Interface Design - DMS 446/DMS 546
Department of Media Study, SUNY at Buffalo
SPRING 2008
Class: MW 5:00 - 6:50
Instructor: Al Larsen
Office Hour: 4:00-5:00 Mondays (CFA 288)
alarsen * at * buffalo * dot * edu
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UB has launched a new (and improved?) webmail interface.
UB has launched a new (and improved?) webmail interface. here are class comments on it
Navigation/Consistency:
One of the most consistent comments was that the icons in the upper left hand corner should be labeled ? perhaps just with an alt-tag so that mousing over would pop out the label... ?compose,? ?search,? ?settings,? etc.
The icons at the bottom of the page near the next page drop down and the check/uncheck controls should match the icons in the upper left (?settings? is represented by a different con at the top than at the bottom). We also thought they should be labeled with an alt tag.
When you change from the inbox view to the message view the links on the left change from navigational links to actions, and this was noted as inconsistent and somewhat confusing.
The links across the top mix actions with nouns.
?Read Mail? (option on top navigation) and ?Inbox? (option on side navigation) are the same thing with different labels
Anticipation:
When reading an email you cannot move it to a folder.
In message view ?reply? and ?delete? options should also be available at the bottom of the message .
Protecting the User's Work:
Students noted that there is no prompt or warning if you are composing an email and attempt to close the window without sending it.
Readability:
The consensus was the size and color of the light blue text links across the top ?Read Mail? ?Compose? ?Search Email,? etc is a bit hard to read.
Other:
After sending a message the interface offers the option to ?ADD RECIPIENTS? which students found unclear ? it seemed to mean to send the same email to other addresses but actually puts the addresses that the email was just sent to into the address book.