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Friday, September 22, 2006

New Yahoo Email Interface or don't think that AJAX is panacea!

Not so long ago Yahoo introduced new email interface. It is AJAX based and available at: new.mail.yahoo.com PC Magazine reviewed it as : "The new interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use."(09/20/2005 ). Great! "ease of use" means usability. Lets look inside. I will not describe the good features of this new interface, and praise Yahoo developers :) You may read all this in numerous online reviews, like PC Magazine. I will just enumerate the things that are not usable or things that may be better (do you remember? Our aim to make this ugly WWW better!) - It is not possible to customize main email actions buttons. e.g.(1) I never use "Print" and I always remove it from my email clients tollbars. e.g.(2) "Move" button. Do you use it? It is easier to drag and drop selected emails to desired folder. And new Yahoo email UI supports d'n'd. - Where is "Compose" button? I spent some second searching it. I see "Reply", "Froward", "Move" and others. No "Compose" button in main toolbar! Oh, it is at top left. Next to "Check mail" button! - Calendar as well as notes opens in a new window (Firefox 1.5.0.7). Why not in a new tab next to "Inbox" tab? - "Find messages" search box again at top left. No comments! Conclusions: AJAX gives great abilities for UI developers. But in the rush for modern technologies we should pay more attention on UIs.

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