Consider chat-bubble design for conversations

[eternaltyro]

Description

Please consider introducing chat-bubble design for conversations where:

1. The sent texts are right aligned, the received texts are left aligned.
2. The sent and received texts are in different color or shades of color.
3. The background is in a different color from the foreground text bubbles.

Some random screenshots of different messengers from the web:
Threema UI: http://lifestyle.us.viettel3grun.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/6e9f1f12614966dad8323d4ae325a9b4.jpg
Whatsapp UI: https://www.sketchappsources.com/resources/source-image/whats-app-chat-details-view-gayatriraut.jpg
Signal UI: https://paulciano.org/avox/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Signal-Interface.png

While it appears as if the bubble design is being copied across applications, the design by itself appears very intuitive to me. It pops the message out and makes it easy for me to keep track of conversations especially when I have a lot of scrolling to do. Others here may disagree. I'm not a designer and this is only my opinion.

The current riot conversation design seems very crammed and is difficult to read through.

[nesretep-anp1]

I am really wondering why there not much more reactions in here.

While our tests of synapse/riot (for evaluating a migration from Mattermost) this is one show stopper named by our (test users). The current designs are simply confusing.

Is this planned/on the roadmap?

[lampholder]

Our assessment has been that the chat bubble design is more closely associated with social chat applications than team collaboration applications. Riot obviously tries to straddle that divide to a degree, but certainly web-based users familiar with Slack (or mattermost I think?) will be familiar with the non-bubble-based layout.

@nesretep-anp1 are you specifically asking for bubbles, or is your issue that you find chat history difficult to follow? And are you specifically thinking of riot web, or also riot mobile?

[nesretep-anp1]

Our assessment has been that the chat bubble design is more closely associated with social chat applications than team collaboration applications. Riot obviously tries to straddle that divide to a degree, but certainly web-based users familiar with Slack (or mattermost I think?) will be familiar with the non-bubble-based layout.

To be honest, the matrix stuff could be used for business/project/team collaboration as well as social chats, right? ;)

I think (and can within our project see) that the matrix stuff could be spreaded wide more if users would " feel home like on WhatsApp (groups) " (well, definitely not my feelings, but definitely my observations.) In many situations - e.g. schools here around me - WhatsApp (groups) is used where something like Mattermost or Matrix stuff would be much, much more secure (etc); simply and mainly because of 2 reasons: 1. Being able to see who has read a message (Mattermost cannot do this; Synapse/Riot can) ; 2. Having the feeling of one is used to (WhatsApp (groups)) (Mattermost and Synapse/Riot cannot offer this).

@nesretep-anp1 are you specifically asking for bubbles, or is your issue that you find chat history difficult to follow? And are you specifically thinking of riot web, or also riot mobile?

Well, in fact I am talking about a design strategy and not an app. ;) I am talking of ALL riot variants!

[gnouts]

Could we imagine an option that change the display type between bubble and non-bubble ?

I was watching this issue for some time now, and I also feel lots of my friends would used Riot mostly for 1:1 chat or small group chat ( <10 people) and I know they would be more comfortable with a WhatsApp-like display.

Also, I know there are other clients than Riot that do bubble chat, they mostly never support as much features as Riot do, like E2EE. Bringing bubble chat to Riot might be easier than waiting for community to support all features. Though, I'm no dev, I might be wrong :)

[nesretep-anp1]

Is there really no reaction on this? Is there really noone seeing/needing this for having matrix/riot step out of the "nerd shadow"?

[nesretep-anp1]

But, if there is a bounty based way to get this done, then we would be ready to discuss!? ;)

[SamCyanide]

I am trying to get my friend group to migrate off facebook messenger, but this is a big point of contention. I really agree with @nesretep-anp1's analogy of the "nerd shadow" - it would be hugely beneficial to have an option so you can have it look either like IRC or modern apps (Messenger, iMessage, heck, even text message apps) - the chat bubbles thing would be a game changer. People don't like change, so you should try and make things familiar if possible. And that's why having it be optional would be so great.