[imp] Attachment interface confusing to users

[Edward Glowacki]

On Mon, 2002-06-24 at 21:15, Eric Rostetter wrote:
> Quoting Allan Wagers <awagers@joycedayton.com>:
> 
> > Quoting Edward Glowacki <glowack2@msu.edu>:
> > 
> > > A further refinement of the various ideas, a bit cleaner.  To/cc/bcc
> > > labels changed to buttons which would pop-up the address book
> > > (eliminating the need for a separate address book link), expand names
> > > command gone (not sure how to fit it in or how important it really is):
> > > 
> > > http://hurakan.cl.msu.edu/~glowack2/test/imp/imp-compose-screen-3.html
> > 
> > I really like this setup. Better work flow and looks cleaner
> 
> I'm not sure people would know what the buttons around the To/cc/bcc 
> mean.  That is, they would probably notice that they are buttons, but
> I'm not sure they would know what they did without either a help file
> or some experimenting.  I think I like the first two options a bit more
> myself...

Experimenting is not necessarily a bad thing.  If the user can be
invited to explore the software and feel safe doing so, they can learn a
lot just by trying things.  In making the software conductive to such
exploration, the whole interface will probably evolve to be better.

Also, buttons for to/cc/bcc do appear in other email programs.  I'm not
saying they're perfect, or the right choice for IMP, just that they are
used in existing email programs, so users may have encountered them
before.

The real way to tell is place the design in front of a new user, and ask
them to "Send a message to a friend, using their email address from the
address book".  Then watch what they do.

> I must admit I also find the expand names kind of strange.  It acts on all the
> fields if they contain something (to/cc/bcc) when you may only really want
> it to expand one field, and so on.  I kind of like the way IMP 2.x worked
> where a tab in the field would expand the name... 

Expanding all three fields is probably OK, but I don't think that's
really the issue.  Personally I feel there has to be a better way to
implement the whole recipient section of the screen than using the
current interaction between to/cc/bcc and address-book/expand-names,
there's just something about the existing interface that feels awkward
to me.

-ED


-- 
Edward Glowacki             glowack2@msu.edu

"A wise craftsman never blames his tools."