Re: Mailing list archives – design ideas

On Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 9:29 PM Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/14/20 9:21 AM, Michael Christofides wrote:
> > Hi there,
> >
> > Recently, Oleg Bartunov got quite a lot of likes and attention on a
> > tweet[1] which asked whether we should create a better interface for the
> > mailing list archives.
> >
> > I was unsure if he meant the look and feel, the functionality, or both,
> > but I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a think about both. I am a user
> > of the mailing lists and also do a bit of design work, so thought I
> > might be able to help.
> >
> > After a brief discussion on Twitter[1] and in a Google doc[2], I was
> > encouraged to email this list to get more people's thoughts and
> > gauge interest in the ideas.
> >
> > In short, the bigger ideas I tried were:
> > 1) Reversed the chronology, to start each view with the recent emails
> > 2) Grouped by thread (per day)
> > 3) Considered narrower screens
> >
> > I've attached a screenshot with an example of the current vs these
> > ideas, and there is more detail and thinking in the Google doc[2]. These
> > designs were done in Figma, rather than HTML.
> >
> > A question of what to do with threads across days/months has come up
> > twice already, but I think limiting the grouping per day avoids that
> > issue, whilst not making anything worse. I also have ideas for a better
> > (new) view for each thread, but haven't mocked that up yet.
> >
> > Looking forward to hearing what people think.

First of all - thanks for working on this! There's definitely
improvements to be done in this area.


> What I think:
>
> 1) We discourage top posting to keep threads from being in reverse
> order, so I'm seeing this as a no go as it gets right back to inverted
> flow.
>
> 2) In any message you can retrieve a thread. You can also navigate to
> any message in the thread. Again a no go.

If we go with a group by thread views, it makes sense to have two
separate views, one by thread and one by pure date. That's what a lot
of other archive software does (e.g. the one that comes with mailman,
that a lot of people are used to).

I think switching completely over to a thread based view would be bad,
but adding it as a secondary way of viewing things would be useful.


> 3) If people hobble themselves by trying to do computer work with a
> smartphone that is their choice but it should not impact those of us
> that realize the futility of that. Now if you want to do something that
> kicks out to a site that is for mobile users, fine. Just leave the
> current site alone.

So for the record, the current site is also terrible if you
accidentally maximize your browser on a 4K screen for example, so it's
definitely not *just* a problem on a smartphone.

And I can definitely see a lot of usecases for browsing the archives
on a smartphone as well as on a computer. I certainly do it myself.
Fewer times now in pandemic times which leaves me at home all the time
and in front of a computer when I need to, but still not zero.

I think claiming that reading email is a computers work and shuoldn't
be done on a smartphone is actively counterproductive.

Now, we should definitely not go for a design that's just for
smartphones. Arguably we should also not go for one that is primarily
for smartphones. But the current one is *terrible* on smartphones, and
we should make it not terrible. It should of course not be done at the
expense of access from computers, but what we have now isn't
particularly great there either. I'm sure we can find a way to make it
a big improvement on small devices and a small improvement on big
devices, compared to what we have now.

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: https://www.hagander.net/
 Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/