[Sigia-l] Does interface design matter?

[Kevin Cheng]

To answer ziya's question, yes, I'm a user of the beta. I'm a fan of
it and have in fact siphoned my other pop accts to Y!mail so that I
can use that interface as my webmail instead of the crappy dreamhost
webmail front end.

Would I like threading ala gmail? Yeah.
Do I think threading should be the ONLY way people can see their mail?
No.
Do I think just because I have a lot of disk space, I should need a
ridiculous amount of manipulation to delete a mail? No.

Gmail has a lot of elegance that I love and the threading is superior
for mailing lists in particular but sometimes it feels like it's force
feeding me.

As for it being OddPost, I wasn't a user but I'm aware of quite a few
changes. In particular, OddPost requires a new popup window which
removes browser chrome. Yahoo! Mail managed to avoid that, support the
back button, and has tabbed email windows. Personally, I would have
probably not used it if it was still a chromeless popup but maybe I'm
still feeling 2001 anti-popup anxiety.

 
Kevin Cheng (KC)
OK/Cancel: Interface Your Fears
kc at ok-cancel.com
www.ok-cancel.com
 

::  -----Original Message-----
::  From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org]
::  On Behalf Of Trenouth, John
::  Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:26 AM
::  To: sigia-l at asis.org
::  Subject: [Sigia-l] Does interface design matter?
::  
::  Perhaps not.  Look at MySpace, CraigsList.  Of course some would
::  say
::  that while CraigsList is pretty low on aesthetic quality, that
::  same
::  no-nonsense design helps users achieve their goals more easily.
::  So in
::  that sense the ui still matters very much.  I guess the answer
::  depends
::  on what aspect of the ui design you're talking about.  Aesthetics?
::  Ease
::  of use?  Ease of learning?  Etc.
::  
::  Yahoo's new email is basically Oddpost with a new bubbly skin--
::  they
::  bought oddpost a while back.  The original Oddpost ui was pure
::  elegance.
::  It had virtually all the functionality of a desktop email
::  application,
::  in a simple elegant muted grey ui.  And it supported both POP and
::  IMAP
::  in case you really still wanted to use your installed email
::  client.
::  
::  Unfortunately not many people know this.  I think at the time
::  Yahoo
::  bought them they only have a few thousand users paying $30 a year
::  for
::  their service.
::  
::  It looks like this may be yet another case of a superior product
::  failing
::  in the marketplace.  Perhaps a product's success is due more to
::  marketing and promotion than to design and quality.  The triumph
::  of
::  mediocrity--I'm not sure I like that very much.
::  
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