You're entirely right about the quality of writing that comes out. I wouldn't be so quick to blame the users, though. The tools have settled on general design decisions that encourage this usage, primarily:
1. Input boxes too short to see more than a few lines of text, and of course they are not resizable.
2. Pressing <enter> sends the message, so you can't really write more than a paragraph anyway. It's usually possible to insert CRLF by something undiscoverable like shift-<enter>, but you're nervous the whole time you type it in case it sends before you're ready.
3. No spell checking.
It would be an interesting experiment to see if behavior changed much just by addressing these 3 simple items.
Ha. I would hope it would be at least a little better, like the incomplete thoughts are at least correctly spelled. But maybe the whole idea of "chat" puts the user in a frame of mind that prefers speed of writing over all else.
I think you've hit the nail on the head! People respond to the incentives they're given, and those certainly are the incentives here. Quite the opposite of an email app or a programmer's editor.
Comments
You're entirely right about the quality of writing that comes out. I wouldn't be so quick to blame the users, though. The tools have settled on general design decisions that encourage this usage, primarily:
1. Input boxes too short to see more than a few lines of text, and of course they are not resizable.
2. Pressing <enter> sends the message, so you can't really write more than a paragraph anyway. It's usually possible to insert CRLF by something undiscoverable like shift-<enter>, but you're nervous the whole time you type it in case it sends before you're ready.
3. No spell checking.
It would be an interesting experiment to see if behavior changed much just by addressing these 3 simple items.
We use a chat program with all three of those, and it doesn't fix any of those problems.
Ha. I would hope it would be at least a little better, like the incomplete thoughts are at least correctly spelled. But maybe the whole idea of "chat" puts the user in a frame of mind that prefers speed of writing over all else.
I think you've hit the nail on the head! People respond to the incentives they're given, and those certainly are the incentives here. Quite the opposite of an email app or a programmer's editor.