7 ms·
The author seems to imply the smart reply buttons immediately send an email with the chosen phrase. This is incorrect. They open an email draft beginning with t
by glacials 8y ago
The author seems to imply the smart reply buttons immediately send an email with the chosen phrase. This is incorrect. They open an email draft beginning with the chosen phrase.
There are many times I've used one of these buttons to begin a much more detailed email. Not only do they save a few keystrokes, but they help you get past that first wave of "blank canvas" writer's block.
- exhilaration 8y agoThe text message suggestions send an immediate message. They're super-useful.
- JBiserkov 8y agoIs this perhaps different on mobile vs [desktop] web?
- tgb 8y agoText message versus gmail, actually. And the difference makes a lot of sense since no one expects a single text to contain all the information of a reply and also texts are more likely to be time sensitive and so reducing friction to answer is good.
- lordgrenville 8y agoAnnoyingly, LinkedIn's messaging system does this (both on mobile and desktop). I probably don't mean to send a two-word response to a long message from a professional contact.
- adrianratnapala 8y agoBut for some reason, LinkedIn has twitter envy, or at least Facebook envy. It's like how Nature seems constantly put out that it stuck being the premier journal for high end research and wants to make it's presentation and editorial content look as much like Scientific American as possible.
- lordgrenville 8y agoHa, that bit about Nature is spot-on.
- elhudy 8y agoBe careful with that draft - the smart replies 'reply all'. Found this one out the hard way.
- ben509 8y agoHeh... despite seeing them on literally every email I've responded to, so possibly hundreds of times, I have never been okay with sending a derpy "That sounds great!" email, so I never realized they don't automatically send it. It's amazing that they managed to fail at discoverability despite putting the controls right in front of me.
- abainbridge 8y agoI have the same problem with messaging apps, where I can't tell whether pressing return inserts a newline or sends the message. I find myself avoiding newlines altogether because I'm scared of pressing return. Or, accidentally hitting return and sending a half formed jumbled mess to my boss/customer. Please, developers of the world, make return insert a new line. It's much easier to undo than message-send.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y agoLooking at you slack.
- wlesieutre 8y agoDoesn't Slack have an option for this?
- ben509 8y agoBetter than that: in Slack, it changes when you type triple-grave to open a code block. I see the logic, but it's nuts from a UX perspective. I wouldn't mind so much if Slack and other offenders had a delayed send option so I could undo my f*ups.
- lifeformed 8y agoAnd then for the places that do enter=send, they'll have ctrl+enter or shift+enter as newline, and vice versa.
- iBelieve 8y ago
- vonnik 8y agoIt's hard for me to understand why the fact that Google's autoreply exists is objectionable. If you don't like the response, don't use it. Nobody is the poorer. For those looking at a more nuanced critique, the Baffler published this: https://thebaffler.com/latest/nudging-the-lexicon-haigney https://thebaffler.com/latest/nudging-the-lexicon-haigney I think it captures the effects of autoreply more accurately, at least the effects of a writer living outside of Silicon Valley. While Google's suggestions may often be off-base, they are also often reasonable, but they may shift your register a little. That is, they are designed for people using email to make quick decisions and respond in a professional way.
- icebraining 8y agoI'm curious, how do you see that critique as materially different? Seems to make the same two points, the influence on human language and its role in strengthening Google's data dominance.
- SamBam 8y agoPeople can object to auto-reply's contribution to the degradation of conversations, even if they, themselves, don't use it. That was the topic of about half the article.
- A2017U1 8y agoI've gotten email responses that look like a suggested autoreply and it makes me judge the person and value of the conversation. The person may have typed it but it comes across that way. Happy to use an email provider that doesn't have a bot reading my mail.
- fipple 8y agoThe suggestions probably come from people’s email, so as the system gets better, you’ll be judging someone just because Gmail later plagiarized them.
- analogmemory 8y agoIn my experience gmail is now offering to complete your sentence. I'll be a few words into a sentence and it'll give me an example of what it thinks I'm writing (in light grey text). If it hit enter it'll fill it in fully. If I keep writing something else it'll go away. It's decently helpful. I find it akin to something that Grammerly is doing but more visually low-key
- GordonS 8y agoI actually find this slows me down, even if I hit tab to use what it's suggested - it's distracting having the suggestion change as you type, and I find myself stopping to read what it's suggested before accepting it or restarting typing, which loses my thread of concentration.
- scintill76 8y agoLinkedIn embarrassed me a bit with one-click-sending a line I thought I could edit/extend before sending.