ShatChat: How Facebook's Bizarre Obsession With Snapchat Is Ruining User Experience On Messenger (500ish.com) 76
Columnist MG Siegler writes: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." I often find myself pointing to this quote from Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park. It's just so succinctly perfect for so many things. This week's example: Facebook Messenger's new 'Day' functionality. [...] They've [Facebook] decided to weaponize all of these networks [Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram], user experience be damned. On Messenger, people have their list of contacts and/or groups that they chat with. The most recent conversations -- likely the most important -- are at the top of that feed. But if you're anything like me, you're often scrolling down a bit because you have many regular conversations. And so this screen real estate is insanely valuable. And Messenger puked up this new 'Day' nonsense all over it. Yes, people share photos on Messenger. Undoubtedly a ton. That's maybe how you try to justify this move to yourself if you're Facebook. But Messenger is fundamentally about chatting; it's a utility. Photos may be additive, but they're not core. You could try to pivot your service into making them core, but that doesn't mean you should.As of last year, Facebook Messenger has over a billion active users.
"But Messenger is fundamentally about chatting; it (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook doesn't give a flying fuck what you or anybody else things about Messenger or any of their software, so long as people continue to give them all of their personal information for free.
The real problem: Millennials can't design UIs. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just a small example of the much bigger problem: Millennials, as a group, just cannot design and develop usable software UIs.
From the dawn of computing through to the mid-2000s, we saw an incremental progression in the functionality and usability of software UIs. New UIs were typically better than what preceded them.
Then between 2000 and 2010 we started seeing more and more Millennials get involved with software UI design as they started to enter the workforce. And everything went to hell.
This is a generation that has egos so big it makes the Boomers look modest! Millennials don't care about the past. They don't care about building on good ideas rather than bad. They don't care about what users want. They're so sure that their ideas are "right" that they force them on others.
So instead of continuing the work of previous generations, they just threw out all of this accumulated knowledge. They used their own self-proclaimed "great UI design ideas" and gave us awful UIs like those of Australis Firefox, of GNOME 3, of Windows 8 to 10, and of so many websites. Not caring what users actually think of these designs, they've never been responsive to feedback. It's just one bad idea after another with them.
Now before you start with the "shut up, gramps" and "get off my lawn" bullshit, I actually think that the generation after the Millennials may be able to rectify this awful situation. They've been victims of the Millennials shenanigans, but they also tend not to have the egos of Millennials. Many of them also have an interest in retro computing. It's an eyeopening experience for them when they use something like Windows 2000, and they find that its UI is actually more efficient and pleasant to use compared to the Windows 10 experience they're more familiar with.
This post-Millennial generation will be entering the workforce within the next 5 to 10 years. I hope that they can undo all of the nonsense that Millennials have done so that they can get back to what the generations before the Millennials were doing: steadily improving upon UIs that are functional and usable.
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Slashdot Beta (Score:1)
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No - the real problem is that we expect all of this software to be written for us, usable user interfaces and background services ect etc, to be provided for free.
Free instant messaging, with bespoke applications for Android and iOS, and an extremely complex web application. We expect it all for nothing. And then, when the organisation that's producing all this, decides to modify it so that they can actually make some money out of it, we get all upset.
How about people drop *that* idea, and instead pay for t
Re:The real problem: Millennials can't design UIs. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is an uncomfortable amount of truth in this, especially the comments about Australis Firefox, GNOME 3, and Windows 8 to 10.
Many of them were so taken with the ability to code some interesting or novel UI feature that they never stopped to ask if "interesting" or "novel" was better than what was already in use. In most cases it wasn't.
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This generational bullshit has always been bullshit, and has always been promoted by idiots with inferiority complexes that have no grasp on basic reality.
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Have you tried using Discord? One group I was involved with moved to it from IRC.
Discord starts with badly contrasting colors for body text*, then adds tons of sidebar panes that you can't hide whether nor not you care about them. So the window takes up most of my screen (shrinking the window only shrinks the chat area), when I used to could follow the chat on IRC on the side of a wide-screen monitor and still have room for web browsing.
Yep, definitely a millennial UI. Please save us from this crap, Gen-Z
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This is a generation that has egos so big it makes the Boomers look modest! Millennials don't care about the past. They don't care about building on good ideas rather than bad. They don't care about what users want. They're so sure that their ideas are "right" that they force them on others.
Rejecting the past is what "generations" do.
What you said is what people of every single generation in existence said since the beginning of life itself. Just replace "boomers" with the generation before them and "millennials" by the one after.
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Millennials, as a group, just cannot design and develop usable software UIs.
That's a pretty broad claim, got anything to back that bullshit up? It's far more likely the current UI design is a product of aiming to please the lowest common denominator of their global user base.
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Re: Messenger the only reason I have FB (Score:1)
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I refuse to use Messenger no matter how many messages it says I have. I won't have what should be private conversations mined by a company that sells me as a product to advertisers.
So don't use it, dumbass (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, nobody that isn't a teenager or an emotionally stunted adult uses ANY of those things.
The idea that you *need* to use all of these "messenger" apps is ridiculous. You don't need to be in constant, *pointless* communication with your friends. Or your coworkers.
Just turn that shit off, and get on with your lives. Eliminating the endless, ego-boosting "small-talk" that these apps provide is good for your soul.
Re: So don't use it, dumbass (Score:2)
You're right there's no need. They are means of communication however, and having many brings redundancy (for plain and simple inter family communication for example). It's up to any user how they fill the channels, but it would also be a bit backwards to not use modern tools at hand, to complement the traditional. Use cases are many, and one model doesn't fit for all.
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You don't need to be in constant, *pointless* communication with your friends. Or your coworkers.
But they think they do. Partly from FOMO (fear of missing out) and partly because they're inept at forming substantive relationships that can weather short periods of being apart.
Take away their phones and facebook, messenger, etc and most of their "relationships" and "friends" would completely disappear in a week or two, and virtually ALL of them would be gone after a month or more.
Being in constant contact is wearying for most people even if they won't admit it (or can't recognize it).
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"You don't need to be in constant, *pointless* communication with your friends. Or your coworkers."
I most certainly do need to be in constant contact with my coworkers, especially when I can't scream down the mine tunnel "Get out, detonation in five minutes" and have everybody hear me. But, I have a cell repeater installed in the mine, so I just SMS everyone, I wouldn't use Messenger because FaceBook cant program a solid anything for shit.
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So his point is that pointless communication is pointless?
There's irony in that, somewhere.
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Seriously, nobody that isn't a teenager or an emotionally stunted adult uses ANY of those things.
Sounds like someone is bitter that not everyone in the world is identical to you.
The idea that you *need* to use all of these "messenger" apps is ridiculous. You don't need to be in constant, *pointless* communication with your friends. Or your coworkers.
Need? Well, in fairness you don't *need* to complain about them on slashdot, yet you do. Why?
Just turn that shit off, and get on with your lives.
Thanks but no.
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Just because you can only imagine one way of using them (i.e. for small talk), doesn't mean others are incapable of having useful interactions over them.
You seem to use them in a reasonable manner, as do I. My wife, on the other hand, and many like her (I dare say the majority of IM users) do not. Clearly, the post you were replying to was directed at those users and not at us.
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-1 : Unrestrained Ego
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No it was directed at everyone. The op clearly hadn't considered the idea that these tools can be used well as badly. It's a common mistake.
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I've used all kinds of messenger applications over the years at work... I especially like the ones that will allow me remote control.
You messed the same thing up for the 5th time this week? Give me control and I'll fix it real quick.
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I would agree if you said that we shouldn't need so many messenger apps or that we don't need gimmicky. You basically need one, and it needs to be able to send text messages.
But "we don't need text messages" is a little bit of a silly response to all of this. I mean, no, we don't "need" it in the hunter/gatherer sense of the word, just like we don't need email, telephones, computers, or any number of other things. But culturally, modern communication is almost entirely face-to-face, over email, or in so
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I 'need' a tool that permits me to send a message to multiple people, so that we can organise things, and arrange where to meet, and when. It's very silly to imagine that all conversation between friends is pointless. I am getting on with my life, thanks, and in order to do so, I going to find out whether or not such-and-such a group of people are available on a particular date. I'm not going to call their landlines, because they don't have one, and in any case, why would I call their *house*? That makes no
I wish I could say I don't care (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I do care. I'd pay good money to not read this sort of drek on Slashdot.
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Just checked, there is a "Exclude stories by topic" option but you cannot select "facebook"
There is only one UI Issue on Messenger (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's Facebook's obsession with the "don't leave the app" paradigm. Youtube links, html5 video links, gifs and even common pic format links, they're all messed up both on preview and on the follow up link. Youtube is particularly obnoxious, you have to click twice: click once and the video preview disappears, gets replaced by the lone link itself, which on second click actually opens something else (which also inconsistently fluctuates between a chrome tab inside Messenger running html5 Youtube, an external similar Chrome tab, or the Youtube app itself).
But the worst of all, even Facebook's own links are f'd up - I'd love it if I could get an FB link from a post, user, comment or live vid link on Messenger that actually previews, loads and/or opens consistently IN THE FB APP instead of the browser or messenger itself. They just got it real bad on the Android implementation. It just seems to behave differently depending on: 1. the device you're using; 2. the device people are using; 3. the way people copied/shared the item on their side. It's stupid, as in pre-html5, pre-Android stupid. There is only one thing that nags me even more tha this Messenger quirks on Android, and it's the share location function of Google Maps, which deliberately ignores providing standardized location data anywhere it goes, only providing links to a gmaps-centered position, without even a pin or "navigate to" options.
And yes, I have messed around with both Messenger and Facebook apps' "always open externally", "don't use internal browser" or "whatever da fck it's called this week's update so we have a reset justification and you get it back again". It still sux, and always falls back to Chrome who will not redirect it to the app Intent because it was already redirected.
Use Messenger Lite (Score:1, Informative)
Coincidentally, I got tired of this yesterday evening, and installed the less official Messenger Lite. It's supposed to be used in countries with less data bandwidth, and thus it just has chat. It's brilliant. I found it here (as it is not in playstore):
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/facebook-2/messenger-lite/messenger-lite-5-0-0-4-40-release/facebook-messenger-lite-5-0-0-4-40-android-apk-download/
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I know /. is gone downhill these days, but I hope its still technical enough not to download a random apk from an unknown website by an anonymous poster.
Re: Use Messenger Lite (Score:4, Informative)
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FWIW the FB Lite Messenger on Google Play [google.com] is only available in some countries (e.g., IIRC, India). It is designed for older phones and they have artificially limited availability.
I can't install it on my N5X in the UK: "This app is incompatible with all of your devices." I would install it in a flash if I could.
Re: Use Messenger Lite (Score:2)
Not just the messenger (Score:1)
When was the rest of Facebook good UI? (Score:4, Interesting)
I use Facebook, and I'm aware of the consequences of that choice, but I have never been under the impression that it was a good user experience for anything.
- It's not a good blogging engine
- It's not an intuitive navigation for maintaining your friends list
- It's not a good forum and regularly stifles good discussion
- It's not a good marketing engine for actual engagement for your brand (good click-through rate, good demographic targeting, that's about it)
- It's not a good photo album manager
- It's not a good event organizer (though I will say it's WAY more useful than Meetup, for some reason)
- It's also not a good Instant Messenger either, and never was
What exactly are we losing by them doing other not-good UIs for things? It's not like snapchat is any better. Good god their UI is terrible. I get that some have figured out how to use it in spite of this, but this is not because it's intuitive, it is because it is popular. See also: Facebook.
Is that what it is? (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, I was wondering what happened to Facebook Messenger. I hadn't realized that it was trying to compete with SnapChat, which I've never used and I don't think I ever will. I do know that Messenger was, for me, a somewhat unnecessary but tolerable text-messaging application that I used to keep in touch with some Facebook contacts, and it suddenly became an unusable mess. I deleted it after it launched, post-update, and suddenly started asking me for access to all kinds of things (access to location, address book, and other stuff) and kept asking repeatedly after I said "no". That was the 5-ton straw that broke the camel's back.
It seems like every time Facebook "fixes" or "improves" something, I hate the platform more.
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It asking for all those permissions is not their problem, it came bundled with the Marshmallow update, and you probably noticed it in all other apps that started targeting Android Marshmallow.
Basically, your previous version of the app (and all other apps in this scenario) showed those permissions at install time (and simply didn't install if you denied any of them), but developers were forced to ask explicitly during app use for individual permissions. Devs now have the option to either keep "permission-as
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It asking for all those permissions is not their problem, it came bundled with the Marshmallow update, and you probably noticed it in all other apps that started targeting Android Marshmallow.
Nope. I have an iPhone. And honestly, a lot of apps request access to information like contact lists or location, and that in itself doesn't bother me. But somehow I got hit with about 7 prompts in the first 2 minutes of using the apps, sometimes asking for access to the same information multiple times, after I'd said "no".
At least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I wasn't exactly counting at the time, but I'm not intentionally exaggerating. I just remember being prompted over and over again for
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Well, if you're on iOS, that's a completely different story. But on Android, after Marshmallow those 7 prompts are not unusual. You mentioned an update and multiple dialogs asking permission, and it sounded very familiar, as it is exactly what happens in Marshmallow-bound or newer apps that need a lot of permissions.
Nevertheless, saying "no" and it asking again is pretty "sucky", UI-wise, and that is indeed a fault, but we all know most tech companies these days are about exit strats, and most exists either
How people use a tool (Score:2)
Right now Facebook is falling into the second category. A competitor (snapchat, imagepotato, etc) has a tool that does something different from Facebook. So of course Facebook has to do the same thing. But facebook isn't considering the use case of snapch
iMessage (Score:2)
Apple has the same obsession and it is ruining iMessage!
Time for a new standard (Score:2)
The industry needs to come up with a "social networking standard" (SNS) so that the IT oligopolies don't control all the data. The SNS would allow smaller providers to host social network data that can coordinate with other providers. The people you share with wouldn't have to use the same vendor. It's kind of like SMTP for social networking and chat apps.
SNS ideally should allow users to carefully limit what is shared with who, and by default be fairly strict.
It could practically kill Facebook, Twitter, an
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The "losers" in the current social networking arena may support it to squash the winners.
For example, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, and IBM failed to get a foothold. If they work together on such a standard, it could shrink Facebook and Twitter, which they'd be very happy to do because they could gain much of their lost customers by hosting nodes.
Seems besides the point. (Score:2)
The fact that Facebook and other "social media" sites are hoovering up all the data they can about you seems far more concerning to me than, "oh, it's more difficult for me to give them as much information as possible!" I would feel much better if slashdot stopped covering everything these sites are doing because honestly, it doesn't matter unless they are changing what information they are extracting from their users.
Facebook has a messaging thing? (Score:2)