Comments on: Yahoo! Mail: Simplicity Holds Up Over Time

By: Jesse Hernandez Liwag

Jesse Hernandez Liwag — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I have some questions about your diagram, specifically about page 3 and page 4 (the letter size version), in my attempt to understand your representation.

You see, we’ve been using your diagramming method in our company and this gives me an opportunity to see if we understood correctly.

Everything seems to connect, from my pov, except for one item–the message display.

From 2d (on page 3) it connects to the message display flow on page 4. Then from there it points to a connection to compose (on page 3). But looking at the compose flow on page three, I failed to locate the connector from the message display.

My questions: Did I miss the connection? Pls point it out. Or if it is indeed missing, shouldn’t the 2d connect to a flow reference (for message display) instead of a continuation point so we could connect it to the compose page?

I hope you will indulge me.

By: Jesse Hernandez Liwag

Jesse Hernandez Liwag — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Me again. Forget what I said–I see the connector now. Sorry for the mistake.

By: Shiznit

Shiznit — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Great little article. I am glad to see that Yahoo! Mail is getting some recognition.

I was an old Rocket Mail customer back in 97′ when Yahoo aquired them. I remember skeptically making the conversion thinking that my new email with Yahoo will likely be discontinued within 9-12 months. Here we are in 2002 and it has been my primary email every since.

I use Yahoo because it never changes. It works superb for what I need to do and I can check it anywhere (Mobile PDA, Cell Phone, basically anything with an internet connection) Any changes that Yahoo make to the service seem to be very well analyzed.

By: andrey

andrey — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Great thanks to the author of this notation (graphic language)!
There is a little mistake in the Poster-sized diagram. Line from the screen “Persistent navpane” to the screen “Adresses” must not be connected with the line from “Message display” to “Compose”. In other words there is connection line from “Message display” to “Adresses” – why?
I was studied to be an engenier of the plasma-electronic devises. So i have an experiense to make lage drawings. No i am an usability engenier. And i want to tell that lage-format drawings are much more understandable then the same but broken in to the letter or A4 format pieses. Let all usability enginiers use usable drawings!

By: baumr1

baumr1 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi Andrey,

Glad you like the poster. Jesse is an amazing IA, and this poster shows how you can
design a deliverable in ways that people can use effectively.

> In other words there is connection line from “Message display” to “Adresses” – why?

Great question. In Yahoo! Mail, you can read a messge and add a contact to your
address book. You don’t actually visit the page any longer, you get a popup that allows
you to add the contact right there. Pretty useful.