Private message notification

[Reverend Jim]

When I get onto Daniweb I notice that the private message icon (speech bubble) next to my avatar has a little red dot. I believe that was to notify me that I have one or more PMs waiting to be read. However when I go to the message centre there is nothing new and when I return to the previous page (even doing a refresh) the dot is still there. Is this normal?

[Dani]

Hi,

I need to work on making it a better user experience. My first guess is what is happening is that you received a new message belonging to a conversation that you have previously archived, so the conversation isn't showing up for you. Try this:

1. Click on the speech bubble with the red dot
2. At the top of the conversation list, to the left of where it says Username Search, is a little Filter icon
3. Click the Filter icon and then select either "New" or "Notifications"

Do your new messages show up when you select either of those?

[Reverend Jim]

Indeed they did. And once displayed, the red dot went away.

[Dani]

What would make it a better user experience?

Should we not show a red dot if you get a new message in a conversation you've previously archived? Since you have to manually click the Archive button, we assume you don't want these conversations to be shown by default for a reason.

[Dani]

I've been thinking about this a bit more. I feel like I'm stuck in a bit of a catch-22 because, on one hand, you archived the conversation to hide it for a reason, and on the other hand, not wanting to see the conversation in your chat list doesn't necessarily mean you never want to be alerted if a new message comes through.

[Reverend Jim]

I keep a small number of people in my non-archived list. I only archive people to get rid of the mostly automated messages. If someone in the archives sends me a new message I am fine with the name popping back into the active list.

[Dani]

The way it currently works is that the conversation is unarchived the next time you actively visit it. Since you were the one to manually click to archive it, I wanted you to also be the one in control of when it would get unarchived. I thought it would be a poor experience if you manually archive something, and then it's someone else's activity that is capable of undoing your preference.

[Reverend Jim]

OK. At least I know the red dot really means there is something new, and now I know where to look.

[Dani]

The thing is, I agree that it's a bad user experience seeing a red dot, and then clicking and not seeing anything new. I'm just unsure of how to improve this part of the experience without sacrificing a different part of the experience (namely, where you manually set a preference setting, and then some other user's behavior unsets that preference for you).