Re: Why a contact list?

[twopeak]

on the subject of type 1, 2, and 3 contacts her is one idea. This can be combined with whatever other idea. What about an expanding contact list. When you mouse is not over it or adium is not the active app (most of the time) you only see particular groups (you can organize your groups and put important people in groups that are open all the time). But when your mouse hovers over the contact list expands to show you all your online contacts. The groups that open and close would need to be at the bottom so when you go to slick on an always active contact he douse not go flying away from you. Ok this idea has more flaws. But it's out their maybe their are other idea that can come out of it.

meh, I think it would take a great gui-designer to get this to work without working on my nerves!
Besides all my contacts are important, if they're not important, they don't make it to the list!
BUT, I'm not trashing your idea... it might be worth thinking about it!

maybe select those type 1 2 3 contacts based on how often there is communication? (daily messages vs. once every month)

[Damienoneill]

How about biotech! Adiums becomes a biological entity that can exist with in our minds. Then we can always knows who is online and 'think' replys. If its a adium to adium chat then both people can talk with there minds.

[scourtney]

I agree with the idea that the primary use for instant messaging apps isn't contact monitoring. Adam's comments about type 2 and type 3 contacts, which for me comprise a good 90% of my contact list, call to mind the HIG recommendation for the use of drawers: controls that need to be accessed fairly frequently but that don’t need to be visible all the time.

I would love to see a primary window that resembles the "new message" window of any email app: a "to" field (maybe a text field that would autocomplete, maybe a drop-down list containing type 1 contacts), and a message field. Pressing enter after typing a message could spawn a new tab in the same window.

This window could host a drawer for type 2 and type 3 contacts. This drawer could itself contain tabs, with type 3 contacts in a tab behind type 2 contacts?

[tbsmkdn]

Ahh! Drawers?!

Even Apple has given up on drawers. They're lame! IMO, they should be relegated to Obnoxious UI "Feature" Graveyard, along with sheets and the Special menu. Drawers are awkwardly shaped, can almost always be replaced by inspectors, toolbars/sidebars (see Mail 2.0) or other windows. I hate em, I hate em, I hate em.

/rant

[michael]

Ahh! Drawers?!

Even Apple has given up on drawers. They're lame! IMO, they should be relegated to Obnoxious UI "Feature" Graveyard, along with sheets and the Special menu. Drawers are awkwardly shaped, can almost always be replaced by inspectors, toolbars/sidebars (see Mail 2.0) or other windows. I hate em, I hate em, I hate em.

/rant

I utterly concur, they fall off and generally screw around a lot often as well.

/slightly lazy rant

[Catfish_Man]

Ahh! Drawers?!

Even Apple has given up on drawers. They're lame! IMO, they should be relegated to Obnoxious UI "Feature" Graveyard, along with sheets and the Special menu. Drawers are awkwardly shaped, can almost always be replaced by inspectors, toolbars/sidebars (see Mail 2.0) or other windows. I hate em, I hate em, I hate em.

/rant

What would you replace sheets with? I think the concept of a window-modal attached dialog is one of the best UI innovations in OSX (my other favorite being application bundles).

[twopeak]

replaced by inspectors

Inspectors
You mean those windows that tend to alter their shape without you asking them to change, most of the time covering things you don't want covered?

and then like microsoft even start blinking with there "hey look, when you're not close to me I become translucent" - feature
THAT is the worse for me that I ever saw in the whole user experience of about everything: from paperclips to tv's to birdhouses...
These *** windows are disgusting!

I don't dislike the way adobe sees them, with these panels that can change, but always stay in the space you gave them...

think about the chil__errrr, screen!

and I fully agree with catfish_man! these boxes that slide out of the title bar are great, and you can do fun stuff with application bundles...

[tbsmkdn]

I don't like the fact that sheets arrest the window and prevent you from making any changes while the dialog is open. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a way to do sheets without that being the case. I agree that the idea is somewhat attractive, but in practice I like to control my windows.

As for inspectors, Microsoft's implementation of them in Office is an abomination. Consider, instead, the OS X Font inspector or Color Picker. Even the Get Info box, though perhaps to a lesser degree. These are functional windows, used to change data in some way, that are clearly distinguished from actual content windows. That's why I think they are better than drawers or sheets, because they are flexible and do not burden the content window itself.

However, I suppose some of the arguments people have about UI items are subjective.

[twopeak]

I don't find the change color inspectors clear.
You never get feedback that clicking another color has actualy changed the color. they are very confusing... having Panter for a small year now and I haven't understood the logics

[mathuaerknedam]

I don't like the fact that sheets arrest the window and prevent you from making any changes while the dialog is open.

Unless I've misunderstood them, sheets were designed to replace modal dialogues, and shouldn't be used otherwise. Any sort of modal dialogue will "arrest the window", so there's no way to resolve this criticism.

[ofri]

I don't like the fact that sheets arrest the window and prevent you from making any changes while the dialog is open.

Unless I've misunderstood them, sheets were designed to replace modal dialogues, and shouldn't be used otherwise. Any sort of modal dialogue will "arrest the window", so there's no way to resolve this criticism.

You are completely right. They were meant to *BE* modal dialogs.

[quidire]

Am I the only person who likes the aesthetics of drawers?

It would seem if the original poster was pining for the days of a single-window interface, the interface they are looking for is a drawer-as-contact-list outfitted tabbed message window.

As for the other suggestions - dockable contact-lists aren't really that much of an improvement. If I am going to use my mouse to get the contact list, I might as well exposé the contact list up (and auto-hide windows seem to wear on OS X's resources...)

Of course, to each their own, which makes me wonder if we can't have several metaphors. Perhaps the UI models can be abstracted and shunted off to plug-ins? This works well for quicksilver...

Any thoughts?

-RS

[tbsmkdn]

I don't like the fact that sheets arrest the window and prevent you from making any changes while the dialog is open.

Unless I've misunderstood them, sheets were designed to replace modal dialogues, and shouldn't be used otherwise. Any sort of modal dialogue will "arrest the window", so there's no way to resolve this criticism.

You are completely right. They were meant to *BE* modal dialogs.

But why would you want a modal dialog? I guess if you want one (especially just for one window), a sheet is effective. At best, I think they are overused and at worse they may be without use. I like control over my windows.

[oddfellow]

I agree with the idea that the primary use for instant messaging apps isn't contact monitoring.

Well, for whatever it's worth, I disagree. In fact, one of my primary uses for Adium, and instant messaging in general, is awareness of contact presence.

Finally, I think it's a sad thing that those "unimportant" contacts would probably get forgotten forever, just because of an organisational tool. Many a time I've talked to someone for the first time in months, because I happened to notice they were online at a time I was feeling bored. It's not rare for me to keep more regular contact after that, because I realised that they were actually alright after all!

This is definitely true for me too. I have plenty of contacts on my list from days of yore, who I leave on my list because sometimes I do decide to talk to them out of the blue.

There is an instant messaging client/service under development by AT&T (Currently for Windows & Palm only) called Hubbub. The application was designed to facilitate the study of awareness and informal opportunistic communications in the workplace. In a paper I came across when I was researching something entirely different at school, which I thought was very interesting, many of the participants in the study had comments similar to this:

People mentioned feeling closer to those who were on the opposite coast. One manager in New Jersey said about a colleague in California that by seeing her in Hubbub, "I know she's there. In some respects if she's not up here [in his bub list] and I don't see her, I don't think about her, I mean, for better or worse. But when she's there, and you can see she's doing stuff, she's sort of closer to the front of your consciousness." Interestingly, he never exchanged a conversation with her throughout the study, and yet he clearly liked seeing her in his Hubbub list.

The article is here: Hubbub: A sound-enhanced mobile instant messenger that supports awareness and opportunistic interactions. It's interesting and worth reading if you're of an academic persuasion.

Putting aside opinions about the features of Hubbub specifically (which I find somewhat intriguing but potentially irritating), what I drew from the study was the value of presence awareness, and the fact that current IM systems don't do enough to encourage it. At the very least, I don't think we'd be well served by decreasing awareness, certainly not mandatorily. As mentioned earlier, it's one of my biggest uses for IMing in general.

[twopeak]

oddfellow you managed to put my thoughts in words.
very nice...
I need a list at a space that is always visible for the way I like to use IM

[The_Tick]

I agree with the idea that the primary use for instant messaging apps isn't contact monitoring.

Well, for whatever it's worth, I disagree. In fact, one of my primary uses for Adium, and instant messaging in general, is awareness of contact presence.

Just to be clear, you primarily stare at a rather long list of contacts all day?

[oddfellow]

I agree with the idea that the primary use for instant messaging apps isn't contact monitoring.

Well, for whatever it's worth, I disagree. In fact, one of my primary uses for Adium, and instant messaging in general, is awareness of contact presence.

Just to be clear, you primarily stare at a rather long list of contacts all day?

No, because instant messaging is not all I do all day. But whenever I have Adium open, I always have the contact list open and at least partially visible, and I use it frequently to check the status of my contacts at a glance.

The purpose, as far as I was aware, of having a highly customizable contact list was not so that users can get it as invisible as possible, but so that users can make it as easy as possible to ascertain important information - in this case, contact presence, by using nothing but their eyes, and a quick glance at that. Requiring user interaction to make the contact list visible or in some other way bring up that information defeats one of the (but not the only) most important purposes of that UI element.

Also, my contact list is not that long. It is currently displaying 15 contacts, and because I have it sorted by status I can see who is available at a very quick glance.

[The_Tick]

Well, for whatever it's worth, I disagree. In fact, one of my primary uses for Adium, and instant messaging in general, is awareness of contact presence.

Just to be clear, you primarily stare at a rather long list of contacts all day?

No, because instant messaging is not all I do all day. But whenever I have Adium open, I always have the contact list open and at least partially visible, and I use it frequently to check the status of my contacts at a glance.

<snip>

Also, my contact list is not that long. It is currently displaying 15 contacts, and because I have it sorted by status I can see who is available at a very quick glance.

So you only need to have about 15 contacts out of how many status available at a quick glance?

[oddfellow]

Also, my contact list is not that long. It is currently displaying 15 contacts, and because I have it sorted by status I can see who is available at a very quick glance.

So you only need to have about 15 contacts out of how many status available at a quick glance?

The only reason that there are currently 15 displayed is that there are currently fifteen online. I have 56 contacts in my list, some of whom have not signed on in a very long time. But if they did, I'd want to know.

I would be unbelievably surprised to have all 56 online at one time.

[The_Tick]

Also, my contact list is not that long. It is currently displaying 15 contacts, and because I have it sorted by status I can see who is available at a very quick glance.

So you only need to have about 15 contacts out of how many status available at a quick glance?

The only reason that there are currently 15 displayed is that there are currently fifteen online. I have 56 contacts in my list, some of whom have not signed on in a very long time. But if they did, I'd want to know.

I would be unbelievably surprised to have all 56 online at one time.

Out of all those contacts, who do you actually need to see the status of. Don't tell me you *need* to see the immediate status of all 56 contacts all day every day, which is not the point of this exercise. How many do you actually *care* about the status of.