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
-
Teddy Otero commented
It's been 20 months since I started using Teams, and 20 months of this perpetual headache. Can we please get a fix?
-
Derek
commented
"will keep you posted" To me, that means an update every few weeks, not 6 months.
-
Michael Proctor
commented
My users are experiencing the same confusion, I am getting "new conversations" with "Thanks for the info" which is obviously meant to have been a reply to a previous discussion. I am trying to train the users but yeah the "Start a new conversation" being the text box just seems to be the obvious target for them to type a message on something they are looking at.
-
Josh
commented
I'd like to point out that this is literally the primary use case of Teams. Your product managers are idiots. i'd say your UX people are also idiots, but you clearly don't have any.
-
Andrew
commented
"We have been iterating on different designs and are starting to test internally. I don’t have a timeframe but will keep you posted."
i can't think of why a resolution on something like this would take such a long time!
Surely just a couple of lines of code, everytime the thread expands, scroll to the bottom.
-
Tom
commented
I almost created a new idea for this exactly. It took me a while to realize that channels didnt work like a chat room, but more like nested comments.
Creating conversations within a channel is much better for organization and definitely a Slack differentiator. Teams' implementation is confusing, as the idea suggests.
Perhaps there also needs to be an additional column next to the channel list, to list all the conversations within the channel. This would make for easier navigation, as well as highlighting to users that channels arent organized like an instant message chat room.
-
Aaron Davis
commented
it would be great if the reply option could NOT hide under the start new message text box, would it be so difficult to just scroll to the bottom of the reply button?
-
Suraj Gupta
commented
We are considering to switch to a different platform because of this issue, is there an ETA,
default input should go to the last thread and to create a new thread there should be something else!!!
Make this optional feature for teams who wants to use it, if you don't want to force all the users to do it, but please have this feature ASAP! -
Damian Carrillo
commented
Last Admin comment was Apr 13th. How are things coming? Is there an ETA on this yet?
-
Ruby Ann
commented
Yes, please hopefully we can see the difference between reply to thread and start a new conversation. Maybe you can add a prompt message if a person accidentally start a new conversation.
-
Anonymous
commented
I believe that clear new button (while not perfect as noted in the comment below) was a step in the right direction. Why did it disappear?
-
Steph Simmons
commented
@Alex (Teams Engineering, Microsoft Teams)This was implemented in our department today. We work in a fast paced environment as we are a Service Desk for a Fortune 500 company. We utilize Teams for communication purposes since we are mostly on the phone with our end-users. It is NOT convenient to have to click on New Conversation every time you need to send a message. Once you click on New Conversation and enter your message, it is also not convenient that you have to click Send rather than enter. We did find that you can utilize CTRL+Enter. I understand that some end-users have issues with "starting a new convo" rather than responding to threads, but this is not conducive for collaboration. We manage by copying and pasting our statements into threads if we make a mistake and then delete the new conversation. While I agree that this is a problem, I do not agree with the solution. I think a better solution would be if you have to click New Conversation and then it defaults to the reply line without the bells and whistles. Users should be able to click once, type their message, and then hit enter.
-
Kevin Hill
commented
It looks like OnMicrosoft is using the beta UI iteration. When will this be available to the rest of us?
-
Neil Pickersgill
commented
I agree that important comms can get lost, one of my colleagues chastises me every time I don't hit reply. Today she showed me why...
-
Jenny Tilldal
commented
Yes it's a huge problem that people tend to start new threads rather than replying the existing one, please change the reply button to be more attractive!
-
Joshua Mathews
commented
Easy solution: The mobile behavior is great - it defaults to 'reply'. So put the mobile behavior into the desktop app and bob's your uncle.
The whole thing is a UI problem on the desktop app where everyone starts a new thread instead of replying.
-
erp
commented
I keep starting new threads by mistake. Terrible UX, two reply areas next to eachother and the one you want is hidden by the one you don't want
-
Matthias Bartosik
commented
I can confirm that I see people replying to the latest post by creating a new post all the time. This is not limited to novice or non-technical users, so this clearly is a UX issue that needs to be addressed.
There should be a more distinct separation between replying and starting a new discussion.
- maybe the reply text field of the most recent post should be expanded by default
- maybe the start new conversation should not be a text box expanded by defaultRight now, people (intend to) reply more often than start new conversations. So replying should be more intuitive than starting a new conversation, in term of what is the most common use case, I think. Right now it's more intuitive to start a new conversation than to reply to a existing one, so much so, that people start new conversations when they intend to reply. The UX is so unsupportive of this that even experienced Teams users by mistake reply in the "start a new discussion" field, they are just experts enough to cover their tracks and delete the new conversation after copying the reply and then replying as they intended to.
-
JCR
commented
From the end-user's perspective, there should only ever be a single text-entry field. When they reply, either accept the input in the main sticky text entry field at the bottom of the window, OR hide that field and it's controls while the reply field is active and available. We are seeing an ongoing UX issue with users explicitly selecting to Reply via the CTA, then the system invalidating that selection because the users clicked on the ALWAYS PRESENT text-entry field where they usually enter text.
Instead, prevent the ability to make that error by only having a single place to enter text. If the user selected Reply, presume that the text is to reply into that thread.
The best visual delineation between two fields that are being confused with each other is to only have one field.
-
Joel Goddard
commented
My two cents on the UI:
1. replace the "reply" button with a text editor with "Reply" as the placeholder text: make it obvious that this is a good place to type something out2. replce the "new conversation" text editor with an empty chiclet at the bottom of the screen with a label "+ New Conversation" , clicking the chiclet makes the text editor appear inside it.
the key is to make it clear what action creates a new chiclet, and which causes a message to appear under a chiclet
.png){kind=link}
.png){kind=link}