How to miss potentially important Google Chat notifications
There appears to be a significant flaw in the Google Chat notification
model that can easily cause desktop users to be unaware of important
chat replies for hours, days -- or indefinitely. It happened to me.
These notification issues may relate to the hangouts->chat migration.
On (linux) desktops, there's no longer a native official Google Chat
app, so if Chrome isn't running there are apparently no related
desktop notifications.
The desktop notification that Chrome throws when running (even when
not showing Gmail) is momentary, if you're not around at the moment it
pops you won't see or hear it.
If Gmail is visible and the user has chat in the sidebar (which many
don't since the sidebar takes up valuable real estate) you can see a
chat notification there.
But if there's no chat in the sidebar and you don't catch the other
momentary notifications, the only remaining clue on desktop that a
chat came in is in the email transcript that shows up in Gmail.
BUT! As far as I know those WON'T normally appear in the Gmail inbox
as new messages arrive in that chat thread.
That's the issue that happened to me. I was sent a message on an
existing chat thread that has been dormant for a while. I didn't see
any notifications since I was away from my desk without a nearby
smartphone.
I happened to be looking at Gmail All Mail later for a different
reason and noticed the chat reply in there -- three hours old. I then
tested from another account of my own and confirmed what appears to be
that behavior.
If this is indeed what's happening, users should have an option to
have these appear in inbox. Even better would be to also adhere to any
forwarding rules so that if the user routinely sends copies of inbound
email to another site as well, those transcripts would arrive there
too as another form of notification.
This seems like another case where anyone who doesn't have a
smartphone turned on 24/7 is seriously disadvantaged when it comes to
potentially important notifications. -L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): https://www.vortex.com/lauren
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
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