[jojon2se]

Ok, I'll be the one to step into the flames and support the OP here, because (myself having lost an important SMS thread to this, in the past) I fully agree with his arguments about consistency, ambiguity, and intuitivity, if not his initial belligerence.

Now; one caveat: I use my BB10 device with a non-English language, and the localisation has a couple of other questionable wordings (...such as dismissing/acknowledging an alarm, using a button named labelled "ignore", which is really, really backwards), so maybe things are less misleading in English - I don't know...

Why should anybody assume that a single message, listed in the hub, represents the entire conversation exchange of multiple messages, that it is part of? How is that obvious to anybody who has not been told beforehand?
That the entire thread comes up when the message is tapped, only speaks of helpfully collating presentation - nothing more.

I see three menu items:

- At long-press on a message in the hub: "Remove"
- At long-press on a message in conversation view: "Remove message"
- Bringing up the side menu without any selection, in the converation view: "End chat"

What the confirmation requester says is immaterial here: What the option does, should be clear in its presentation.

I would definitely expect that long press in the hub to default to only deleting the shown message and no more -- otherwise the trashcan should be clearly labelled: "End chat", just like its counterpart in the thread view, or better; something less ambigous, like: "Delete entire thread". Actually I would argue there should be two items: One for just the message, and one for the entire thread, just as the list of downloaded files, in the web browser, should offer the option to both remove a file's entry in the downloads list, and the file itself.

[jojon2se]

Long press in the hub it clearly states all your messages will be deleted not 1 or 10 all of them it's not that hard to determine what one and all are

I am most certainly not holding it against somebody, if they do not carefully read a fully expected confirmation requester every time after knowing exactly which button they pressed to bring it up.

I am confirming that: "Yes, I meant to press that button (just as I may have pressed identical buttons 15 times in a row, recently), it wasn't just an accidental grazing touch"; Not :"Yes, I confirm that I want to do a different action than the one I clearly selected".

[slagman5]

Long press in the hub it clearly states all your messages will be deleted not 1 or 10 all of them it's not that hard to determine what one and all are

Attachment 345223

Posted via CB10

Yes, I can't believe that it has the nerve to delete all of my messages when it just says that it will delete all of my messages... /sarcasm

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

[RichardHBB]

April 1st trolled? No other reasonable explanation.

Richard

[Kimberella]

Yes, I can't believe that it has the nerve to delete all of my messages when it just says that it will delete all of my messages... /sarcasm

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

Ahhhh, sarcasm...
/no sarcasm

Posted via CB10

[niss63]

Okay, so there are a few problems here.

I think people have already addressed the failure to read the prompt, so I'll leave that one alone. Also, we've covered the removal of sent and received messages.

I think what's at fault here is the lack of a good way to clear a message that is in the middle of being composed that you decide to abandon and not send. So really what we need is a "Discard Message" option. You could put it in the overflow menu AND for a little extra bonus, have the Hub detect an unsent composition and prompt the user to Discard Message or End Conversation in the popup box. I think we could all agree that while the current way is OK, that this solution would be more OK.

As an extra tip for the OP, if you need to delete a bunch of text, you can always use the text selection handles to highlight the whole message and then tap delete, or use the multi-finger "swipe left to delete" gesture on the virtual KB (# of fingers used is number of words at a time deleted)

Wow, someone that has really made an effort to understand the OP's complaint. I agree with him and I think your idea us a workable solution.

Posted via CB10

[RoyaleWChz]

By all of your logic who think it should only delete one message you would be turning your hub into a messaging app where EVERY single message would appear. The hub is linking to a conversation in the text app, otherwise the whole convo would show in the hub.

This is a UI basic

8310 -> 9800 -> 9900 -> Q10 -> Z30 -> Passport ftw

[BMCruiser]

A little off topic, but still relevant here I think. The side menu has a "clear chat" button as well as "end chat ". Based on the contents of their respective dialogue boxes, they both do the same thing. Can someone explain please?

Posted via CB10

[Pranka Johnson]

Going through this thread made me wonder if any other phone does what the OP suggested. Does Android, iOS, or Windows act that way?

Posted via CB10

[RyanGermann]

I think the decision by the OS developers to use the term "End Chat" was wrong: it should be "Delete Chat" because that is effectively what it does. Modern UX principles push for more clarity, less "conformity". The dialog shouldn't have had "End Chat" and "Cancel" buttons, which is ambiguous because "End Chat" is ambiguous. The buttons should have been labeled "Delete All Messages" and "Cancel".

So I will suggest that BlackBerry change all uses of "End Chat" to "End Chat and Delete Messages" or "Delete Chat" because that's real effect of what this action does. Also, change the text of the buttons from "End Chat" & "Cancel" to "Delete All Messages" & "Cancel". Avoiding data loss through well designed UI should be a primary concern of UI designers, and they failed to do that in this case.

To the OP:

If the button DID say "Delete All Messages" and you clicked it anyway, you'd have no one to blame but yourself... but that isn't the case, so you're only PARTIALLY (mostly?) to blame.

You hastily clicked "End Chat" without reading the description of what would be done. If I had a nickel for every time I did that and got burned by it (including cases like when I type the start of an email address into the "to" field in an email compose window, and the wrong address is inserted, and I send it without checking) I'd be a rich man.

One question not answered: do you have a backup? I backup my device weekly, as well as syncing my schedule and contacts list to remote services. I backup my SD Card manually once in a while too.

If you have a backup then you can hopefully recover most of your lost data, except for messages that came in after your last backup. I will recommend an app that has saved me trouble in the past: Backup Pro by Fire Chest from BlackBerry World. It allows for discrete backup of specific data types in a manner superior to BlackBerry Link (and I've given BlackBerry Support an earful on my opinion that backups should be an integrated feature of the device not something you need a third party app for, so let's see what they do on that issue going forward).

So, the initial prompt wasn't clear enough, a poor choice of words. I bet a smartphone novice would have read the description of the action on the prompt dialog and NOT pressed "End Chat" hastily, but I guess you thought you knew what "End Chat" meant, when in this case it clearly meant something else, something else that was EXPLAINED but you didn't read it.

Plenty of blame to go around here, and again, if the OP is culpable for not reading the prompt, then BlackBerry development is culpable for not choosing proper prompt title text to adequately inform the user of the severity of the action. "End Chat" is not a synonym for "delete all historical data" even if "that's how it works" on other devices. UX designers need to do more to ensure users don't fall into traps from vague terms. That might include use of garish flashing blinking red bars or whatnot so the user knows what they are doing can not be undone and they shouldn't not proceed without due consideration.

(In my app designs, I present a "wall of text" on dialogs so users see this and go "whoa. what the heck!?" and stop and READ it because they KNOW the text even at a glance dosesn't just say "are you sure?". When data will be eradicated (another word I like to use on prompts where data will be deleted) I certainly want the user to stop, pause, understand, THEN choose to either cancel or proceed.)

[Al moon]

Above post it does say when you click delete that it will delete all the messages and gives you the option to confirm or cancel

Posted via CB10

[Tim_treo]

RyanGermann & jojon2se: Thanks, you took the time to try and understand the problem.

So there are actually two problems, the second of which is more serious.

Problem #1:As you both of you point out, it is not at all obvious that the even if one reads the button that it will delete ALL of the messages. The UI designers could have just as easily chosen this to delete a single message in the SMS thread if they had wanted since this IS an option one has ordinarily. This is a mistake a user will make once however.

Problem #2: (jojon2se alluded to this): If one is triaging and deleting 10-15 emails in the Hub in rapid succession the process goes like this: long press the message and then hit confirm delete when the confirmation requester pops up. Repeat and go to the next message. While doing this, no one bothers to read the text in the requester dialog when it pops up. You know what is going to happen, you're seen the message hundreds of times before. The problem arises if one accidentally selects a text message instead (not hard to do on a small screen), the expected confirmation requester pops up, but in this case we have 'End Chat' confirmation is in the lower right corner exactly where the confirmation to delete an email is normally. It's not hard to accidentally go ahead and click this button, especially if one is intending to delete an email just like they've immediately done 15 times immediately prior. You can't hold it against the user that they aren't carefully reading the fine print each time. But in this scenario, the user has now deleted an entire SMS thread from which there is no way to recover.

The is a problem specific to the Blackberry platform because the Hub mixes emails, texts, etc.. all together. Which is great overall in my opinion, but it does mean the UI designers need to implement conformity between behaviors for different types of messages, especially if non-conformity involves permanently deleting data.

That's it for me on this. I'm newish to blackberry and I like the platform. I'm happy to give all the CB members someone to trash too. I imagine for many of these people, it was the highlight of the tedium of their day-to-day life.

[slagman5]

I think the decision by the OS developers to use the term "End Chat" was wrong: it should be "Delete Chat" because that is effectively what it does. Modern UX principles push for more clarity, less "conformity". The dialog shouldn't have had "End Chat" and "Cancel" buttons, which is ambiguous because "End Chat" is ambiguous. The buttons should have been labeled "Delete All Messages" and "Cancel".

So I will suggest that BlackBerry change all uses of "End Chat" to "End Chat and Delete Messages" or "Delete Chat" because that's real effect of what this action does. Also, change the text of the buttons from "End Chat" & "Cancel" to "Delete All Messages" & "Cancel". Avoiding data loss through well designed UI should be a primary concern of UI designers, and they failed to do that in this case.

To the OP:

If the button DID say "Delete All Messages" and you clicked it anyway, you'd have no one to blame but yourself... but that isn't the case, so you're only PARTIALLY (mostly?) to blame.

You hastily clicked "End Chat" without reading the description of what would be done. If I had a nickel for every time I did that and got burned by it (including cases like when I type the start of an email address into the "to" field in an email compose window, and the wrong address is inserted, and I send it without checking) I'd be a rich man.

One question not answered: do you have a backup? I backup my device weekly, as well as syncing my schedule and contacts list to remote services. I backup my SD Card manually once in a while too.

If you have a backup then you can hopefully recover most of your lost data, except for messages that came in after your last backup. I will recommend an app that has saved me trouble in the past: Backup Pro by Fire Chest from BlackBerry World. It allows for discrete backup of specific data types in a manner superior to BlackBerry Link (and I've given BlackBerry Support an earful on my opinion that backups should be an integrated feature of the device not something you need a third party app for, so let's see what they do on that issue going forward).

So, the initial prompt wasn't clear enough, a poor choice of words. I bet a smartphone novice would have read the description of the action on the prompt dialog and NOT pressed "End Chat" hastily, but I guess you thought you knew what "End Chat" meant, when in this case it clearly meant something else, something else that was EXPLAINED but you didn't read it.

Plenty of blame to go around here, and again, if the OP is culpable for not reading the prompt, then BlackBerry development is culpable for not choosing proper prompt title text to adequately inform the user of the severity of the action. "End Chat" is not a synonym for "delete all historical data" even if "that's how it works" on other devices. UX designers need to do more to ensure users don't fall into traps from vague terms. That might include use of garish flashing blinking red bars or whatnot so the user knows what they are doing can not be undone and they shouldn't not proceed without due consideration.

(In my app designs, I present a "wall of text" on dialogs so users see this and go "whoa. what the heck!?" and stop and READ it because they KNOW the text even at a glance dosesn't just say "are you sure?". When data will be eradicated (another word I like to use on prompts where data will be deleted) I certainly want the user to stop, pause, understand, THEN choose to either cancel or proceed.)

Give it a try, it clearly states that it will delete all messages...

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

[undone]

I am still looking for a button to "End Chat" for this thread....
Sorry couldn't resist.

Nothing wrong with how SMS/Text messaging is handled. Each dialog is treated as a continual conversation (aka thread), you can clear it (removing all messages but not close the thread) kind of pointless to me but I bet someone used it, you can delete particulars from within a dialog/thread, and you can End Chat closing and deleting the thread. There are third party tools that allow you to back up SMS (someone suggested at least one).

Email: I found with different services comes different results. My Active sync works the best I think. Connects to my exchange server, I am able to delete messages and those messages go into the Deleted Items giving me an option/chance to grab something back if I totally messed up. I have another email account thats pop and I have to manage both sides which is just a pain, but I blame pop not my phone.

[CecilTsunami]

Yep, that's exactly the option I'm going to resort to. Which means my shiny Blackberry is kinda' useless for triaging email if I'm going to have to do all over again when at my desk. I woulda' just bought an iPhone in that case. I'm sure the CrackBerry cognoscenti thinks that would be a better match ability-wise. Those iPhone shiny icons are very pretty!

So ignoring the attitude, you do realize you can get it to prompt you for every message to either delete off the phone or delete off the server, right?

Posted via CB10

[guygardner73]

I didn't long press the 'thread'. I long pressed a SINGLE message showing up in the Hub, just like when deleting a single email.

This is really crap UI. Someone should be shot.

If I long press a green draft message in the hub, it only deletes that message. If I open the message thread and long press any single message, I have the option to delete that message only. If I long press the thread in the hub, I can delete the whole thread. Not sure what the issue is.

PassportSQW100-1/10.3.1.2576 O2 UK

[greenberry666]

I'm with OP on this one.

Some of the wording (End Chat rather than Delete Entire Thread)is ambiguous and silly.

What if I'm deleting emails when I'm drunk as a skunk and I tap and delete an SMS that's really a file containing a whole thread of filth sent from one of my honeys?

That stuff is like gold. I'd be poorer for it.

Also CB, if someone is upset about something it's better to listen and pacify than jump in with your kicking-boots.

Z30 STA100-2. 10.3.1.747

[quangtran1]

I am still looking for a button to "End Chat" for this thread....
Sorry couldn't resist.

You have more guts than I do for having written that. But, I thought exactly that 3 days ago.

[Al moon]

I'm with OP on this one.

Some of the wording (End Chat rather than Delete Entire Thread)is ambiguous and silly.

What if I'm deleting emails when I'm drunk as a skunk and I tap and delete an SMS that's really a file containing a whole thread of filth sent from one of my honeys?

That stuff is like gold. I'd be poorer for it.

Also CB, if someone is upset about something it's better to listen and pacify than jump in with your kicking-boots.

Z30 STA100-2. 10.3.1.747

ok but thats not what happens, it tells you before deleting that if you do go ahead and delete, all the messages will be deleted it clearly states ALL the messages will be deleted. now as far as being drunk and operating phones you know you can get into a ton of trouble like calling the bosses daughter at 3am for a booty call

[greenberry666]

Yea, I'm aware that the OS corrects itself and uses the proper terminology at the final pop-up, just before you wipe every single one of those sizzling, saucy messages.

However, I think the OS should use the proper terminology from the start of the process.

Z30 STA100-2. 10.3.1.747

[slagman5]

If I long press a green draft message in the hub, it only deletes that message. If I open the message thread and long press any single message, I have the option to delete that message only. If I long press the thread in the hub, I can delete the whole thread. Not sure what the issue is.

PassportSQW100-1/10.3.1.2576 O2 UK

"It's the nut behind the wheel."

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

[slagman5]

I'm with OP on this one.

Some of the wording (End Chat rather than Delete Entire Thread)is ambiguous and silly.

What if I'm deleting emails when I'm drunk as a skunk and I tap and delete an SMS that's really a file containing a whole thread of filth sent from one of my honeys?

That stuff is like gold. I'd be poorer for it.

Also CB, if someone is upset about something it's better to listen and pacify than jump in with your kicking-boots.

Z30 STA100-2. 10.3.1.747

Yah, you're right! "If you end a chat, all messages in the conversation will be deleted." Is just so ambiguous. I wish that somewhere in there it should mention that all messages in the conversation will be deleted or something like that...

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

[slagman5]

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

[Al moon]

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

you know thats just to clear to understand i dont know if i get the meaning of it maybe because its so simple we might be missing something kinda like who's buried in Grants tomb

[Kimberella]

Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10

Posted via CB10