IM Presence
There are five basic states of presence for IM (Instant Messaging) that users commonly see and expect across a variety of IM clients out there. I wanted to summarize these states, discuss why they exist and what the user and the friend's expectations are, as well as suggest a few things that might improve our experience as users of IM. These five states are what I'll call: Available, Away, Busy, Offline, and Mobile. Typically you either set these states from a status menu, or you can see these states for your friends in your buddy list.
Here's a handy chart that summarizes how each major IM client represents the five states. I've included (in descending global popularity) MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Skype, MySpace IM, and I threw in Pidgin for good measure.Available
- Most commonly repesented by a green dot.
- This means the user is online and generally available to receive instant messages.
- As a user, I set myself to Available so that my friends can feel free to send me an IM
- As a user, when I see that a friend is Available, I expect a response if I send an IM
Away
- Most commonly represented by a clock icon.
- Usually accompanied by an optional status message to explain where the user might be: "Out to lunch", "Be right back", or other user-defined message.
- Away means that the user is online, but not here at the moment.
- As a user, I set myself to Away when I am leaving my computer to explain to my friends why I may not respond immediately.
- As a user, when I see that a friend is Away, I might still send an IM, but I should not expect an immediate response.
- Auto-Away is when the IM client automatically sets the user to Away based on inactivity. Typically, this is 15 to 20 minutes of no keyboard or mouse movement.
Busy
- Most commonly represented by a red Do Not Enter symbol.
- Busy means that the user is online, but does not wish to be disturbed.
- The user could be “In a Meeting”, “Giving a Presentation”
- As a user, I set myself to Busy when I am doing something and do not wish to be disturbed.
- As a user, when I see that a friend is Busy, I shouldn't send an IM right now.
Offline
- Most commonly represented by a grayed out symbol.
- A user may select "Invisible" or "Appear Offline" to be indistinguishable from other offline users.
- As a user, I set myself to Invisible to appear offline so that my friends won't try to IM me.
- As a user, when I see that a friend is Offline, I shouldn't expect an immediate response. I can still send a message but my friend will not receive it until the next time my friend signs in.
Mobile
- Most commonly represented by a mobile phone.
- Sending a message to a Mobile user means that the user will receive the message as an SMS message.
- For some networks, the act of going offline will mark the user as mobile if they have associated a mobile phone.
- As a user, I might assign a mobile phone number to my account so that when I sign out, my friends can still send IM's to my phone as SMS messages.
- As a user, when I see that a friend is Mobile, I know that my message will be forwarded to their mobile phone as an SMS message. I shouldn't expect them to be able to respond so quickly either because its harder to type or because my friend could be doing something in real life that is inappropriate for IM (like driving).
Of all these states, I think Busy is the state that is not optimized for user needs. How many people have set their status to be "Busy" for a presentation or demo (or because a parent, teacher or boss walked by) only to still get annoying or embarassing IMs? It doesn't happen often, but if it does, that one time is enough to teach users to sign out of the messenger client altogether. If Busy is going to be helpful, then how about doing something useful:
- Busy should disable sound. No blips or beeps. You're busy. You need to focus.
- Busy should disable strong visible notifications. No toasts appearing or disappearing onto the screen. No pop-up windows. You might be giving a presentation! On the other hand, a counter somewhere to show that you have new messages pending is not bad.
- Busy should visibly change the application to remind you that you are Busy. Sometimes you forget to return from Busy. It would be nice if perhaps being busy might do something to remind you that you are currently Busy. For example: the IM client could temporarily take on a red skin.
If you use IM, you know what I am talking about. Hope you found this helpful!
Chris
Chris
