Chat coming, and we want your feedback

[Evan]

Update: Please provide feedback on how popping out chat should work, asked here.

If you've looked at the Ning product roadmap recently, you've noticed that some Chat improvements are on the way. We've started to work on Chat, and wanted to share what we have in mind and get Network Creators an early chance to share their feedback.

The biggest changes we have planned are:

• Redesigning Chat in HTML and Javascript, instead of today's Flash-based chat. It will work on iPad, can be customized via CSS and will be translated in the language editor.
• Redesigning Chat into separate "panes," whereas today's chat a single "pane". New private conversations appear as tabs within the Chat pane, instead of appearing as new panes.

Here is today's Flash-based chat:

And here's what Chat might look like (click on the image to see it bigger):

So, unlike today's chat, this new Chat format would mean that:

• When someone starts a 1:1 conversation, the chat would instantly pop up (and pop open), so it would be very hard to miss.
• You can talk in 1:1 conversations and in the main chat room at the same time (not possible without changing tabs today)

There's a lot to process in looking at this new design, and there have been a ton of discussions on Creators about Chat. We want your feedback, though, about the overall design and functionality.

A few of big questions have come up that we want to pose to you:

• Do you think this new overall design works better than today's tabbed chat?
• Would you be disappointed if this redesigned chat just existed in your network's footer, not in a module or full page as it does today?
• Are you satisfied with the general size of the main chat window? Do you think you'd still need to pop it out in case the discussion becomes so active you need more screen real estate?
• How important is being able to pop out the main chat room, or 1:1 conversations?
• How do you feel about the sounds in chat? So long as users can turn sounds off, should a sound be played every time a new message is posted? Even when chat is minimized?

We'd love your feedback on these issues, as we start to develop chat. Down the road, we'll get into more specific feature additions, but for now, I'd like to keep this discussion focused on the big design/behavior issues I've raised above.

Thanks!

[Evan]

All,

As this conversation has gone from useful feedback on the new chat feature to repeated questions of when this will be introduced, I think this conversation has run its course. Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful feedback, and we'll be opening a new discussion about chat as we get closer to release in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

/Evan