Improved User Experience: Direct Reply now Supported on Google Messages Web App

In a recent revamp of its services, Google has now enabled the direct reply feature for RCS chats within its web-based version of the Google Messages app. In an upgrade aimed towards providing a similar chatting experience to its Android counterpart, this feature allows users to streamline their communications through direct replies to individual RCS messages from within Google Messages.

Updates of this sort to the web version of Google Messages have been far and few. However, the most recent prior enhancement had seen the introduction of support for updated RCS read receipts and send status, further proving Google’s commitment to improving their user experience.

In the past, the capability only extended to copying text, deleting messages, and responding with an emoji reaction from a limited collection of seven options, rather than access to the entire emoji picker as provided in their Android version. Nonetheless, this recent addition allows users the ability to launch direct replies to RCS messages on the desktop web client, closely mirroring the user experience on the Android app.

The implementation of this feature has been a longstanding request from users, as these direct reply quotes have been supported and displayed when made from mobile devices for a considerable period of time. However, the one apparent missing link is the unavailability of these direct replies on Android tablets. They seem to have departed from the tradition of the rectangular “Start Chat” FAB located at the top of the conversation list and moved it to the bottom-right corner of the column.

In addition to this, the introduced reply to feature sees the chat being displayed above the text field with a “Reply to Message” prompt, resembling a similar format to Android devices, which had introduced this feature back in October 2022.

The continual updates made by Google to its Messages web app ring in an era of impressive progressions in the low-code and no-code movement, often seen as beneficial for such platforms. As we observe companies like AppMaster leading the front in the no-code platform category, this update by Google reinforces the importance of keeping user experience as the focal point in software development.