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Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#11

Post by lylecubed »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8
close04 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait for that time when your (free) email provider will temporarily insert the newsletter in your "alert me immediately" rule. Anything that can be offered for money will be offered for money. I hope I'm being too cynical and pragmatic.

> I hope I'm being too cynical and pragmatic. Take a look at the comments in the thread about Huawei cheating on benchmarks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17931549 . TL;DR: yes, they're doing it, yes everyone else is doing it too, has been doing it since forever, and it's not just phones, it's PC GPUs as well. You're not being too cynical. The world is just fucked up.

The world isn't fucked up. The world operates the way it operates. It's your expectations that are fucked up.

Human beings love resources (money), power and control. Anything that gives them that can and will be exploited. Approach the world with that in mind and you can anticipate the vast majority of these issues. Game designers do this all the time without worrying about being "cynical".

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#12

Post by cmiles74 »

xte wrote: post #6

I think there is a different problem: people do not know how to use email. 1) people do not know how to properly quote messages 2) people do not understand that mail are quick "mail", not chats 3) people do not know that mail are not file sharing solution Personally I have inbox zero via notmuch-emacs, and I use mails for nearly anything feeds included (RSS2Email) mails are automatically filtered on remote via IMAPFi…

The automatic quoting that email applications perform gives me a headache. 90% of the emails I receive require no quote, yet contain like 20 levels of indented quotes from the chain of messages that add nothing but noise. Modern mail readers already chain the messages together, but are not perfect when it comes to filtering out the quotes.

In my opinion, people should be more involved with the quoting of the previous message. Perhaps the customer could highlight the part of the previous message they want and have that become the quote. Or maybe a button when we write an email that will pull in the messages we're responding to as a quote.

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#13

Post by icc97 »

prlambert wrote: post #9

(I'm the PM on Gmail for intelligence and filtering) Based on Dan's research we built a new gmail feature: high priority notifications. It only sends you a push notification for really important messages, cuts out over 90% of Gmail notifications for most users. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mashable.com/2018/06/15/gmail-a... Importance is defined by a model trained on reply rate and a few other engagement metrics. Edi…

Non-AMP link: https://mashable.com/2018/06/15/gmail-ai-filter-email

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#14

Post by c_r_w »

prlambert wrote: post #10
qnsi wrote: post #2

Wish we could see something like this in gmail. I spent some time at a sales position and working with email has always been hard

Could you be more specific? Which features would you like to see?

For what its worth, I am currently looking at ProtonMail again because I find "suggested replies" too creepy. It is actually stressful, at the "increased heart-rate" level, to see those and be constantly reminded I have no privacy at Google. Gmail is the best email client IMHO but suggested replies may finally drive me away.

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#15

Post by s3r3nity »

prlambert wrote: post #10
qnsi wrote: post #2

Wish we could see something like this in gmail. I spent some time at a sales position and working with email has always been hard

Could you be more specific? Which features would you like to see?

The #1 feature I've been looking for is just manual sorting of threads in the inbox and/or folders (via drag-n-drop or the like.)

This was such a sneaky-good feature with Mailbox (before Dropbox shut it down) and solves a bulk of my priority / triage problems with email. I've surprisingly had a difficult time finding any other client that can do this.

...Though, knowing HN, I'm sure someone probably has one up their sleeve =)...

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#16

Post by s3r3nity »

c_r_w wrote: post #14
prlambert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you be more specific? Which features would you like to see?

For what its worth, I am currently looking at ProtonMail again because I find "suggested replies" too creepy. It is actually stressful, at the "increased heart-rate" level, to see those and be constantly reminded I have no privacy at Google. Gmail is the best email client IMHO but suggested replies may finally drive me away.

I might be a minority, but I actually like this feature, as it has saved my ass a few times already in terms of replying to emails from my boss / boss's boss, so I'd vote to have it be optional rather than have Gmail remove it.

(Edit: it looks like you CAN turn it off in the settings.)

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#17

Post by jorisw »

s3r3nity wrote: post #15
prlambert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you be more specific? Which features would you like to see?

The #1 feature I've been looking for is just manual sorting of threads in the inbox and/or folders (via drag-n-drop or the like.) This was such a sneaky-good feature with Mailbox (before Dropbox shut it down) and solves a bulk of my priority / triage problems with email. I've surprisingly had a difficult time finding any other client that can do this. ...Though, knowing HN, I'm sure someone probably has one up their…

FWIW, I do this in Mac's Mail.app by assigning different colors of flags, and sorting my inbox by flags, then received date.

This allows me to have business actionables on top, then personal actionables, then unfiled bills, then new incoming messages.

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#18

Post by c_r_w »

s3r3nity wrote: post #16
c_r_w wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what its worth, I am currently looking at ProtonMail again because I find "suggested replies" too creepy. It is actually stressful, at the "increased heart-rate" level, to see those and be constantly reminded I have no privacy at Google. Gmail is the best email client IMHO but suggested replies may finally drive me away.

I might be a minority, but I actually like this feature, as it has saved my ass a few times already in terms of replying to emails from my boss / boss's boss, so I'd vote to have it be optional rather than have Gmail remove it. (Edit: it looks like you CAN turn it off in the settings.)

I actually would assume the usage stats would be very good on the feature. I am not sure if you can turn it off on the web, I will look again. Unfortunately it is a bit of a Pandora's box situation; just knowing it is happening is the problem. That said, out of sight, out of mind. As much as I like to think I'm driven by principle, I haven't stopped using Gmail yet.

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#19

Post by s3r3nity »

jorisw wrote: post #17
s3r3nity wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The #1 feature I've been looking for is just manual sorting of threads in the inbox and/or folders (via drag-n-drop or the like.) This was such a sneaky-good feature with Mailbox (before Dropbox shut it down) and solves a bulk of my priority / triage problems with email. I've surprisingly had a difficult time finding any other client that can do this. ...Though, knowing HN, I'm sure someone probably has one up their…

FWIW, I do this in Mac's Mail.app by assigning different colors of flags, and sorting my inbox by flags, then received date. This allows me to have business actionables on top, then personal actionables, then unfiled bills, then new incoming messages.

Ah interesting - I should try this!

I'm a huge fan of Mail.app, but my biggest frustration is that the colored flags don't carry to my iPhone (the latter of which only has one color flag in the Mail app.)

My other response is that I'm big on stack-ranking tasks / priorities, so your flow would be great for personal stuff, but not best for what I need for work.

Re: Dan Ariely Tries to Fix Email (2017)

#20

Post by criddell »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #3

> In this data, Ariely saw an inefficiency to target. Even though every email, by default, triggers a notification, it’s unlikely that any given email deserves one. So, with the help of some software developers he’d worked with in the past, he tried to come up with a way to tweak the default settings that are baked into email. The result of that work is Filtr, an app that lets users make simple rules, based on the se…

> Again... Google is already trying to do this for me. No, thank you - I can easily set up there rules for myself.

But most people can't. Google isn't doing this for people like you, they are doing it for people like me that either don't know how to set it up or are happy for somebody else to take care of it for them.

And even for people like yourself that have the skills to set up these rules - why do you want to? Surely there are higher value projects for you to apply these skills.

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