Hacker News Reader

Comment by Stratoscope | Hacker News Reader

He didn't mention one of my pet peeves: the "stratoscope, robertheaton, and dang are typing" messages below the input window. They draw you in to watching... nothing! I sit there slack-jawed (pun unintended, but I'll take credit for it anyway) waiting to see what - if anything - will eventually show up.

Even on #random. It seemed like such a good idea at the time - keep "water cooler" chat out of the main channels. But what really happens is that all the fun stuff goes on in #random, so you pay as much or more attention to it as anything else. Who wants to be late for the party?

And there's the uncapitalized, unpunctuated, line-by-line stream of consciousness writing style I ranted about some time ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239614

View on HN

Another is that they just started putting light-grey text "Message @channel" by default in the text area. I am surprisingly stressed out by this. It feels like a command or a nudge that insinuates itself into my thinking space, like a half-finished message which a corporate entity 'helpfully' began for me, and now it's my job to finish it, and as soon as I finish that one another will begin. There's a bad dream in there somewhere...

I think the OP is right that a UI needs to be sensitive to the user's psyche and not push them all the time toward using the product.

Oh my, I was doing my best to not see that new message. I thought it was just a glitch that would go away soon enough. But now you've done it, I can't unsee it any more!

Update: I'm curious why you're getting downvoted for your comment. Maybe people didn't like the creative way you put it? For me that made it all the better. Instead of some dry analysis, I like hearing what's going on in someone's head.

Drama aside, for me the problem with that message is that it's just distracting.

I'm actually more at ease with this change than if there was no default text. There's that flicker of recognition when I look at the input area before I start typing—"I'm messaging @channel." Call me paranoid, but I often flick over to the sidebar to see which channel I'm in before I dive into some conversations, just to make sure I'm not saying something in a public channel I shouldn't—like scanning over the recipients before you send an email. This proactively reassures me so I don't have to flit about making sure I'm doing the right thing.

That's a great point. Looking at it again, maybe it's just the wording of the prompt that I don't like. For example, we have a #dev channel and it says:

  Message dev

It doesn't quite register for me that the word "dev" is referring to the channel name - it's drowned out by the big word "Message".

And my first subconscious thought is that "Message" is being used as an adjective: are we talking about the "Message dev"? Who is that?

I think it would be helpful if the prompt used the standard notation for channel names:

  Message #dev

But if I had a prompt like this I'd probably spell it out in full to avoid any confusion:

  Send a message to #dev

On my Windows Slack client, it says "Message #general". Same when I log into Slack via Firefox.

A private channel will look like

  Message dev

But an org-wide channel will look like

  Message #dev

Mystery solved, thanks! I was looking at a private channel. I didn't realize that private channels don't get #xyz shortcuts.

In gaming, they call this "humane design," techniques like giving players an obvious place to take a break. By contrast, things like the infinitely-scrolling news feed and the autoplay video queue are grossly inhumane; they serve to obfuscate the fact that there's a decision point there, subtly trying to make the choice for you even if you might have wanted to do something else if you had thought about it. And of course it works, that's why everyone does it.

Same here.

I actually hate that Chrome's little status bar at the bottom blocks the "bob is typing" message if you happen to be mouse-overing a link!

This doesn't justify anything, but doesn't every single IM client do the whole "so-and-so" is typing thing?

I remember the times when they didn't, and I liked it better that way.

Err...isn't the "... is typing" message configurable and can be disabled if you don't like it?

I just checked - it is! Nice.

Preferences -> Messages & Media -> Display Options -> "Display information about who is currently typing a message"

Oh - thanks! I was looking for that option. In fact I'd opened that preferences page several times and just didn't figure out that was the option.

The wording definitely threw me off - this would be a much better way to word the checkbox:

  Display "someone is typing" messages

Is there an option to disable sending that information? I.e. can I make so that people don't see that I'm typing a message?

I find it helpful, because it tells me whether I can expect an answer/contribution from the other party right away, and therefore I should stick around, so we can have a almost direct conversation, or whether they will answer later so I can go and work on other things in the meantime.

Your linked comment was really fun, but I've gotta say, I found the slack-style top half to do a perfectly fine job of communicating!

I agree the 'so-and-so is typing' is an anti-feature.

An issue with the android client showed up at a big tech conference last week that had a slack for attendees. With scores of people joining the main channel per minute, the "XX has joined" messages scrolling past dominated the discussion and made it useless. There's no option to disable joins.

To their credit, I filed a feedback and they acknowledged the issue.

> They draw you in to watching... nothing

I'm curious why you feel this way, particularly if it's not a conversation you're actively participating in?

Thanks for asking. I hadn't really thought about it, but the problem seems to be when it's a conversation I am actively participating in. I'll see "GrinningFool is typing", and then the message goes away for a while. Then comes back again. And disappears again. And back once more!

Then I realize someone may be doing like I do: typing an incomplete response, then going off to check some docs or to think about it, then come back to type some more, and pausing to think some more.

By the time all this happens, I've spent several minutes watching the "... is typing" messages, when I could have used those few minutes to take a stretch break, or pick up the mess on the desk, or just about anything but watching the "... is typing" messages.

After all, I'll get notified anyway when someone hits the Enter key.

The context helps a lot, I do have the same problem to an extent.

I tend to view it as similar to seeing the facial/body cues I'd get normally [and often miss...] that tell me someone is attentive and participating - or about to- in in the conversation.

I learned elsewhere in this discussion that there's a config option to disable that feedback - I'm undecided on whether that's what I actually what I want...

I just liked the pun.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com