Re: Mailing list archives – design ideas

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.

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.

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.

>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
> [1]: https://twitter.com/obartunov/status/1331259617461096451
> <https://twitter.com/obartunov/status/1331259617461096451>
> [2]:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JEWU-zvtt1O-EWKYXUiSb90yKDVVNxDsjAtG-d3rV7E/edit#
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JEWU-zvtt1O-EWKYXUiSb90yKDVVNxDsjAtG-d3rV7E/edit#>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com