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Re-Designing the classic email client

vanschneider.com

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Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#31

Post by dpark »

huhtenberg wrote: post #15
ben0x539 wrote: post #5

holy shit just write your web pages in html, not everything needs to be a crazy javascript abomination where the body text fades in slowly

That's just mean. Comments like this ^ sidetrack the whole post from what-could-be an interesting discussion into a group bashing over irrelevant little details.

These kinds of comments aren't necessarily inappropriate here. When someone's writing about "great interaction design", it's reasonable to point out the terrible interaction design of their site. If someone were discussing "great font design" on their blog and using Comic Sans, it'd be pretty surprising if they were not attacked.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#33

Post by zio99 »

brianlovin wrote: post #14

Is there anything out there right now that handles email attachments like described in this pitch? I would love the ability to see all the attachments ever sent to me, organized by date/sender/filetype. Or clicking on a contact and seeing all attachments I've shared with that person.

Like drunkenfly mentioned, there's the Smartr Contacts app, and Rapportive as well for contact management:

http://rapportive.com/

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#34

Post by rdl »

I comfortably ignore any comments about email and what it should be from anyone who hasn't used a text email client (well configured) like mutt, mh, elm, or an emacs mode for at least 100 hours.

The only real complaints I have about email with a well-configured text client are: * HTML mail from idiots * Syncing on multiple machines, with offline mode (IMAP is ok, but you want to keep full repositories on laptops for use without network, and ideally to process email more quickly than network access) * Mobile clients -- Android has K9Mail, haven't found anything great on iOS yet. The keyboard-based mail workflow doesn't translate to the tablet/phone form factor, but triggers do even more so, so there should be something there * Handling attachments well * Global directory across organizations (FB/LinkedIn/etc. integration could help a lot) * Multi-user mailboxes; you need some kind of ticketing/tagging/CRM on top of it, and these are all standalone, sometimes web based, and fairly universally suck. There are ways to tie them into plain email though.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#35

Post by chmike »

ollysb wrote: post #2

I like the idea of creating actions from within your email client. Integration with some project management tools like pivotal or trello would really smooth off this part of my workflow.

It looks like a different functionality than mail. It is risky to try solving different problems with the same tool. Though the tasks are abviously connecetd.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#36

Post by podperson »

Don't fix email. Fix communication.

Why, on my iPhone, do I have:

1. An email app (which required a major update to unite mail boxes)

2. A "messages" app (which abstracts out two different message systems)

3. A phone app

4. A contacts app

5. Twitter

6. Facebook

7. Skype

What I want to do is (a) send messages to people (I don't care how), (b) check messages I've received (from anyone, using any method), (c) manage my messages (both incoming and outgoing), and -- as the writer of the article points out -- (d) manage my attachments.

On the iPhone (which is by no means the worst case) I might end up doing something stupid like looking up a contact, phone them, get sent to voicemail. Go back to the contact. Use a slightly different path to send an SMS. Discover it doesn't get sent. Switch to mail, and send a message.

Meanwhile the recipient gets a missed call, an empty voicemail, eventually gets the SMS, and then receives an email -- in three different apps on their iPhone.

Tiny incremental improvements to email will only nibble at the edges of the larger problem. Let me communicate with a unified UI and unified contacts.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#37

Post by ethanbird »

Looking through the article, I found most of the changes to be superficial, other than 'actionsteps,' which I'm not convinced will solve any problem. Instead of trying to stop mail from becoming a separate to-do list, actionsteps encourages you to keep some to-dos in your mail client and the rest outside of your mail client in a third party app.

Also, I tried the social thing with emails, and what it looks great in theory. However, I really don't get a lot of emails from people I'm friends with on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#38

Post by saint-loup »

huhtenberg wrote: post #15
ben0x539 wrote: post #5

holy shit just write your web pages in html, not everything needs to be a crazy javascript abomination where the body text fades in slowly

That's just mean. Comments like this ^ sidetrack the whole post from what-could-be an interesting discussion into a group bashing over irrelevant little details.

The guy's talking about getting shit done and is wasting my time with a fancy page with readability problems? Seems pretty ironic to me.

His project seems interesting, but sometimes ad hominem attacks can be relevant.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#40

Post by huhtenberg »

dpark wrote: post #31
huhtenberg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just mean. Comments like this ^ sidetrack the whole post from what-could-be an interesting discussion into a group bashing over irrelevant little details.

These kinds of comments aren't necessarily inappropriate here. When someone's writing about "great interaction design", it's reasonable to point out the terrible interaction design of their site. If someone were discussing "great font design" on their blog and using Comic Sans, it'd be pretty surprising if they were not attacked.

Well, if the top comment starts with "holy shit", it typically drags all other comments in the same direction.

Also, questioning someone's font survey by attacking their use of Comic Sans is, bluntly put, retarded. You still need to account for the quality of the content to make a judgement.

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