[Sigia-l] Mac mail packages

[A.F. Cossham]

Stewart - pretty close. I guess my frustration with "Mail" came out in 
possibly the wrong way (didn't expect some of this discussion!). So, 
some things I consider standard I don't seem to be able to do (and I'm 
not an idiot when it comes to computers), or the software is forcing 
certain things together in a package. I don't want to write my own 
software - God forbid! -  (and there's quite a number of things I want 
to do - the shared mailboxes/accounts thing was one example), but I'd 
expect certain things from software designed to deal with email - and 
this doesn't do what I think it should. Transparency is an issue as 
well  - that is, finding out HOW to do what I want has also been a 
challenge. That's bad design.

Ziya wrote:
"It is utterly impossible for a designer of a commercial email app to 
anticipate and deliver every possible permutation of usage pattern out
there"
Kind of obvious! and no I don't expect that. I just want smaller 
building blocks so they can be assembled the way I want. I'm jolly sick 
of cute features which may sell well to people who want to play with 
the technology, but which (for me) get in the way of the technology 
itself. I end up with a picture of the designer saying "Hey, it'll be 
cool if we do this and this and this!" Maybe it is, and maybe I lack 
sufficient apprecition of such possibilities :-)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who made suggestions about other software or 
pointed me in the direction of features in Mail which might help.
Amanda

On 7/04/2006, at 0:17, Stewart Dean wrote:

>
> Let's go back to the original email. Consider this an experiment in 
> defining user requirements.
>
> "So, what other options are there for excellent mail software running 
> on X - the sort where I can customise EVERYTHING and am not forced to 
> do it the way someone else has decided is best?"
>
> Now from my take this is about having an open flexible way of working 
> in the application, not a perscriptive way of working as you will find 
> in programs like Omnigraffle.  The pain is the user cannot do what 
> they want to do. So what's their motivation?
>
> "(and [outlook express] let my son and I have two completely separate 
> mailboxes with separate rules, separate email address on the same 
> computer. "Mail" won't let that happen - yeah, this is a biggie when 
> you share a computer)."
>
> There you go. The user requirement is to allow different accounts to 
> run on the same machine in the same program. The techie responce is 
> 'log in as a different user' but that doesnt answer the user needs, 
> only provides a work around that may cause different problems. The 
> current applications on the mac don't appear to cater for that user 
> need and are set up with 'one person, multiple accounts' in mind.
>
> So really it's nothing to do with the user wanting to define their own 
> UI and 'workflow' is a buzz word that is probably better covered in 
> this case by task or 'something to do'.  In this case the task appears 
> to have no way of carrying it out - therefore user pain and confusion.
>
>
> Amanda, if you're reading this - how far off the mark am I?
>
> Cheers
>
> Stewart Dean
>