[Klug-general] The Problems with EMail (Re: Talk at the next meet)

[Dan Attwood]

I have to say I agree with George. People on this list are in the 0.00001%
of technical users and as such are really the people that should be
discussing if email is broken.

I currently support over 300 users and to my knowledge none of them use
threaded view or give a monkeys about top posting.
Only a few of them use forums and even less use mailing lists
We have a limit on our email server so numpties that try to mail massive
attachments fail with a bounced message

IMHO the single biggest problem is they send to many emails, rather then
thinking about what they are sending and making sure it all goes in one
mail, or even, gasp, picking up the phone instead. The more mails you send
the more you have to respond to.

Many of the issues i see are nothing to do with the desktop paradigm
(whatever that may be) they are mostly down to training needs in how to use
the email program and more often then not training needs in time and email
management techniques;

A case in point is a user I recently came across who over 50 folders within
his inbox and over 4500 unread messages distributed amongst them. Instead of
marking mails for follow up or moving them into a folder for follow up, he
was marking them as unread. Also was relaying on the preview pane in outlook
rather then actually reading the messages and so was often missing the
second half of the message.

With this kind of user it doesn't matter how you design your email system
and they will always use it in a different way.
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