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Example UI Spec: Text Instant Messages By Ellen Isaacs This page last updated: September 13, 2000 Figure P7. Bub screen Users can also send each other Text Instant Messages (TIMs), which are equivalent to the instant messages of such programs as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Pager, ICQ, Excite PAL, etc. The difference is that the users can send these messages between wireless Palms or between computer desktops and Palms. To initiate a text message, the user taps on the name of the person from the Hubbub main screen. This brings up the Bub screen for that person, as shown in Figure P6. To start an instant message, the user types a message into the text area at the bottom of the screen and taps "Send." If the other person is accepting text messages from this person, the Text Message screen appears on the user's screen, as shown in Figure P7. Figure P8a shows a conversation that has already been in progress. Each time a user send a message, that message appears at the bottom of the scrolling area and the rest of the conversation scrolls up. The user's comments are in regular type and the other person's comments are in bold. The header of a TIM indicates the time at which the conversation was initiated, it does not update with each new contribution. Users can also send Sound Instant Messages as part of their text messages. Figure P8a. Text message screen Figure P8b. SIM menu To do so, they tap the menu button at the bottom left of the screen to bring up the SIM menu, as shown in Figure P8b. If the user has created their own sound messages, then those appear in the menu as well. When a user sends a sound message, the sound plays for both of them, and the icon for that message appears in-line in the text, on its own line followed by the label and preceded by the name of the sender (seen in P8a). To save on memory, the TIM screen does not retain a history of all the messages in a given conversation. Instead, the last 100 messages (from either person) are available, but if the user tries to scroll back beyond that, the messages are no longer available. To end a conversation, the user taps the Done button. They are returned to the main screen, showing whatever group was last displayed. When a user receives a text message, the incoming text message sound plays followed by the sound of the person sending the message. In addition, the text message window automatically displays on their screen except for a few cases. Namely, if they are already in a conversation with someone else, then the newly created conversation appears in the IM menu and the number next to the menu changes to reflect the new conversation, but the screen does not switch to the new message. To see the new conversation, the user pulls down the menu and switches to it. The other exception is when the user has a blocking popup on their screen. These appear when the user is in the middle of some action and needs to provide input to complete it, e.g. adding a user, changing the name of a group. In this situation, the sounds play when the message arrives, and as soon as the user closes the popup, the incoming message appears. [Might be better to give it something like two seconds so they can see that whatever they were doing took effect before being moved off. We'll probably need to tweak this behavior, since it's very annoying to have things happen when you're in the middle of something else.] Each time the person sends a new message to an existing conversation, just the TIM sound plays (without the Sound ID of that person). [Maybe you hear the SID if you're not looking at that window, or maybe SIDs only announce new conversations. We could also do something to show which message has unseen contributions, e.g. make that name in the menu bold, to help you Figure out which message to look at next.] The TIM screen provides information about the other person's focus and activity in their TIM window with this user. Specifically, an icon to the right of the bub's name indicates which of three states they are in: (a) typing in this IM window, (b) viewing or has focus in this IM window but is not typing, and (c) not viewing (Palm) or does not have focus (desktop) in their window for this exchange. As the other person switches between different states, the icon updates to reflect this information. Figures P8a and P8b show the icon for "focus in the window," and "typing in the window." The menu in Figure P9 shows all three states, including "no focus in window." This TIM activity indicator enables people to coordinate their conversation, which is bound to be punctuated by pauses given the speed at which people can write on the Palm. Users can interpret whether the long pause is because the other person is composing a long response or because they're busy doing something else, and then adjust accordingly. Figure P9. Text message screen with menu Users can have more than one conversation active at once. The menu in the upper right of Figure P9 shows that this user has three such conversations active. The number the the left to the menu also indicates the number of active IMs. (If there is only one active IM, however, no number appears, since a 1 is more likely to be confusing than helpful.) To switch among the conversations, the user taps the menu and selects another one. Alternatively, the user can put the current conversation "on hold" by tapping the "Hold" button, which brings the user back to the main screen but keeps this conversation "active." (This is the equivalent of moving focus to another window in the desktop world.) Being active means that it still appears in the IM menu, the history of messages in that exchange (up to 100) is retained, the IM icon appears with the bub's entry on the main screen (see the listing for Ellen), and the timestamp for the conversation continues to show the time the exchange began. (The icon next to the user's name on the main window is the same icon used to indicate the bub's activity in their TIM window and it updates on the main screen just as it does on that IM window.) In addition, if there are any active IMs, the main screen has an IM button at the bottom of the window, regardless of which group they're looking at. Tapping that takes the user back to the IM window showing the last IM they were in. If there are no active IMs, this button does not appear. (This is intended to make it quicker to get back to an IM even if the user is not looking at the group that contains their current IM partner.) When the user returns to the conversation, everything appears as it did before, with perhaps additional messages at the bottom if the bub has entered any. If the user wants to end the conversation, they tap the "Done" button on the IM window. (This is the equivalent of closing an IM window in the desktop world.) The conversation no longer appears in the menu and there is no way to "get back to it." However, note that the other person may not have "closed" their end of the IM. If they send a new message, the recipient experiences that as a new conversation being started from that person, with a new initiation time and no history of previous messages. Figure P10. Email screen If the user tries to send a text (or sound) message to someone who is offline, then a window pops up, as shown in Figure P10. Since the would only get the screen if they had already typed a message into the text field first, that message is provided in the text area so the user can either send it as is, or modify it and then send it by tapping the Send button. When it arrives in the recipient's inbox, the Subject is "Hubbub message from {Bubname}." Since the message must be short, the interface allows only 512 characters. If the user tries to write more, the character is not echoed and the interface beeps. [Note: if scrolling doesn't come for free on this screen, then the message can be only as long as this interface allows, which is about 170 characters. We will not implement scrolling just for this window.] If the user taps Cancel, then they are returned to that Bub's Bub screen.