This study was intended to assist
in the improvement of the Frostburg State University email system development
from Microsoft’s outlook. Microsoft
outlook is one of the many products developed from the corporation that has
become trusted among countless users.
However, I recently experience some difficulty. After subscribing to the discussion board
links, my inbox was immediately flooded with messages. Messages for every possible transaction that
occurred. I was notified of every thread
created and reply to any post. I needed
to filter these to a new folder. I have
created a new folder but I have not filtered messages from my inbox to one. I looked for how to do filtering and could
not figure it out. Then I did a search
on how to complete the task and discovered it was called sweeping in the
outlook system. This was new to me. Once I was revealed to the terminology, the
steps to make the adjust were easy to follow.
It was just getting to the first step that was challenging. Then I wanted to consider other aspects of
mailing. For instance, I have never
intentionally flagged a message and do not know what someone might. It is similar for automatic replies but I
have a much firmer understating for why that may be activated. So this is the basis of what this study will
focus upon. My goal is not really
self-serving. I would like to find that
I am the only one who has found trouble with some of these tasks. I have asked for some assistance in gather
information from some classmates to get a sense of other user experiences.
I
did not conduct face to face interviews for this assignment. In contrast, I sent a questionnaire to each person
who said they were willing to participate.
Each contained fourteen questions, for the user to complete and return
when done. All users had at least one
email account. Not all have used all the
features though. This indirectly states
that these may not be of necessity. None
of them have used the filtering. One
participant said they did not because their inbox did not require it. More users have flagged messages though. Flagging a message activates an alert to the
message. Users have said they have used
this to as a reminder for future use or for indicating a certain sender. Those can be instances for filtering but that
was not the option chosen. To filter a
user will have to create a rule and decide a string that will capture those
messages. For the examples provided, you
could move those message to a new folder or select something specific that
would be the sender. Flagging uses less
steps as you only have to click the indicator next to the message in many mail
servers. Some of my reported users have
tried the automatic reply feature.
Automatic reply can give a pre-entered response for any incoming
messages you receive. This is an
appropriate replacement for whenever someone will be temporarily unavailable
for an extended period of time.
Oddly
enough, the participants answered that all the features were necessary to their
daily experience with the checking and reading of e-mails. Even if they do not personally put all of
them to use, they feel no need to remove it as an option to the application. Except for one that I will discuss more
later. This a fair reaction to my study
in my opinion. When requesting
information from others, all opinions are valid and assist to your cause. Though they might not personal attest to its
usability, they think all are usable.
The features are important to the application itself as suggested by the
software’s provider. I cannot express
with certainty that a similar study was done on their behalf but I am sure
there was some talking about it before the final release. I did not ask the users to perform these task
for my report because I preferred a natural response to if they already find
value in the function prior to being asked about it. I find there is more information in having
experience beforehand than reacting only for my request. These results are surprisingly positive, for
the most part, about how we view this technology.
There
are two standard definitions for the word usability. The first is capable of being used. The second is convenient and practical for
use. From my own thoughts in addition to
those of my contributors, I find that these features are obviously capable of
being used. That is not the issue of
discrepancy here. However, the reports
show that it is not really practical to do so.
Though it was not an overwhelming number, the skewed results suggest
flagging is preferable over filtering or sweeping. I, personally, am on the other side of that
argument. A larger number of responses
may say something different but that is not conclusive. To indicate a message needs attention is not
like sending it to its own section. As a
good designer, either can be used which is not true for all servers. Kudos to Microsoft and Frostburg for
that. Automatic reply was not heavily
used either but I know firsthand that is more of something derived from
corporate culture and not necessarily a student’s problem. Whether on vacation or just away for a
certain period of time, employees usually use the response to route urgent
questions to someone who can help when unavailable.
In
conclusion, I found this to be a healthy practice. The testing of the features and user input
provided some valuable information. The
lack of contributors I could gather however does not allow me to implore if an
alteration is mandatory or not. This
report can be presented but a larger swath of data is needed to discuss if an
application of this size needs improve. There
are suggestions too for the sweeping feature.
One is to have the option of user sender and date which I think is
available. Another is to undo but would
it be fair sacrifice many to address the request of one. Part of the usability study conducted was to
enhance not detract. For this sort of
application, I do not feel it is required to remove any feature that is part of
the design. Removing would be the same
as not using it if you do not like it.
It is not a core mandatory component that you must interact with for the
main functionality. Safe to say as with
all technology there will always be periodic updates for the advancement of
software. And I will paraphrase one
response as simply “I am happy with what I see”. Thank you.