Friday, Feb 02, 2007 at 09:13
Have had similar issue Arkay , when look at my email list summary . It shows a number of posts but without reference to the message number.
E.G. this is what appears under hotmail -->
" ExplorOz
Forum FollowupID: 479582 to AnswerID: 218975 fr... Feb 1 5KB "
(the above contains two fields "from and subject")
Whilst you can open each email in turn and it will display message number its not the most efficent approach, when you have a number of replies.
There are compromizes to appreciate in each of these things and its good to ask the question ->
What is the user trying to get out of his email summary ? And what is less important and can be left to when the actual email is opened.
I believe knowing which message the email refers to should have highest priority.
But whats constitutes "knowing" ?
The current system makes a direct connection to your previous posting(message or answer) however that connection is effectivily often devalued because know one would remember there last answer ID number anyway, so little real information is conveyed.
You could apply this logic to the actual message number as
well and while the connection with a message number (post id in this
forum) is limited, it is remembered more than an answer ID number, particularly as the more replies you get will re-inforce its memory.
You could then say , why not display the message title, as this would enable most to clearly identify the message . Issue here is that the limited text spaces as per my above example gives little room for more than a few words.
So in summary for this post I think following would convey more useful information to the user and takes up the same number of character spaces
Current way
---------------
FollowupID: 479582 to AnswerID: 218975 fr
Alternative way
------------------
Message 41784 " David - follow up Messa ...............
The value of the alternative way is devalued also as a message becomes longer with many replies and further as a message breaks off into another subect , however what it is being compared with is a number which if it is an answer ID number has almost no connections .
Robin Miller
AnswerID:
219163
Follow Up By: ExplorOz Team - David - Friday, Feb 02, 2007 at 18:40
Friday, Feb 02, 2007 at 18:40
Robin,
Well though out response. I see what you are saying. Basically put up the main PostID and the topic regardless of whether it is a reply or followup. Just always maintain the same elements in the Subject field. Is this correct - I can this simply let me know also see my response to Arkay below.
FollowupID:
479828
Follow Up By: Robin - Friday, Feb 02, 2007 at 20:43
Friday, Feb 02, 2007 at 20:43
Yes David Just ID the then subject.
The essential reason being because it conveys useful information.
In looking down a long list of emails , you can see the replies relevant to any given topic, whereas the Follow up and Answer Id's have a much looser relationship, and in fact can't be related easily to each other if you follow up to, two replies in any given post.
The followup and Answer ID should however been in the email that is then opened.
I would like to see Akay's input about the two different ways.
Robin Miller
FollowupID:
479862