UX people have killed application software. I need basic tools to work, not make me excited to use them. When I pick up a screwdriver, I don't do it for the experience. Ugh.
You know what's a beautiful email client to me? Netscape Communicator 4.x
I agree that OP's take is reductive and cynical. I would add that in this case, as in essentially every other case where this is done, it is also accurate.
Make it work. Make it easy to work with. Then make it pretty.
Got a new diamond turning lathe in the machine shop about a month ago, whew lad. Warehouse got a vertical stacker and started giving tours, lol. Our glass shop keeps the MRF machine so clean the repair techs claim we must not use it.
> Make it work. Make it easy to work with. Then make it pretty.
Any specific usability issues in mind about this 19 year old email client?
Here is a big one for me though: the war on information density by UX designers
Have a look at the side by side comparison: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/115.0/whatsnew...
Give me the one on the right every day of the week and twice on Sunday. It looks like a professional application, a tool for getting work done. The one on the left looks like a toy website for newbies (or worse: Outlook).
I have a 32 inch 4K display and most of the designers seem to think most of that space should be filled by useless dead space and massive buttons like this is Windows 95 and the average user needs the "start" affordance (now tarted up with eye-catching bright colors!) to know what to click on. Apparently my head is expected to literally explode if I ever see two distinct lines of information separated by less than two line breaks.
This kind of infantalizing of the UI for can be defended in some contexts but here, it demonstrates that the designers do not know their target audience. This isn't the dial-up days, grandma doesn't read her mail on Outlook Express or any other local client, she uses a website like everybody else. The only people using actual local clients in 2023 are in enterprise (Outlook…) or are power users who want features they can't get on the web.
This is such an apropos example because the left-right windshield wiper widget to switch between the two screenshots referenced, ostensibly to give me a "beautiful" "experience" because two static thumbnails is for squares, is unusable and borderline broken.
This was not part of the war on information density. The 3 column layout was requested often. It is optional. It can show more messages and more of the message on common screens. Professionals do not use 32 inch 4K displays only. Sender above subject is faster to skim in my experience. Not to you maybe. You can use the old layout.
I dislike the blue new message button. Probably CSS can fix it.
This is trivially disproven. Look at the screenshots provided. The "new" view shows 14 messages using the entire height of the display. The "old" view shows 14 messages… in half the amount of vertical space. Toggling off the preview pane would double it to around 28.
Even throwaway computers have wide aspect ratio displays nowadays, vertical space is at more of a premium than horizontal.
This trade-off of giving more space to the preview pane at the cost of halving the amount of inbox that you can see is, again, evidence of designers not knowing their target audience. One click to bring up a message is an affordance (arguably, a limitation) copied from the limited web clients that the user likely installed a local client to move away from. It's bad for security, it's bad for cognitive load (keyboard navigation of the list results in distracting flashing, and now there are two distinct interfaces to see a message), and all of these trade-offs come at the supposedly benefit of not needing to double-click to open the message?
That isn't what (most) UX designers do these days, it's all about fancy animations
Any UX that decreases functionality is not truly good UX. It is probably just flashy.
Also, personally, I don't entirely agree with your screwdriver metaphor. I have some beautiful old screwdrivers with lovely wood handles that I got as hand-me-downs. I do select them in favor of others for the experience. They are a delight for me to use (but again, most importantly, they are very functional).
Edit: Also, they claim in the title that this is a faster Thunderbird. I would consider that a big plus for functionality.
I've stopped using Amazon Music because the UI/UX is unusable. I've cancelled Prime and shifted my shopping to other properties such as Walmart because the continual user-hostile UI changes have pushed me away as a customer. Example, now making it impossible to filter by Amazon.com as the seller so my searches are inundated by screens full of all-caps Chinese counterfeit shit, now with infinite scroll! Accessing customer service entails more and more dark patterns by the day, and arguing with AI chat bots because I can't even get a human into chat anymore.
As long as you're proud of your descent into a knockoff AliExpress, I support your efforts. The important distinction here is these applications were all fine, before the UX gods got involved in "beautifying" them to the point they became unusable.
Thunderbird apparently also: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_templates
Or maybe you simply enjoy the thrill of ranting for no reason.
Welcome to the bottom of the comments section.
I hang out here a lot.
After using TB for about 20 years, I have a few very well curated opinions. But those, like yours will not be seen on HN...
An app doesn't have to look like shit for it to be functional. It can be both.
If they think it needs to look like Netscape Navigator to be functional, then at least they should understand that they're a minority. Most apps are trying to serve most users, not the small group that prefers the Windows 95 style or a command line client.
The comment itself isn't very useful. Users of this site are not even the most supportive of modern UIs and will praise HN's look (and the old reddit UI), but what's exactly housemusicfan's problem with the new Thunderbird UI? What was made worse? It comes off as an "old man yells at cloud" type of comment and that won't gather much support.
I do not treat post score as a popularity contest or validation that an opinion is correct (or not).
The sad truth is this industry is full of thin skinned prima donnas who love nothing more than "educating" their customers on what's best for them, whilst continually performing them a disservice in the form of UX "improvements" that literally no one asked for.