Sometimes, seemingly the most inconsequential UX change can have great and negative impact. In a new test over what feels like the past 24 hours, Google Messages has swapped the “Reply” and “Remind 1 hr” buttons in the notification shade. The result of this is that I and others keep setting reminders for messages instead of quickly replying, and let me tell you, it’s annoying beyond belief!
Previously, when someone texted you, what appeared in your notification tray had options for “Mark as read”, “Reply”, and then “Remind 1 hr” in that order. Now, Google has shuffled this layout, placing the “Reply” button on the far right. On paper, positioning “Reply” here could be perceived as making it more accessible and streamlined, but, in practicality, users familiar with the original layout, myself included, are finding this rearrangement to be jarring and unwelcome.
This seems to be an A/B test that not everyone has, and for those that do, they’re on the latest beta release of the Messages app. It seems 9to5Google is also pretty irritated by this change, and I share that sentiment.
Over the past 24 hours, I’ve found myself repeatedly tapping the wrong button out of sheer habit, and then having to go into the chat, pull up the reminder that was set, and delete it. Google, while a giant in innovation, might need a reminder (pun intended) that sometimes, it’s best to ask in a survey before changing something so central to the user experience.
Anyway, now that I’ve got that out of my system, we’ll see if the company swaps the buttons back to where they “belong”. I think something like this would take too much effort to onboard millions of people accustomed to the standard they’ve trained their brains on to switch, but we’ll see if they stick to their guns on the change. Let me know in the comments if you’ve set a bunch of unnecessary reminders over the past day or so, and if it’s driving you nuts as much as it is me!
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