[imp] migrating users from traditional to dynamic interface (message deletion)

[Gunnar Wrobel]

Zitat von Michael M Slusarz <slusarz at horde.org>:

> Quoting Gunnar Wrobel <wrobel at horde.org>:
>
>> The problem you describe obviously originates from the fact that it  
>> was unclear to the user that she selected *all* messages. Looking  
>> at our UI I must admit that this is hard to see. We display the  
>> note "358 messages selected" but it is a faint gray and may be  
>> difficult to see. I wonder if we could make this more obvious. Do  
>> people think that this might be an option?
>
> I'm not sure if making the message count in the preview box darker  
> is going to help out.  I would argue that making it darker will make  
> it more difficult to read the screen in general - I think it is at  
> an appropriate color level now.

Design-wise I agree. I was wondering if it could make sense to push a  
notification saying how many messages were selected. But somehow I  
assume there are reasons that disallow this :)

>
> As for indicating that all messages are selected: we clearly  
> activate the checkbox in the header when this is the case.

The user clicks on this box so she expects that a mark appears here.  
This indicates only that clicking the box was successful. The outcome  
of the action - selection of all messages - is indicated by marking  
the selected messages and adding the "358 messages selected".

The cue that is visually stronger is the marking of the messages. Our  
list viewport is sized so that it only displays full messages. There  
is no visual hint that might tell the user that there were more  
messages selected than what she sees on the screen - apart from the  
faint grey note and the scroll pane on the right.

Other mail clients tend to display a list window that also displays  
half messages - which may serve as a visual indication "that there is  
more than what is currently displayed in the list window". I don't  
want this for Imp and only add this to explain what I try to describe  
above.

So I feel some minor tweaking in that area might be helpful.


> This is MORE than most OS's do to indicate that, for example, all  
> files are selected in a folder.

Yes, I looked at how some of the alternative mail clients handle this  
and it is usually not that much more obvious. The web mailers have a  
tendency to work page oriented anyway but that is again something I  
don't want for Imp.

I do however believe that we should take any such incident where users  
report a problem with our UI serious and should try to figure out if  
improvement is possible.

Cheers,

Gunnar

>
> michael
>
> ___________________________________
> Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]
>
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