In watching the presentation for Google Wave, a new product in the works by Google, a feature that was demonstrated (and applauded) made me question when designing features for users undoes some of the benefits that individual terminals affords the user.
For those of you who don’t know, Google Wave is aiming to be the next evolution of online communication. From what I have seen so far, it seems to be a consummation of email, message boards, and chat, forcing users to no longer think of online communication as individual collections of messages and responses, but a cluster of ongoing conversations, where individuals can enter and leave at will.
The feature that piqued my interest, was the feature that turns the conversation into a chat, and allows both users to see the conversations being typed by each other in real time. While this could be very useful for conversing with someone who typed painfully slowly, it changes the way users have generally used instant messaging up until now.
Instant Messaging serves as a platform to allow generally, two people to have a conversation with each other in “real time”, where one user sends a message, the other responds, etc, in the same way that you and I may have a face-to-face conversation. If you wanted to map the features one-to-one, then while you are talking to me in person, I will be listening to your statement, and thinking about what I want to say in response, this is the same as reading your message in an IM, and typing my response in my client.
However, lets say you and I are having an in-depth conversation, or debate, on either medium. We make take our time to collect our thoughts, to consider our responses, and figure out what we want to say next. We may even completely change our response we had originally planned in order to answer some new topic that has come up. Either way, this can be afforded to us in IM clients by typing out our responses and looking them over before we send them off.
While I agree that when talking to someone over instant message, the time waiting for a response can seem length. However, almost all clients today will notify the receiving person that you are typing, alerting that there is indeed a conversation taking place. The question begs then, how do users react to a feature that allows us to see the response of a person, as it is being created?
While this is an interesting feature in it of itself, it could do one of a few things:
- Bring users closer to the experience of having a true conversation through text.
- Users would be distracted by the other person typing a response, or follow up message to what they just sent, and it would cause confusion.
- A new rule of “internet etiquette” would appear within the use of this tool, and you would patiently wait for others to finish their thought before you start typing your response.
Google will offer a checkbox to turn this feature off, and it will be interesting to see how the response to this feature is received. Within innovation, one will ultimately be forcing adopters to rethink or retool their processes in order to adopt a new technology. It’s important to consider what the processes you are “fixing”, because maybe they weren’t broken, but a matter of course from the translation of a process from one medium to the next.
