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
Rollout of the new conversation button to the general public is complete! Enjoy.
851 comments
Comments are closed-
J W
commented
Absolutely this!
The UI is awful. It's so confusing and not obvious, as a result everyone just creates new conversations so the whole chat window is full of separate messages. Really cluttered!
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Hans Dickel
commented
This is badly needed - users continually don't follow appropriate replying methods. I can't say I blame them as it is not obvious when one creates a new thread or one is replacing to an existing thread.
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ralph squillace
commented
the real design problem from my perspective is that reply can scroll underneath and therefore be hidden, and often IS hidden, which makes "new conversation" the default and incorrect behavior for those trained to reply.
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David
commented
Any updates on this since last year?
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Tim
commented
This really needs to get finished. I just noticed that under the section "New experience for launching instant channel meetings" at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/what-s-new-in-microsoft-teams-june-2020/ba-p/1489142 show the new 'Meet' button. However, at the bottom is a brand new button "New conversation" and the bottom 'reply' line is gone. This would be FANTASTIC and is exactly what we need. Is this a leaked design by accident?
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Paulo Dante Neto
commented
A good user interface is essential to ensure colleagues will use Teams as recomended by the organization. We are experience a low adherence to it as a solution because of issues like this one. I understand we should invest in trainings, and we're doing so. But this one is a constant issue that makes working in channels really hard.
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Gareth Doherty
commented
This is a massive bug bear for me. I am constantly telling my colleagues to use reply and not start new threads. We have been using teams for a good few months now so I have to think its more of UI UX issue now.
A possible Idea is to remove the text input from the bottom of the channel screen and replace it with a button that clearly says 'Start new conversation\thread' and once clicked it then expands to the text input or it launches a modal to start the new conversation/thread.
Then increase the visual aspect of the 'Reply' button at the bottom of each conversation\thread.
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Dick
commented
This one massive defect takes teams from an 11/10 app that is a joy to use, to a 3/10 app that is painful to use EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I'm in disbelief that this is such a well known and documented problem, yet still exists today. I have no choice but to recommend teams to hold off on moving to MSTeams until this problem is resolved.
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Dyota
commented
I see people starting new threads instead of replying to posts all the time at work. I used to think that it was a matter of education but at this point I think it's a fault in the UI design. The channel "conversation" looks very very similar to a chat and I don't blame people for getting confused. Please change this and make it more obvious so that the app works naturally the way you want it to!
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Richard
commented
Like all the others, this has to be resolved. Teams is fantastic, but the unthreaded/orphaned conversations is such a pain. Perhaps just move the start a new conversation box to somewhere else, like the top of the screen??
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ITPro
commented
please put this above all other features... it makes using teams so cumbersome on a daily basis.
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Chris Smith commented
Please please please, we are still dealing with rampant non-threaded conversations due to a UI oversight, it just needs a little attention to be complete. I remembered you all doing samples and asking for terminology, but that was over a year ago. Where is this update? Thanks!
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Peter van Amstel
commented
Hi Alex, could you please provide an update? This is really stressing me out, each and every day at work as a teams evangelist.
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Captain C
commented
What? Still not fixed? After three years and a "working on it"? Maybe you should hire someone from the Slack team who knows how write a decent UI? Just a thought...
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Ab
commented
and depending on where the new response is displayed, display the previous/referenced message as context on a mouseover an icon indicating the previous reply.
Ideally all the responses to a topic should be readable on a scrollable sidebar/popup
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Steven
commented
The Posts section should just be laid out like a message board since it more-or-less is supposed to be one. The problem is that it's laid out exactly like the chat window which means people try to use it exactly like a chat.
A quick fix would be to replace the 'start a new conversation' text input box with a button called "New Topic" or something in that vein and then make the reply button more easily noticed.
Honestly, this seems like such an easy UI change to implement to remediate the immediate problem, I don't understand why it's still a problem 3 years later.
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Kelly Jones
commented
"iterating on different designs"? REALLY?
How about you follow the standard UI that everyone else does: posts are sorted with the most recent at the top, the reply box appears at the bottom of the thread, and a new post box appears at the top of all of the threads. You know, like: Twitter, Facebook, YAMMER ....
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Vlad Abashyn
commented
The reply box and the new conversation box are visually indistinguishable and easy to misidentify especially when you already started typing. They need to have a significant visual cue (like a z-axis separation, distinct box around new conversation etc) all the time.
Plus it's very important to keep the Reply button visible and above the New Conversation box even if the conversation is already partially scrolled under the New Conversation box. This way it would be much more easier to tell whether I'm replying to an existing conversation or starting a new one.
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Steve Dunbar
commented
Let's not have the reply field buried behind the Start new conversation field.
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JD
commented
I'm vexed. I can't believe this still isn't fixed. You sent a survey with different concepts over a year ago. I should not have to provide training on how to reply to a flipping message! I'm so tired of having to point out to people that they started a new post instead of replying, then them being like "oh can you fix it for me?" then me being like "no, but let me show you how", then them making the same mistake 20 minutes later.
Sure, users suck and supporting them is a pain - every IT professional knows this, I'm sure - but this is just straight up bad design and your response to the problem is infuriatingly slow - I don't know who's in charge of prioritising work, but I beg you, whoever you are, I'm so tired of this problem, it's exhausting, please, please, please, make this a higher priority to resolve.