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Re-Designing the classic email client

vanschneider.com

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Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#191

Post by mnutt »

inetsee wrote: post #16
Flimm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the web page fade in slowly gives the impression of speed. It's not just a fancy gimmick.

I ran a website speed test on this page; it performed very poorly (load time more than 14 seconds). Personally, I'd rather see websites with real speed, rather than something pretty that just has the impression of speed. In my opinion, having a web page fade in is just a gimmick.

What is the difference between real speed and the impression of speed? If it feels fast, is it not fast?

Automated website speed tests aren't a good measurement the way you're using them. They're good for a site developer to find bottlenecks but can't tell you much else one way or the other. Perhaps most of the page load time is spent loading images below the fold.

You're much better just loading the page by hand and seeing how fast the content shows up. And when you do that, the impression of speed is important.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#193

Post by saurik »

gcr wrote: post #185
dredmorbius wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have NO idea of what you're talking about ;-)

Let's pretend you're sending messages to your new users who have just clicked the "Sign Up" button on your fancy landing page. The problem? They, along with a significant percentage of your other users, use text-based email clients. This is the wrong way of sending text-only email: Thanks for signing up! Thanks for signing up! Click here to finish your registration. Stripping HTML tags is also wrong: Thanks for signi…

(FWIW, I took the emphasis and subsequent wonkier smily to mean he was joking, and in fact have accidentally sent such emails in the past from his own website.)

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#194

Post by dave1010uk »

Zash wrote: post #70
smacktoward wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, even webOS made a creditable stab in this direction. And that was what, three years ago?

Maemo on the N900 is pretty great too.

To expand on this, Maemo had a "Conversations" application that you could add accounts to. Out of the box I believe it did SMS, Skype and Google Talk. There were plugins available for third party services like Twitter, Facebook, MSN, Jabber, etc.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#195

Post by dredmorbius »

saurik wrote: post #193
gcr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's pretend you're sending messages to your new users who have just clicked the "Sign Up" button on your fancy landing page. The problem? They, along with a significant percentage of your other users, use text-based email clients. This is the wrong way of sending text-only email: Thanks for signing up! Thanks for signing up! Click here to finish your registration. Stripping HTML tags is also wrong: Thanks for signi…

(FWIW, I took the emphasis and subsequent wonkier smily to mean he was joking, and in fact have accidentally sent such emails in the past from his own website.)

Indeed I was.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#196

Post by [deleted] »

saurik wrote: post #193
gcr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's pretend you're sending messages to your new users who have just clicked the "Sign Up" button on your fancy landing page. The problem? They, along with a significant percentage of your other users, use text-based email clients. This is the wrong way of sending text-only email: Thanks for signing up! Thanks for signing up! Click here to finish your registration. Stripping HTML tags is also wrong: Thanks for signi…

(FWIW, I took the emphasis and subsequent wonkier smily to mean he was joking, and in fact have accidentally sent such emails in the past from his own website.)

[deleted]

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#197

Post by [deleted] »

saurik wrote: post #193
gcr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's pretend you're sending messages to your new users who have just clicked the "Sign Up" button on your fancy landing page. The problem? They, along with a significant percentage of your other users, use text-based email clients. This is the wrong way of sending text-only email: Thanks for signing up! Thanks for signing up! Click here to finish your registration. Stripping HTML tags is also wrong: Thanks for signi…

(FWIW, I took the emphasis and subsequent wonkier smily to mean he was joking, and in fact have accidentally sent such emails in the past from his own website.)

[deleted]

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#198

Post by pvidler »

cdcarter wrote: post #163
pvidler wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the messages app is almost too confusing, let alone combining everything else as well. As far as I understand it, if I send an SMS then anyone with a signal can get it; if I send an iMessage, then they need an internet connection or it won't go through -- is that right? If so, it's a pain to mix them up, as many areas do not get good 3G coverage (especially indoors) but excellent phone signal. Surprisingly few o…

Messages will send as an SMS if the iMessage isn't delivered in a reasonably short amount of time.

Interesting, but does that mean delivered all the way to the recipient, or just to the iMessage server? Is there good feedback? If I'm in a low-signal area, I need to know how long to leave my phone in that one spot that gets signal.

Re: Re-Designing the classic email client

#199

Post by dools »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #180
dools wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I comfortably ignore anyone that says "email needs to be fixed" from clients to the underlying system - it's awesome and nothing about it needs to change. People just need to learn to use it better. I run everything through g…

Which part of email requires advanced training? The writing - covered by grammar, etc. The thinking - covered by critical thinking. The spectacularly complex system you have set up to filter your email? That would be worth a semester or so. It's worth it for you, I'm sure, but the average person probably would collapse trying to set that up.

Which part of email requires advanced training?

Primarily subject line usage and interleaved replies.

The spectacularly complex system you have set up to filter your email

It's basically just GTD on steroids. Basecamp and Highrise are used by millions of non-technical people. Reading email in a text based email client isn't rocket science and, I think, would be a skill on par with learning to communicate with letters. Also gmail filters aren't advanced, and Android is pretty mainstream (as is gmail). The only tricky bits there are using an external SMTP server (made simpler through things like Mailgun, Sendgrid and JangoSMTP) and configuring fetchmail to POP from gmail.

The rest of the components are all very simple and readily available. In my experience people are able to cope with seemingly overwhelming complexity as long as they were instrumental in it's creation and the bits that make up the complex whole are themselves quite simple.

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