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.klaver@aklaver.com