[Sigia-l] Mac mail packages

[Stewart Dean]

From:  Listera <listera at rcn.com>
To:  SIGIA-L <sigia-l at asis.org>
Subject:  Re: [Sigia-l] Mac mail packages
Date:  Thu, 06 Apr 2006 01:26:23 -0400
>A.F. Cossham:
>
>This:
>
> > No, I don't want to have to think about the product...
>
>and this:
>
> > ...but to be able to put them together how I want them to go together.
>
>don't go together.

If you think about they do.  If the application does things in the way the 
user wants it to they don't have to think about it - much like in Steve 
Krug's book 'don't make me think'.

A recent example for me was breifly switching over to windows live mail, 
which might be another alternative for the original poster - except the user 
experience isnt quite what it should be. Those with hotmail will probably 
see the 'try the beta' in green bellow the hotmail icon.

Using it I found five things that didnt use - all top level functionality, 
namely search, help, faqs and legal and privacy links. Lastly the lack of a 
plain text option was deeply frustrating.  Because the applicaiton didnt do 
what I wanted to do in an expected way I had to think about how to get 
around it - and in this case I switched back to the deeply flawed but 
functional Hotmail.

The term 'just works' hides so much work and does go back to the concept 
taught to me at university that interfaces should be invisible. When 
microsoft talk about making their interfaces 'rich' this does run counter to 
what I was taught.

Incidently if you do try windows live mail you'll find one of the colour 
settings is essentialy a wireframe, black lines with grey shading. I was 
using this because it made me feel at home :)

Cheers

Stewart Dean






>The only way to make sure a product "suits" you exactly is to 
>design/develop
>it yourself. If you are unable or unwilling to do that (which would likely
>describe the predicament 99% of users out there find themselves in) then
>you're going to have to live with some constraints.
>
>Generally speaking, Mac OS X and its ecosystem rely on designers to make
>meaningful decisions on product design for the benefit of users. You know,
>designers, those morons who "put snazzy bells and whistles on it and lots 
>of
>pretty colours, and options that interfere with other options." There are
>other OSes, for example, where the ability to "customise EVERYthing" is in
>fact one of the primary platform goals. So you might be on the wrong
>platform.
>
>Design, after all, is not the art and science of inclusion (easy) but of
>considered exclusion (extremely hard). Achieving a balance that *every* 
>user
>would find optimum ("customise EVERYTHING and am not forced to do
>it the way someone else has decided is best") is neither possible nor
>desirable. Designers are not grocers, they are cooks.
>
>Incidentally, the only concrete requirement you mentioned (multiple 
>accounts
>with multiple email addresses) is a feature of Entourage, which is a great
>email (/PIM) package.
>
>----
>Ziya
>
>Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
>
>
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