Newbie UI question

I noticed that the chat line doesn't say CHAT: or CHATTING: or PUBLIC CHAT: or SAY: or anything before the text entry area. I know that the chat line appears when you click CHAT. That may, or may not, be obvious to newbs. The chat line also appears when you hit RETURN. I'm sure that is less obvious to a newb.

Do you think newbs may be confused or intimidated by that blank text entry line with no indication of the line's purpose? Should the chat line say CHAT: or SAY: or something as part of the text entry area?

I see that a SAY button appears *after* the text entry area. To a newb, this button may appear to be separate and unrelated to the chat line. Perhaps, the SAY button should look different from all the other, non-chat-related, buttons and should be more visually connected with the chat line.

I would say a good way to find out is to get more examples from new Residents who were really confused by this!

Personally, I didn't find it confusing; perhaps it's because it became a matter of habit so quickly--after all, typing something in a text field and pressing Enter is quite a universal method of input in computer programs. Like a web browser's address bar.

Moving this to Feature Suggestions to see if anyone has ways they think it could be better.

(I do recall one earlier confusion that did come up was that there was a large gray space to the right of where the Gesture pop-up menu now is, and as a result, it shortened the chat bar.)