Oops. I keep forgetting re-enter the dev email addy. Sorry!
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Re: We've been slashdotted! Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 19:47:11 +0100 From: Geoffrey McCaleb geoffrey@tabasco.net To: tank@galleywinter.com
Which ones would those be? Program-based mail packages usually come with a preview function as default, so all the user knows is if they want to 'view' a message, a single click will do.
People say design should follow expectation for a good reason. Why is the ipod so popular? A lot of reasons, but one of the biggest was because the UI simply just made sense. Pick up an Archos, or a Sony MD...you actually needed to read the instructions to know what to do. Im a male, I'd rather ask directions from my mother-in-law than read instructions.
Don't get me wrong, RoundCube is the most beautifuly designed software apps I have probably ever seen (well, ERoom is pretty slick). But it should conform to user expectation, not the other way around. Change is good, but only when there are clear benefits for change. Double/Triple clicking just for the sake of highligting a message is not really a benefit imho. For example, couldn't we specify an area on each message row where a single click would highlight the message? Most, if not all webmail packages cater for checkboxes so you can multi-select items. Having this position available to select a message (but not open it), again imho, would make sense to a user because most people who have used apps like Hotmail, Gmail, Horde, etc. are used to using that location for select/multi-select purposes.
Again, this is really not a criticism of RoundCube. This application, is an alph in RC or beta clothing. I'm just an opinionated guy and I'm a bit anal when it comes to usability.
My 2 euro-cents (exc VAT)
Geoffrey
On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 13:10:11 -0500, Tank tank@galleywinter.com wrote:
I agree with Geoffrey completely. First and foremost this is a web application. Sure it should act like an application, but it should act like an application consistently.
From a customer standpoint, most people who will deploy roundcube, are people who will use it in their hosting infrastructure. The majority of users aren't going to care for a "new way" of doing things, Yahoo, gmail etc all do the same thing but do it nice and efficiently. Squirrelmail's interface is very outdated, and roundcube is HUGE step in the right direction. But some of the "world changing" activities need to be an "option". Keep the double click thing as the default, but have an option in the config file for switching to single click.
There are lots of GUI changes that I think need to be made in the interface. I'll follow up with an email with some ideas I have and maybe we can decide what to do with them. I'm very impressed with the ease of setup. But, I know my users will start calling me more if I switch with some of these options. The point of any app like this, should be to be as userfriendly as possible, and to minimize customer questions. The double click thing had me confused, and it doesn't always work.. (I can't double click and view a message when it's new, I need to mark it as read in thunderbird first). I know this is alpha, but lets sort these issues out first :).
Geoffrey McCaleb wrote:
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Geoffrey McCaleb -
Vidyut Luther