[messaging] Too easy to delete whole conversation history with a contact

[Michał Sawicz]

Steps:
* open messaging app
* drag one of the items on the list to the right
* tap on the trash icon

Expected:
* only today's messages are removed or at least there's a confirmation dialog

Current:
* whole history of messaging with a contact is removed

The fact that conversations are separated by days suggests as if a single item was a conversation within that day. But in fact they're complete conversations just ordered by date (which is actually different than the phone log, which *is* split by date, and removing an item there only affects a day's events).

I wonder if it would be better to indeed show multiple entries for a single contact, in each day a message was sent either way, this being a shortcut to a certain message when opening. It feels like this would be better in the long run (imagine many years of messaging history). That might deserve another bug though.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: messaging-app 0.1+15.04.20141210-0ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 3.4.67 armv7l
ApportVersion: 2.15-0ubuntu3
Architecture: armhf
Date: Wed Jan 7 00:06:35 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-12-17 (20 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (development branch) - armhf (20141217-020204)
SourcePackage: messaging-app
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

------- UX comment & resolution --------

There is an active action of
1. dragging the list item in the conversation overview to the right
2. tapping the delete icon

This means that there is already a two step interaction in place before the message is deleted. As an additionally security measure we could introduce an additional confirmation dialog.

[Olga Kemmet (olga-kemmet)]

Updated bug description with a design resolution. Marking as Won't Fix as described behaviour is intended.

[Michał Sawicz (saviq)]

@Olga, as I mentioned, this is currently inconsistent between dialer and messaging apps. In dialer you indeed only delete the day's call history, in messaging all the history of a contact.

I'm not asking for a third step, but some clarification on which is the desired approach, and maybe a label on the delete button saying "clear history" or so. I'm just saying I got bit by this having expected to delete only a single conversation with a contact, but have deleted all of them.

[Olga Kemmet (olga-kemmet)]

@saviq:
The way phone calls and messages are clustered is different.
Whilst call history clusters calls per contact per day the messaging only does it per contact so that you wont create duplicates in the inbox. You have a chronological conversation history in the messaging thread.

The recent calls view can have e.g. on a Monday a clustered entry with 1 number if you received a call and made a call to this number. However if you call that person on a Tuesday it becomes a new data entry. The most important thing users want to know in recent calls is WHEN certain calls were made and who to. If you tap on a list item in recent calls, you will be always calling that entry. Whilst for messaging you are drilling down into a conversation.

In messaging apps users mostly want to know WHO they chatted with, content of the last message not necessarily when. Also showing multiple entries creates unneeded duplicates which bring other issues. E.g. multiple saved threads to a person will have either be kept up to date with the last message sent/received. Otherwise a user might tap on a thread with a person and will only see the last message from that day. This can lead to confusion.

Finally, as a security measure we could introduce a dialog asking users if they really want to delete the whole conversation. Maybe that would prevent accidental removal of the whole thread.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.