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<p>First off: I'm not against keeping the current "Get a new email
address" button in the "Account creation dialog", as long as it
stays no more prominent than it is. I think any more prominent
would not be in the users' interest.<br>
</p>
<p>Mark Banner wrote:<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7ce8c5c6-601a-98c2-7fba-53d9c1c816a5@beonex.com">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">At the time, we were looking for
ways for generating income</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
Right. But it didn't bring income. Less than 1% of Thunderbird's
income came from the partnership deal, whereas 99% come from
donations.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">If users get the idea that you make
money this cheesy way, they are less inclined to donate. Given
the huge difference, even a small drop of 3% in donations means
we lost money.<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<p> </p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7ce8c5c6-601a-98c2-7fba-53d9c1c816a5@beonex.com">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I don't have the details (and I
wasn't directly involved in it), but from what I remember,
there was research showing that a significant number of people
downloading Thunderbird from the website were also expecting
to get an email address.</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I was involved, and I've heard this
"research" being cited over and over and over again, but nobody
has ever been able to show me. It always depends on who you ask,
how you ask, and what you tell them before you ask.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">As mentioned, the <i>actual</i>
numbers from real world use, over many many years, show that this
research was faulty.<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">More importantly, if even that was
true, the results don't determine a conclusion. Even if people who
never heard about Thunderbird before <b>think</b> that
"Thunderbird email" will give them an email address (which is a
good bet, indeed, given how every other email company tries to
give them one), that doesn't mean they <b>want</b> it. It could
just as well mean the exact opposite: That they do not want a new
email address, and the idea that Thunderbird will give them one is
a reason not to install Thunderbird, because it's too much hassle
to move.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">If you want to know what users think
and want and what their pain points are, the best way is to do
evangelism among your non-computer friends. Your family, your
wife's friends etc.. Try to "sell" them Thunderbird. See what they
say. Most likely, they'll say that they are good with Google,
meaning their email address. If you convinced them, install it
together with them, and let them set it up themselves. You'll very
quickly notice where they struggle and what they like.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">When I tell my friends that they can
keep their email address, they are happy. You should see their
eyes when they see all their emails appear in Thunderbird. They
are overjoyed!</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">---</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Why am I explaining this so much? By
putting "New email address" front and center, you might not
actually achieve your goal of attracting new users. In fact, you
may very well delude the brand message of Thunderbird as an email
client that's made to work natively with <b>all</b> email
providers. Other providers are not a second class citizen that is
just supported as well (many web mail providers can do that), but
that's how Thunderbird is meant to be used.</div>
<p>I've always suspected the main reason for the "get new email
address" feature was money, and it seems to be the motivation here
again.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Alessandro Castellani wrote on 30.04.19
19:23:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:da075632-6fb2-4290-87cd-c534568eb785@thunderbird.net">I
implemented that secondary button as Ryan told me there are
potential partnerships happening with various email providers.
Offering a "spotlight" placement in TB is pretty important in
order to close profitable deals with email providers, opposed to
something like "We're gonna put a link on one of our web pages".
We need a stronger selling point.<br>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>See above. What sets Thunderbird apart from others is that it
does not act in financial self-interest, but for the user and user
only. This kind of thinking is dangerous.</p>
<p>I'm not again making money. We all have to live. But there are
opportunities where it can help what users want to do anyways,
instead of pushing something on them that they didn't want. "It's
bad for users" Answer: "But it brings us money" is a bad
direction.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:da075632-6fb2-4290-87cd-c534568eb785@thunderbird.net">
<p> </p>
<p>The idea is to offer the ability to create a new email account
directly inside Thunderbird without leaving the client.
Furthermore, once the email has been created, TB would complete
the setup automatically. A seamless implementation for that tiny
% of users that need a new email address.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with that idea. If we can offer that seamless setup,
that's a great thing. I'd much rather create a new email address
directly in Thunderbird than at a third party website and then set
it up in Thunderbird again.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:da075632-6fb2-4290-87cd-c534568eb785@thunderbird.net">
<p>the low % of usage can be attributed to many factors, like a
disconnected and confusing UI, unavailability of multiple
providers, and lacking of a properly guided experience.<br>
That implementation might have been a failure, but ... We should
identify road blocks, pain points, and iterate upon that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I expected that response. Unfortunately, placement and UI were
not the problem.</p>
<p>The placement was much much more prominent than it is now. After
installing and starting Thunderbird the first time, the very first
dialog you saw was "Create a new email address", with the provider
registration hookup. That was the entire dialog. The "Set up
existing email address" was merely a small button at the bottom.
I.e. exactly inverse as it is now. You can't possibly get any more
prominent than that.<br>
</p>
<p>Still, despite this maximal prominent placement, and OTOH the
"set up existing" dialog had to specifically looked out for,
100000 time more people set up an existing email address rather
than subscribe to a new one. I think it's can't be any clearer.s</p>
<p>It wasn't due to lack of effort in the "get new" dialog, either.
They are trying to generate attractive email addresses and domains
for you, set it up automatically, etc. You can probably style it
nicer, but it's be surprised if you manage to make the
registration and setup process more seamless.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:da075632-6fb2-4290-87cd-c534568eb785@thunderbird.net">If
this is related to the current dialog in TB, I'm sorry but I
strongly disagree. ... lazily aligned and misplaced.<br>
<p> The input's helpers text are inline, which makes the dialog
longer that it needs. If there's an error, the message with a
misaligned icon appears to the right of the helper text, making
the dialog grow, causing elements and focus points to shift.<br>
The configuration steps are not styled at all</p>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Oh, yes. I totally agree. If you're talking about styling, that
means visuals, then yes, the current dialog leaves a lot to be
desired. Styling, placement etc. could all be much better. Agreed
on that.</p>
<p>If you want to improve the styling, go ahead.</p>
<p>What I was referring to was user experience (UX), meaning: Is the
user lost? Do we show something that the user didn't want or need?
Or do we do what he wanted to do anyway? Do we help him along the
way, on difficult points (like finding the right servers)? Do we
help him avoid common pitfalls and errors (like the "bob" as
Name)? Do we guide him alone the most commonly needed path, and
make that really easy, but allow users with different needs still
to do what they want?</p>
<p>I think the dialog does that part very well. It has exactly what
most of the users need, and intentionally does not have what only
a tiny percentage of users (<1%) need.</p>
<p>So, what is on the screen and what is not, I would say that's
very good. The styling is horrendous, I would concur.</p>
<p>(The part I hate the most is the "you don't have SSL" warning.
It's good that the window background becomes red, that shows the
urgency. But the specific color of the red, and the placement, and
the styling, are so ... making my eyes hurt.)</p>
<p>Regarding errors:<br>
</p>
<p>Mark suggested to make the error tooltip appear without hover. I
think that would be an acceptable compromise for the above 3
fields. The errors there are not coming from the server and rather
obvious.</p>
<p>(The errors that come later in the setup process, on
configuration server failures or login failures, are very
important, and need to be shown, in full without cutting off, and
need to stay on screen without going away, because they are direct
instructions to end users and they are the kind of thing you need
to read to your support helpdesk. Making server errors less
prominent would lead to huge UX problems and cause endless pain to
end users.)</p>
<p>End note:<br>
</p>
<p>If you can make it more beautiful, without changing the logic
(removing or adding stuff), then I think the result will be very
positive. I for one would be very happy about it.</p>
<p>Ben<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:da075632-6fb2-4290-87cd-c534568eb785@thunderbird.net">
<p>I hope we can all agree that the current dialog is not a great
"First Experience" to offer to new users. That dialog sells TB
short, making it look unpolished, non-curated, and kind of like
an amateur old software.<br>
<br>
</p>
<p><b>Tooltips and error messages</b></p>
<div class="moz-signature">
<p>To guide the user in typing proper information, we can use a
combination of placeholder text and tooltips. Showing all the
text at all times is not a good solution as it clutters the
dialog and distracts the user.</p>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">
<p>Tooltips can also be triggered dynamically without changing
the size of the dialog, which we should avoid as it disrupts
the experience.</p>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">
<p>If the user types "bob", we can have a check in place for
lowercase single words in order to trigger a timed tooltip to
state "This is the name your recipients will see", or
something like that.<br>
If the email is incorrect, the field can shake and a timed
tooltip can appear.<br>
Tooltip messages can be shown on mouseover as well.</p>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">
<p>All these solutions create visual cues that catch the user's
eye, without moving elements around or changing the location
of fields and buttons, like it happens in the current field.<br>
<br>
</p>
<p><b>Cancel the dialog<br>
</b></p>
<p>This is something I'd like to hear your thoughts about it.
Since any dialog can be closed through the window controls, do
we want to highlight this option with a dedicated button?</p>
<p>The idea here is to somewhat prevent this if the user access
TB for the first time and no accounts is set up. Is TB usable
in any way without an account?</p>
<p>Anyway, a "Set Up Later" button or link can be added on the
first screen, but I wouldn't add it or keep it once the user
is in the funnel, to prevent accidental clicks or confusion
with the back button.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Thanks again everyone for taking the time to review these
mock-ups.<br>
Taking design decisions is always hard as everyone has its own
taste and expectations, but I'm sure we can all work together
to improve the experience of using TB, and create an interface
that it's modern and appealing, and can help us solve
problems, gain new users, and solidify the trust with our
current audience.</p>
<p>Cheers,<br>
</p>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<span><b>Alessandro Castellani</b><br>
Lead UX Architect<br>
Thunderbird</span></div>
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