The new UI update: the good and the bad, in an actual feedback format instead of deliberate slander
Alright, I'm gonna lay this down nice and simple.
PROS:
- I like the redesigned red line for new messages. It needs have thicker padding above and below it however.
- I like the UI for more options under messages. This right here is really nice.
- I like the ability to see what time each individual message was sent at, versus seeing the time a message chunk began.
CONS:
- PUT THE LINES BACK! It is so clunky and unorganized to remove the separation between messages. Gives me a headache to look at.
- Stop highlighting messages when I mouse over them. That is extremely distracting and unnecessary.
- Line up the reactions and more options button with the first line of the message text, instead of floating it slightly above. It's easy to move your mouse to, and then end up on a different message on accident. Inconvenient as can be.
- The reactions bar needs to go. Very rarely does anyone use the reactions (though they can be useful). If I want to use reactions, I'll be glad to click the subtle little smile icon next to more options.
- And please, put the line above the message bar back. It's all I have in this world.
I know you guys are receiving a lot of direct hate, and not much functional feedback. I hope this helped clear it up in a more efficient manner, so the next update can make everyone feel much happier with the UI!
EDIT: Here is my mockup of what the UI should look like. Cleaner, but utilizes the new features and designs. Please consider using something similar to this. Re-addition of the lines, the removal of most used emoji for reactions, centering the message options menu, kept the timestamp, and kept the red "new messages" line with extra padding.
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Every last pro and con of this is exactly how I feel about it.
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I totally agree with what you're saying. I think everyone's just frustrated with the changes, which is understandable. I definitely love the timestamp for each individual message, but I feel like they may get a little distracting or annoying when scrolling up or moving your cursor around a lot. Otherwise, I do think I can get used to the new "new message" bar, and the new dropdown for more options is nice, I agree!
But yes, I feel like everyone needs to calm down. While the new UI definitely has a lot of flaws, we have to be patient and wait to see Discord's response.
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I personally do not mind the highlight feature, but as a compromise, I think it'd be best for the message to only be highlighted when right-click selected, as opposed to on mouse-over
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Highly agree with everything in here. The update isn't all bad, but I agree with all the cons listed and those are really the primary things I will object to long term.
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This layout is pretty much perfect. I personally dislike the new look for the new messages line, but everything else is spot on.
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I agree with everything here- other than the new messages, I liked having the 'new' in the middle of the line itself.
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yes to all of this!!
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This is possibly the most sensible option.
Although I would like to see an option in user setting to change it back to the small ... on the right side when a message is hovered over.
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I agree with this. The auto highlighting with mouse-over and auto opening of that reactions stuff is contributing to the problems I'm having. Too many little automated (and needless stuff).
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I'm not really digging the new reactions and more options buttons, they seem too imposing compared to the old one. Either make the new ones smaller, or switch back to the old design. I don't exactly agree with the proposal to put it in line with the text as it would block out text in the cases of long messages and make a brand new mess there in terms of readability and practicality
And yeah the new messages like should have more space above and below it to make it easier to distinguish old and new messages, and of course have the "new" in the middle, probably with some bigger text too or just the old design to make it more easily readable.
Other than that, I would say I agree with the rest of this idea.
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I rather toggleable customisation, but I like the text darkening when hovering, it's sometimes helps with big or even small displays to know on which message are you you going to click the 3 points.
The ony thing that bothers me is the size of the new reaction bar and the space between messages, that, even setting it on settings is like it doesn't even works.4 -
Ok sorry for commenting again but I got an idea that could kinda work. What if instead of the lines between the messages, they alternate bewteen colors/shades. It's just an idea but I created a little mockup just as an example. It's not perfect but it's something and I'll let y'all judge it from there
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Just got the update myself and tried to see if I could revert. I really like Lucy's suggestion about right-clicking to open this same menu. Especially for sole PC users like me, the highlight feels too messy. I'm inclined to say the same about alternating color-lines; it's just a little too much, but these are great suggestions.
Is anyone else curious about all the bubbles and what feels like wasted space? My preference is highly streamlined; I use 90% zoom, smallest font, smaller spacing, etc. and adding these giant buttons alongside everything feels over-crowded. Not sure how much of the user-base prefers streamline option vs. aesthetics though. If there's enough mention, Discord might give us some options for self-customizing these reaction/action menus.
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These are good suggestions, would be happy to see these implemented/heard by the team. Appreciate the level headedness.
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THIS FEEDBACK POST, so much, all of it, op. I hope they actually see this and keep it in mind, cause you just voiced all of my concerns and annoyances with the recent update. The only good thing to come out of it are the individual message timestamps. And discord keeps changing things in secret and it's concerning - we're being sent to the feedback page instead of being actually acknowledged and listened.
In general we just need like... an option to turn every new layout option off, or revert the changes. Customization is good, but only when it's optional.
We could also use more transparent/frequent patch notes. I hate waking up to feeling like something's wrong with discord and trying to play mental 'spot the difference' just to notice what changed, and as someone with mild ocd I WILL notice something changed even if it's as subtle as half-of-a-pixel font size increase, because, well, it bothers my ocd.
@DrDewott: I'd prefer to have the lines back, not a fan of alternating colors in general, and I've tried to use it in Twitch chat. This solution doesn't work for me.
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This feedback post is exactly how I feel, and I hope Discord's team sees this over all of the pointless bashing.
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@DrDewott
Interesting idea but that design would honestly make me feel even worse unfortunately
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Huh if i saw this first maybe I wouldn't have posted my own topic, oh well, it's interesting to see how your mockup has the layout for the reaction "bar" (more like button now) have the same layout as the previous UI version, just with the new look (I still think the choice to have containers for such small interactions isn't a good idea, but that was interesting to notice).
I haven't had issues with the removal of the lines, but seeing it again in your screenshot, the lines did really clean up the look of the message list.
@DrDewott: Alternating colours are distracting, it looks like a multiselect sort of thing, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being removal of the lines and 10 being your highlighted version, I think we should strive for a 3-4. I consider the lines to be about a 5.
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agree with you. this update is also bad for people with disabilities, when they remove light theme, even though (i think) it was a prank. people with disabilities where not able to read good in dark mode. same for this one
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Everything here? Gold. Might disagree a bit on the new uh, 'new' bar, contrasts too hard with how quiet the rest of the interface is. That's kinda the general theme anyways, shtuff got louder, the old interface from the reaction thing to the lines between messages, was very quiet.
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Good of you to streamline the general chorus of anger into something comprehensible and diplomatic for the team, but I'm still amazed this was the final iteration of the update that everyone present agreed wasn't inconvenient and/or an eyesore, I originally got discord because it was less resource heavy than skype and more accessible/aesthetic than teamspeak, but now it just keeps bloating.
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I agree @Skyfus regarding the bloating. I've heard a few comments already describing general preference for Discord's original simplicity. Though I can say in my experience the Discord team has been excellent at responding to its user-base (e.g. I was one of those who asked for folders; they implemented it wonderfully).
Perhaps what's really needed is some moderate ground in between constant updating and simplicity. Is there a reason the Discord team feels the need to update so continually? If so, can we help them direct it better so they don't tamper with what the user-base wants to leave alone ('active now' tab in the friends' list, more gigantic bubble settings, etc.)?
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well pretty hard when they don't want some changes that might screw everything the base want
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otherwise, this is a good idea of well organized UI, Piper
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@The_Meow since you copypasted your comment to/from the comment you made on my post, allow me to do the same with my followup:
"I don't expect them to revert it in a little bit, I expect them to revert it as soon as they are able to (however long that may take) following the near-universal backlash to features that clearly weren't in demand.
I'm not freaking out, just making my opinion known like many others - since the end user has a responsibility to provide constructive feedback to the provider, in order to develop the product in a positive direction. You'll note that instead of calling the developers a bunch of nasty names, I pointed out that they might not have put as much thought into this as they could have prior to release, and linked an informative, neutral tone post that highlights the grievances.
You, on the other hand, need to stop putting words in my mouth and fighting the battles of people who have an entire PR team."
Remember to take breaks on your ctrl+v rampage across the chat feedback forum, and good luck keeping up with the posts that will doubtless be flooding in until an official statement comes out!
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Of course you aren't
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Oh sweet they downvoted my comments and deleted their own
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This is the first time I have come over to the feedback side of discord. (and yes it is because of this update)
I feel like this is discords response to a survey they offered about a week ago...
had I known this was going to be the inevitable outcome I'm not certain I would have taken it.
This post defines exactly how I feel about the new update (with very few exceptions)
However, in the end, all I want to come out of this is previous version compatibility (possibly something to stop updates) because I was very happy with the way things were...
I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.
And I think that's all I need to say.
I wish everyone here the best of luck with this feedback and getting through to discord.8 -
I like Piper's revamp of the new UI, except for the 'new' message line. It just feels almost too sharp, which could easily be softened by altering the red to a more neutral red instead of a bright crimson and a less stark white for the text. But that's just my personal thought on it, since I have vision problems so bright contrasting colours are very hard for me to focus on.
One other thing is that the message options/emoji buttons are just too large for the space. Longer messages will run into problems with it being in the way, leading to a division in the test or just cutting it off entirely. The ones on the older version were present but not obnoxiously so. Though I am a fan of the extra options for messages, and the highlighting feature is a good idea in theory but awkwardly put into practice. Why not make it a function that you can highlight a message by left clicking it? Then turn it off simply by clicking it again.
Also you can add reactions to a message by right clicking it and going into the 'Reactions' category. We don't need a quick menu in the chat window itself when we already have two methods of using emojis. First by clicking the face in the message type box, and the second by right clicking a message we want to react to. Just leave the '...' for message options, make it smaller so it's not cluttering up the message window needlessly.
As it is currently (and will be if it remains) the reaction/emoji/option bubble covers text when the message is hovered over. I run my Discord on Compact because wasted space and blank sections that serve no purpose drive me up the wall (the 'Active Now' thing is the worst offender of recent updates) but this means that space is precious and additional flimflammery is counter productive.
By making the section smaller, and only having the '...' button be the only one that remains in the message window itself it's still present without overlapping more important features, such as the actual chat.
@Piper, I'm going to borrow your initial mock up image for example purposes but will remove it if you want me to.TLDR: I reduced the saturation and darkened the 'new bar' and moved the option button back to the top right corner, made it smaller and removed the emoji reaction button entirely since it's unnecessary. Image is not mine, it is OP's with a Photoshop patch job.
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interesting
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