Psychology of the system of personal messages: what should be the order of messages in correspondence?

Question

User interface

The question is not so much technical as psychological. Is it normal to display new messages at the top (bottom-up) in the user messaging system? Of course, force of habit is ignored. Thank you!

Answer 1

If you do not take into account the strength of the habit that the user has formed from the experience of using any other instant messengers (and even mail), then you will create dissonance for the user when he sees the latest messages from above. This will be a negative experience and will encourage the user to abandon your service.

Answer 2

leave the settings to the user to choose the way messages are displayed.

Answer 3

What problem are you solving? If you need to focus on the latest messages, then you can display the last message (or the last 2-3 messages in the usual “top-down” order), and above them give a link “previous messages”. On Facebook, this is how it is implemented and very convenient. A similar approach is in Vkontakte.

Answer 4

How not to take into account the matter of habit, if this is the most important thing, so that the user is accustomed to work. Therefore, look through the most popular analogues and do the same.
But in general. the last message should still be at the bottom, because if there is another message under it, the user will automatically start reading what he has already read.