Is ChatGPT autocomplete bad UX/UI?
I get it. I am not the only user the world revolves around. When an app does not behave the way I would prefer, it’s probably because most people have different preferences, and the app is optimized for them.
But sometimes, I encounter UI/UX decisions that puzzle me. Not because I dislike them but because I have trouble imagining anyone likes them.
One of those puzzling UI/UX decisions is ChatGPT autocomplete.
I was able to come up with only two possible explanations for its existence:
- UX/UI experts at OpenAI (and other multi-billion companies) have a flawed understanding of how people chat.
- I am weird and chat differently than most people.
Before we conclude that solution #2 is the correct one, let me make my case for #1.
Autocomplete is helpful in search bars because the potential response space is small and the likelihood of success big - two words can be enough to guess a four-word search query.
Chat is different. I write long-ish posts that are a lot more complex than a typical search query - the likelihood of ChatGPT getting what I want after the first characters is minuscule. My experience corresponds with this - ChatGPT never guesses correctly what I want to write. Literally not once.
This explains why ChatGPT autocomplete is useless to me. But why does it feel so annoying and frustrating? Because the mental process I use when chatting differs from the one I use when searching.
When using a search, I already know what I am searching for. Using chat is a lot more like regular talking… and when I talk, I do not know exactly what I will say before I say it. I am thinking aloud. And when someone is talking over me, it is distracting. My train of thought gets derailed when I start typing and ChatGPT inserts something completely unrelated.
Imagine if ChatGPT were a colleague. You want to discuss how to implement a new feature in your app…
Should we…
…go to the library? Exercise more? Make compound chicken for lunch?
No, I want to talk about…
…the latest tech trends? Healthy lifestyle tips? My favorite books and why I love them?
For Christ’s sake, could you shut…
…the front door? All the windows in the building? Our business?
A colleague like that would drive me crazy. And I would be puzzled if other people were like “Oh, he finished my sentence again. He is awesome”. What am I missing?
UPDATE: interesting comments on Hacker News