0 Email is Simple, and it Should Be
A fellow colleague, Garrick Van Buren wrote a series about the broken state of email clients. I personally believe email is just fine as it is.
Email is one of those tools that you just can’t live without. Frankly the constraints that email provides are great. In part 1 on Garricks observations he talks about how email clients are from a simpler time and essentially no longer fit the bill. One of the responses was quite interesting.
“I remember having little emails at all! they were all important and relevant.”
Granted the channels by which we receive information have increased. It seems as though we want something to organize it all for us. Email sure isn’t it.
Emails are not for “social” forms of communication. They’re in essence digitally derived letters that you can send and receive instantly. Unfortunately most of us use our email clients for just about anything under the sun. I’m willing to bet that if you can wrap web applications inside an email, you’d immediately start receiving web applications in your inbox. We are abusing the channels at which we receive information. That is more or less a user problem, not that of the email client.
Garrick makes some wonderful arguments and observations as to why email in general is inefficient. I agree with most of them, but as far as placing the blame? I point at the users. Limit the noise your channels produce and I guarantee email will regain it’s value again.