Starting today, we are testing a new entry point for “platform chat” within experiences. Platform chat is a way to ensure users can seamlessly communicate with their friends both inside and outside experiences.
ICYMI: Last month at RDC, we shared exciting plans to release Party before the end of year. When friends can connect easily on Roblox, they’re likely to spend more time playing together. In order to make this coordination seamless with Party, we need to ensure that platform chat can also be accessed within experiences.
Our goal is to make it as simple and intuitive as possible for users to access both types of chat (platform vs. experience chat), while also ensuring as little disruption to developer UX as possible. Over the next four weeks, we will be testing a few components and variants to help inform feature access, naming, iconography etc. Please see additional test details below.
There is no action required on your end to join this test. Users will automatically be enrolled and have access to this feature over the next few days The chat variants we are testing will be integrated into the recently released experience controls.
What’s Next?
We’re working to release the highly anticipated co-experience feature, Party (which includes platform chat in experiences) to all users before the end of year.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to iterate on releasing this feature in experiences. Please let us know what you think in the comments below!
FAQs
Will there be any additional changes or icons added to unibar in the near future?
As mentioned, this test will inform whether the entry point for platform chat should be persistent within unibar or a drop down within the hamburger menu. Additionally, we are very mindful that additions to the experience controls may cause occlusion and will continue to review any future needs for critical reasons, like privacy or safety.
What are the notable differences between platform chat and experience chat?
Experience chat allows you to communicate and connect with others in experience, while platform chat allows you to connect with a small group of friends, regardless of what experience you’re on.
Why aren’t we keeping the experience chat icon the same and instead just changing the platform chat icon?
As we introduce platform chat into experience, we need to ensure that users can clearly distinguish between the two forms of chat that will be available in experiences. Today, users join experiences with the play button.
This test will inform whether using play as part of the experience chat icon along with an explanatory tool tip will aid user understanding that it is for experience chat with others, while the classic chat icon represents chat with a small group of friends.
Maybe this is just me, but I’m not a huge fan of the idea of two entirely separate chat systems placed right next to each other. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of consistent friend-to-friend chatting between multiple experiences (I presume that’s what is being introduced), but placing the two separate chats next to each other in the UI sounds nothing short of confusing for user-experience.
I’m not much of a fan of re-using the experience chat icon for the platform chat system, as I think that this will cause some initial confusion, but this will likely pan out over time, so probably not a big deal.
I’m all for this update, but I think the placement of the near-identical buttons should be re-considered.
Finally! Now I no longer have to leave the game.
But I have to say the chat icon confuses me now and would have been better if they had made of a new icon for platform text chat.
And it would certainly have been better if you didn’t have 2 chats next to each other
The previous chat system had “Channels” in the chat window. If developers want to implement this, this would be a better substitute than adding more buttons to the seeable space on screen.
Edit:
Added photo for context. This, but Party system. It was an addable toggle in the scripting, for those teamchats.
I have the same thoughts. Two near-identical chat buttons next to each other is nothing short of confusing. I love the direction but the proposed idea is a UX nightmare.
I agree with this. Especially to new players, it’ll be very confusing knowing what each chat button does and overcomplicates things. I think this update could go well if they find a different approach though.
Also not a huge fan of the new icons, but maybe that just because I’m used to the current one. The second one made me think of video when I first saw it.
This is not a bad idea, but the UX is terribly confusing. Having 2 chat icons next to each other is pretty silly, so website chat should definitely be under the hamburger icon. (And it also wont be used as frequently as game chat)
It should be placed under the 3 lines because it wont be used very frequently, and when it is used it could be found very quickly under there, this way its a lot less confusing for players since they look very similar and they also take up more space on the screen.
Hi AstraNeutral! I’m one of the engineers working on the Party feature and we will be releasing developers APIs post feature launch. Developers will have more key insights in regards to whether a party has joined the experience and which members are associated with which party. We’ll be revealing more details in the months to come!
EDIT: After going back and looking at the proposed design for Party Chat (which really should be shown in this thread too), I can understand why it’s a separate button.
agreed this would be a great way to integrate the platform chat without creating another button with confusing UX. support for text chat channels should have been added anyways, for the new TextChatService as that was a crucial part of a lot of team-based pvp games
Why have the icons been swapped around?! This is a disaster from a UX standpoint: the number of people that click the wrong one by accident must be insane. Hopefully the A/B testing should fix this as this is extremely confusing especially for experienced players.
There are two reasons that immediately come to mind that would make it hard to use this solution:
The first reason is that not all experiences use the default chat experience. That would mean one of two things. Either all experiences that have their own custom chat ui have an additional entry point to Roblox Platform Chat on their screen or their users would not be able to use Roblox Platform Chat in those experiences. Neither of these outcomes are desirable for developers, users, or Roblox.
The second reason is that Roblox wants Roblox Platform Chat to have a consistent, reliable experience. If we follow through with this proposal, it could be unknowingly training users to trust developer UI and messages as coming from the Roblox Platform Chat which could lead to unwanted behaviors and bad actors exploiting this trust.
It makes sense to continue to place Platform Level Controls on the Topbar or Tilt menu. We have a few different variants in our AB Test that will help Roblox determine the best treatment going forward.
icon for platform chat and 
icon for experience chat
icon for platform chat and 
icon for experience chat
