Hey all, ive been getting some feedback regarding the larry theme. Most of it i can handle myself, but one specifically keeps coming back.
People dont realise that this button does anything, and miss all the feature that are accessed through it: http://grab.by/rkkc
It's in a bit of a strange place. You click on the left, but it opens something underneath. It doesnt really look very clear what it's supposed to do. I would actually prefer to start it out in open, and let people figure out how to close it, that would sure save us a lot of support calls. Would be even better if it could be more intuitive about that it's supposed to do.
Cor
On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 04:31:35PM +0200, Cor Bosman wrote:
Hey all, ive been getting some feedback regarding the larry theme. Most of it i can handle myself, but one specifically keeps coming back.
For us, it was the lack of check-boxes to select messages. We wedged them in with a plugin but think it would be good if this was brought into the core with appropriate config options to turn them on and off.
Kelsey Cummings wrote:
On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 04:31:35PM +0200, Cor Bosman wrote:
Hey all, ive been getting some feedback regarding the larry theme. Most of it i can handle myself, but one specifically keeps coming back.
For us, it was the lack of check-boxes to select messages. We wedged them in with a plugin but think it would be good if this was brought into the core with appropriate config options to turn them on and off.
It was a decision right from the beginning of this project to make it look like a desktop application and to not use checkboxes.
Obviously people still think the web doesnt' work without checkboxes. These paradigms are really persistent. Or have you ever heard somebody asking for checkboxes in Outlook?
~Thomas
On 24 Oct 2013, at 08:53, Thomas Bruederli thomas@roundcube.net wrote:
Kelsey Cummings wrote:
On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 04:31:35PM +0200, Cor Bosman wrote:
Hey all, ive been getting some feedback regarding the larry theme. Most of it i can handle myself, but one specifically keeps coming back.
For us, it was the lack of check-boxes to select messages. We wedged them in with a plugin but think it would be good if this was brought into the core with appropriate config options to turn them on and off.
It was a decision right from the beginning of this project to make it look like a desktop application and to not use checkboxes.
Obviously people still think the web doesnt' work without checkboxes. These paradigms are really persistent. Or have you ever heard somebody asking for checkboxes in Outlook?
You hit the nail on the head. We get questions about 'moving multiple emails to another folder' all the time because people dont understand the state of the web. They're used to geocities or something :) But at least I can explain that, and their answer is usually one of wonder and amazement. Not so much with that button. Pretty much every reply is pretty negative.
Im also starting to get quite a few tablet complaints (can you tell I opened larry to our userbase :) Trying to get access to an android tablet to replicate some of the issues. Tablets seem to be a relatively huge percentage of users, for a lot of people they're replacing desktops and they have plenty of horizontal and vertical space to run roundcube. So I think it's important that roundcube works on tablets. I can see phones being a bit less crucial.
Cor
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 08:53:32AM +0200, Thomas Bruederli wrote:
It was a decision right from the beginning of this project to make it look like a desktop application and to not use checkboxes.
I know that this is controversial.
We tried to replace squirrel mail with roundcube and got absolutely burned by our userbase over the lack of checkboxes. The simple fact is that most users do not understand "native app modality." It was perfectly clear that if we did not mod RC to support checkboxes that we could not move forward and deploy RC.
The second biggest problem was support for mobile and tablet users. No scroll bars, no check boxes, no way to "right click". We were able modify the roundcubeskins.net mobile skin to the point that was at least functional but they are not very well optimized or pretty.
We'd be happy to pay a bounty for fully supported checkboxes, and a well optimized skin for phone/phablet/tablet sized screens with automatic switching. Roundcube would be in a much stronger position if these we're readily available everyone.
On 2013-10-24 16:13, Kelsey Cummings wrote:
We tried to replace squirrel mail with roundcube and got absolutely burned by our userbase over the lack of checkboxes. The simple fact is that most users do not understand "native app modality." It was perfectly clear that if we did not mod RC to support checkboxes that we could not move forward and deploy RC.
Really? We have almost 2500 users who are - frankly - very non-technical and eager to complain about technology changes. We moved from the ugly rodent to RC several years ago and never heard a peep about the lack of checkboxes. We did do a couple of internal 60 sec. videos to show the differences, but that was it.
The second biggest problem was support for mobile and tablet users. No scroll bars, no check boxes, no way to "right click". We were able modify the roundcubeskins.net mobile skin to the point that was at least functional but they are not very well optimized or pretty.
We did consider this for a while. But as dedicated apps for mobile mail connection have matured, we no longer feel any pressure to offer a mobile version of webmail. Users just set up IMAP connections directly on their phones and tablets. Now we don't worry about maintaining a special skin just for mobile use.
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 04:24:06PM -0700, Arne Berglund wrote:
On 2013-10-24 16:13, Kelsey Cummings wrote: Really? We have almost 2500 users who are - frankly - very non-technical and eager to complain about technology changes. We moved from the ugly rodent to RC several years ago and never heard a peep about the lack of checkboxes. We did do a couple of internal 60 sec. videos to show the differences, but that was it.
Yes, it was terrible, a relatively large group of users went full Godwin's law on me over it!
We have about 100k users and if anything, we probably lean to the more competent given our market position. The point is that it isn't commercially viable to teach a user using our webmail how to select multiple messages, or that the easiest way to move a message is to drag it to a folder, or that if they right click they get this cool menu. There is also accessibility issues and the increased coordination required - some people, even after being taught, struggle to select multiple messages.
The second biggest problem was support for mobile and tablet users. No
...
We did consider this for a while. But as dedicated apps for mobile mail connection have matured, we no longer feel any pressure to offer a mobile version of webmail. Users just set up IMAP connections directly on their phones and tablets. Now we don't worry about maintaining a special skin just for mobile use.
We certainly agree with that in principal and have tried to make sure our users know that using IMAP from their phone and desktops in combination with webmail is what they really want. However, there are valid usage cases for not using the device's native app. The best example being a shared tablet in a family setting or needing to check your mail from a friend's device.
Cor Bosman wrote:
Hey all, ive been getting some feedback regarding the larry theme. Most of it i can handle myself, but one specifically keeps coming back.
People dont realise that this button does anything, and miss all the feature that are accessed through it: http://grab.by/rkkc
It's in a bit of a strange place. You click on the left, but it opens something underneath. It doesnt really look very clear what it's supposed to do. I would actually prefer to start it out in open, and let people figure out how to close it, that would sure save us a lot of support calls. Would be even better if it could be more intuitive about that it's supposed to do.
Understood. We used to have a more emphasized version [1] but it was wished to align the UI with the message headers view.
However, showing the options in first place might be a good idea but I already hear the complaints here about wasting too much vertical space with options hardly used...
Of course we're open for more suggestions
Regards, Thomas
[1] https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/roundcubemail/screenshots/329271.jpg
On 10/24/2013 08:46 AM, Thomas Bruederli wrote:
Of course we're open for more suggestions
Well, we can always use simplest solution, i.e. create a toolbar button and display all options in a popup.
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A.L.E.C -
Arne Berglund -
Cor Bosman -
Kelsey Cummings -
Thomas Bruederli