5 ms·

> ...The redundancy between chats, group chats, and Teams channels (which are like a message board?) is just bizarre and constantly causes confusion... Oh yeah

> ...The redundancy between chats, group chats, and Teams channels (which are like a message board?) is just bizarre and constantly causes confusion... Oh yeah, I'm with you! I'll admit that Slack's UX and UI is not my favorite either, but at least any challenges are in a single dimension (not like Teams in multiple, challenging dimensions)...Meanwhile Teams' is just awful. I mean, the Teams "rooms" (I guess i call them "rooms" because its annoying to call them "Teams Sites"?) almost exist like channels/rooms in good ol' IRC...but then Teams has channels underneath Teams Sites/rooms...?...Plus, if i want to chat with an indiviodual, those live in the separate "Chat" area...Ugh! To the valid point about slack, at least its all there on the left. I guess i could sort of see if there was drastically different functionality between Chats and Rooms/Sites...but i dont think so. So, why then separate them? As much as i dislike Microsoft as an organization overall (for their historic corporate behavior), they often don't jhave the worse UX ideas...But for Teams, ugh! I'm gpoing to pivot a little to matrix, and specifically the Element client...which is the most popular matrix web client. I'm an admitted matrix fanboy, so clearly i'm biased...but even Element has areas that are simpler for me to comprehend and utilize...Also, Element in my mind is still waaaaay early in its evolution, and still very much far from their UX being topnotch. But even in Element's infancy is leaps abovew what Teams is now after several years. I acknowledge that Teams "does more" (like embedding Office software, etc.)...and of course the underlying matrix protocol is NOT limited to chat...But, wow, is Teams sucky.

easton 5y ago
Teams is bad, but Element/Matrix is the only chat app I've used in maybe 10 years (outside of SMS) where I miss messages. I get a notification, want to read the entire message, open the app and it isn't there. I'm 99% sure it didn't get deleted, but I'll never know what it said. And since iOS makes the notification go away when you tap it, I can't even see what it was. Discord should just sell a white label version or start a subsidiary to sell to enterprise. Slack will probably get smushed by Salesforce, and short of Satya Nadella's personal laptop bursting into flames because of Teams, I doubt they'll slim down the client.
- _rutinerad 5y ago
  You can see previous notifications by swiping up on the lock screen.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  I use Element on Android and it works perfectly. I don't say that lightly, I'm pretty hard to please in general. Element is one of the few pieces of software that I don't have a complaint about.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    Actually I just thought of the single problem that I have with it - it doesn't support multiple identities. https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/2320 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/2320 Other than that it works great though.
- mxuribe 5y ago
  > ...Element/Matrix is the only chat app I've used in maybe 10 years (outside of SMS) where I miss messages... That sure is odd...and not my experience at all. > ...short of Satya Nadella's personal laptop bursting into flames because of Teams, I doubt they'll slim down the client. Sadly, i think you're right.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    So there is hope, the Teams dev team may just be able to accomplish this
- NamTaf 5y ago
  Teams is moving away from electron in v2.0, which may go some way towards slimming down the client but won't solve any of the architectural issues that come with a lack of focus. https://office365itpros.com/2021/06/25/teams20-webview2-replaces-electron/ https://office365itpros.com/2021/06/25/teams20-webview2-repl...
- Arathorn 5y ago
ethbr0 5y ago
My introduction to Teams was creating a chat room, trying to add someone not on our actual org team into it, and Teams telling me that I couldn't have non-Team members in that kind of chat. Which... was bizarre, coming from Slack. As parent phrased it, "the redundancy between chats, group chats, and Teams channels" is mind-bogglingly stupid. I can't actually imagine a user who would desire that. Maybe someone from HR worried about secrets being shared in a chat?
- mxuribe 5y ago
  Welcome to MS Teams...The chat platform for *YOUR* people, and not *Those Others*! lol > ...Maybe someone from HR worried about secrets being shared in a chat? Your phrase there immediately made me think of that Catbert evil HR director character from Dilbert...which is exactly the kind of thing he would want to have setup! :-)
  - AitchEmArsey 5y ago
    > Welcome to MS Teams...The chat platform for YOUR people, and not Those Others! lol This is very true, and hugely problematic. As a consultant I have to use Teams with 3 separate clients right now, which means signing in to 3 different Teams tenants - Microsoft SSO does not like that at all. I have a personal hatred for MS because of their long history of building shit like this, but I hoped that working for a different cloud provider would keep me away from that ecosystem - it was legitimately a positive benefit I perceived about this job when thinking about the move. Alas, the cancer of MS software gets everywhere by virtue of being effectively free for anyone using Office.
    - mxuribe 5y ago
      Ouch, that's quite painful the way that you're experiencing Teams. My sympathies! :-)

easton 5y ago

Teams is bad, but Element/Matrix is the only chat app I've used in maybe 10 years (outside of SMS) where I miss messages. I get a notification, want to read the entire message, open the app and it isn't there. I'm 99% sure it didn't get deleted, but I'll never know what it said. And since iOS makes the notification go away when you tap it, I can't even see what it was. Discord should just sell a white label version or start a subsidiary to sell to enterprise. Slack will probably get smushed by Salesforce, and short of Satya Nadella's personal laptop bursting into flames because of Teams, I doubt they'll slim down the client.

_rutinerad 5y ago
You can see previous notifications by swiping up on the lock screen.
brokenmachine 5y ago
I use Element on Android and it works perfectly. I don't say that lightly, I'm pretty hard to please in general. Element is one of the few pieces of software that I don't have a complaint about.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  Actually I just thought of the single problem that I have with it - it doesn't support multiple identities. https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/2320 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/2320 Other than that it works great though.
mxuribe 5y ago
> ...Element/Matrix is the only chat app I've used in maybe 10 years (outside of SMS) where I miss messages... That sure is odd...and not my experience at all. > ...short of Satya Nadella's personal laptop bursting into flames because of Teams, I doubt they'll slim down the client. Sadly, i think you're right.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  So there is hope, the Teams dev team may just be able to accomplish this
NamTaf 5y ago
Teams is moving away from electron in v2.0, which may go some way towards slimming down the client but won't solve any of the architectural issues that come with a lack of focus. https://office365itpros.com/2021/06/25/teams20-webview2-replaces-electron/ https://office365itpros.com/2021/06/25/teams20-webview2-repl...
Arathorn 5y ago

ethbr0 5y ago

My introduction to Teams was creating a chat room, trying to add someone not on our actual org team into it, and Teams telling me that I couldn't have non-Team members in that kind of chat. Which... was bizarre, coming from Slack. As parent phrased it, "the redundancy between chats, group chats, and Teams channels" is mind-bogglingly stupid. I can't actually imagine a user who would desire that. Maybe someone from HR worried about secrets being shared in a chat?

mxuribe 5y ago
Welcome to MS Teams...The chat platform for *YOUR* people, and not *Those Others*! lol > ...Maybe someone from HR worried about secrets being shared in a chat? Your phrase there immediately made me think of that Catbert evil HR director character from Dilbert...which is exactly the kind of thing he would want to have setup! :-)
- AitchEmArsey 5y ago
  > Welcome to MS Teams...The chat platform for YOUR people, and not Those Others! lol This is very true, and hugely problematic. As a consultant I have to use Teams with 3 separate clients right now, which means signing in to 3 different Teams tenants - Microsoft SSO does not like that at all. I have a personal hatred for MS because of their long history of building shit like this, but I hoped that working for a different cloud provider would keep me away from that ecosystem - it was legitimately a positive benefit I perceived about this job when thinking about the move. Alas, the cancer of MS software gets everywhere by virtue of being effectively free for anyone using Office.
  - mxuribe 5y ago
    Ouch, that's quite painful the way that you're experiencing Teams. My sympathies! :-)