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Talon
commented
Or could we add some intelligence to help recommend users know of this feature?
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Peter Nicholson
commented
This would stop a lot of our conversations being fragmented and harder to follow. Just a simple popup with 'Start a new conversation instead of replying to and existing one?' or similar.
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Karthik S
commented
Highlighting the recent unnoticed replies with a glowing background should be good I guess.
In the comments, some have suggested for 'reply to conversation' be default. I think this would be wrong assumption. Depending on what type of team, work and chat-group you have, conversations may not be as frequent as independent messages to the group.
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Andreas
commented
I think this should be optional for each channel like I mentioned in this idea:
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Mac
commented
Something please, too many people being in a rush to respond start the new conversation versus the correct reply area for response. Maybe just bold the reply to draw attention to it.
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Megan
commented
To solve it, see Facebook or Yammer, where a new post or conversation is written in a box at the top of the screen.
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Megan
commented
Problem: the UI for post a reply in Chat is more or less the same as for new post the 'Teams'. This means that where in Chat you'd normally just type into the box at the bottom and create a long list of replies, in the 'Teams' area, we want to encourage threaded conversations around topics, but people end up writing new posts instead of replying to a conversation. Massive design fault, as it makes the Teams area almost unusable for posting discussions and articles - it just becomes a long, scrolling chat again, with posts often out of sequence (they're arranged per replies/engagement).
Argh!