Mail/Threading/UserStudies

We conducted surveys with 4 people aged 30-40 working in different group teams in the Tech, UK and Marketing field, in UK and Italy.

These are the results:

Mattia N - 23.01.2025

• Age: Around 30

• Work: Ux Designer for Accenture (Fintech), Milan

How many times I check emails: 10/12 times per day the personal one, esp because I receive many notifications on my mobile.

I check the work email less, only when I reveive a notification usually.

Personal: I use Spark, because I can use 4 accounts at the same time.

Work: Outlook

Outlook

In Outlook, I use thread view. I don't normally have long conversations, unless there are long threads with multiple people, that happen during often long periods of time (some weeks or even months).

How do I manage long threads: The reading is sometimes a little difficult, because in Outlook, you don't understand start and end of the reply. It's too plain. There is a divider that doesn't help.

In very long threads, it would maybe be useful to summarize the content.

I read everything, because I am usually interested in the whole conversation. I know all people who send replies. But I don't think I'd like to choose the people I read the replies from. I would not choose which one I'd like to read. I read everything.

Feedback to our UX mail threading idea

I showed a picture of the mockup with threading graph

Feedback: It's similar to what Outlook does already, but Outlook does it in a less structured manner and only in the web. You can expand and see the whole thread.

It doesn't use avatars, but you can see the chronological order of the replies that sometimes helps.

I am not able to tell you if I'd like your idea, I am not used to see it. Also, people don't have often an image in the avatar, so one character is hard to interpret.

Riccardo B - 23.01.2025

• Age: Around 30

• Work: Marketing in a multinational company that builds CNC machines, Padua

How many times I check mails: around 10 times per day

I use Outlook for work, Gmail for personal

How many colleagues do I have: around 300

Usually, when sending emails, I try not respond in a way that does not encourage a long discussion. I try to be concise. I send very precise emails, I don't leave space for pointless wandering of the conversation. I prefer using WhatsApp for fast conversations, or I normally talk with a person face to face, if I need anything. Why? Because it's more immediate. Sometimes I force the person that I need to give me an answer in that moment.

It happens that I get CCed in long threads, but I am not directly involved. The content of the conversation is often not pertinent with what I do, so I don't even read it.

Maybe I don't need to follow the whole thread. Maybe some part of content is relevant to my work, but they put me in CC, and everybody posts, and I don't need to read what they write.

This often happens to most of my colleagues as well.

Feedback to our UX mail threading idea

Yes, great. Indeed, I cannot see a better way to select the content that we want to see. Good idea.

Your idea is certainly intriguing. In my specific situation, its relevance is somewhat limited, because I don't often deal with lengthy discussion threads. However, based on my observations of others' experiences, I can see how this could be a valuable concept.

Installing Parula

Unfortunately, in my company, our security policies do not allow me to install other software, so I cannot install Parula. It is difficult for the IT department to approve a software different from what they are already using. We have valuable client data that we need to protect. Maybe your target can be less structured companies.

Patty F - 23.01.2025

• Age: Around 40
• Work: Channel Program Analyst, London

How many times I check my emails: all day during working hours.

Feedback to our UX mail threading idea

Nice idea, this would be easier than searching for emails.

Yes, it would definetely help you not to go crazy in long threads, to understand who is responding to whom. Great idea.

New input

Often previous emails in a thread are in different languages. I'm not sure if there are automatic translation options, but it would be very useful to me.

Between these 3 choices:

1. that always translates everything
2. only in some emails that you can choose?
3. or with the 'translate' button at the top and you can do it yourself when needed?

I prefer n. 3 for more control.

Andrea B - 22.01.2025

• Age: Around 40
• Work: Project manager in a small size Creative Studio, Milan

How many times I check mails: around 10 times per day.

I use Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo with corresponding app. All three email accounts are equally active and used in the same manner.

I don't normally have long email exchanges because I prefer to use instant messaging.

I use conversation view in Gmail, which condenses related emails. I find the current email interfaces sufficiently intuitive.

Feedback to our UX mail threading idea

Showed interest in the visual representation of email threads, but initially found it confusing.

After explanation, acknowledged the potential usefulness of the thread visualization, especially for remote teams with long conversations.

Feedback to our UX combined chat/mail idea

I see potential value in having all communications chat/mail in one place to reduce stress of checking multiple platforms.