Re: [Evolution] Order of preferred email addresses in Evolution contact

[Nick Jenkins <nickpj gmail com>]

Hi Ben,

> I confess that, compared to the order you proposed, I would tend to do
> instead:
>
> [ email 1 ]  [ email 3 ]
> [ email 2 ]  [ email 4 ]
>
> However, I don't really know why that should be; 

I know what you mean. I had the proposed order that way originally too,
but thought "hey, is that logical?", and changed it, but maybe I should
have asked "hey, is that intuitive?", in which case you'd probably use
the above ordering. I don't know why this should feel more intuitive
either - maybe the import order, as you suggested.

I don't personally mind too much either way where fields 2 and 3 are, my
primary preference was that the top-left email address is listed first.

I suspect using the vertical layout isn't going to be possible -
although it has the benefit of being unambiguous, it probably takes up
too much vertical space, and especially with the rise of netbooks with
their current 1024x600 resolution, has meant that screen space, and
vertical screen space in particular, is at a premium.

Whatever ordering is used, it would make sense to apply the same layout
to other parts too; I personally only notice the issue with email
addresses, because of the way I use Evo, but I suspect that for people
what different usage patterns that the same idea would apply to the
other fields too.

-- All the best,
Nick.


-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Roberts <ben roberts geek nz>
To: Nick Jenkins <nickpj gmail com>
Subject: Re: [Evolution] Order of preferred email addresses in Evolution
contact
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:10:35 -0400

Hi Nick,

On Tue, 2009-06-30 at 10:38 +1000, Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Hi Ben,
>
> > This problem concerns the order of preference of emails when these are
> > added to a Contact. I might expect that the "first" email (as entered
> > in
> > the Contacts dialog) is the "preferred" email (e.g., displayed on the
> > Contact's address card when this is formatted in the list, first
> > choice
> > for sending emails to); and that as you go to the second, third and
> > fourth email fields the priority goes down accordingly. But it seems
> > that in my installation the reverse is the case: that an email entered
> > in the last field takes precedence over fields 3, 2 and 1, with 1
> > apparently receiving the lowest priority (empty fields excepted). The
> > same may apply to phone numbers, though these aren't so obvious, since
> > (unlike emails) a person rarely has two or more home (or work, etc.)
> > phone numbers to rank in priority order.
>
> Thank you! This has been slightly annoying me every time I email people
> with multiple email addresses - I have them listed in the contact in the
> order of importance of their email addresses, and one in particular I
> email daily has 3 addresses (one they get immediately, one they check
> once a week, and one they check once every few months)... so whenever I
> email them I am am always typing their name, and pressing the down arrow
> twice to select the 3rd email address listed, which is their primary
> email address. I guess I never really thought about what it's doing, but
> yes, you're right, it's listing them in reverse order^^, and yes, it's
> kind of annoying and I wish it would list them in the order they were
> listed in the contact, which to me is the most intuitive thing. So, long
> story short, please consider this a "confirmed - me too!".
>
> -----------------------------------
> ^^ = current used order seems to be this in the contact's details:
> [ email 4 ]  [email 2]
> [ email 3 ]  [email 1]
>
> For English-speakers, I imagine the general expectation would probably
> be that the order should match the order of reading text (left to right,
> top to bottom), i.e. top-left should be email 1, top-right should be
> email 2, bottom-left should be email 3, bottom-right should be email 4,
> although the positions of 2 and 3 could maybe be swapped if people
> expected this ordering.
>
> I.e. my guess is that most English-speakers' mental model is probably
> this, and that Evo should probably try to match it:
> [ email 1 ]  [email 2]
> [ email 3 ]  [email 4]
> -----------------------------------
>
> > I'm running Evolution 2.26.1 on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty).
>
> Ditto, and I'm pretty sure that 2.24.3 on 8.10 did the same thing too,
> so my guess would be that it's going to be still be present in the
> latest git/dev version. Therefore, the best thing is probably to log
> this in bugzilla so that it can be recorded/tracked/etc. I've used your
> email as the description text (hope this is okay!), and added a bit of
> info from the above, and it's now logged as:
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=587382 (Under Evo -> mailer ->
> Usability, which as-far-as-I-can-tell is probably the most accurate
> description).


Thanks for your response! And thanks for logging this in bugzilla, too.
I'll have a poke around there and see if I need to do anything further
(even if that is just adding a vote in support).

I confess that, compared to the order you proposed, I would tend to do
instead:

[ email 1 ]  [ email 3 ]
[ email 2 ]  [ email 4 ]

However, I don't really know why that should be; possibly it's a result
of the order in which the fields were originally populated when I synced
part of my address book, or maybe the long empty fields make it natural
to read down first rather than across. In any case, I could quite
happily work with either, provided that the fields be clearly labelled.
Alternatively, they could be arranged vertically, thus:

[ email 1 ]
[ email 2 ]
[ email 3 ]
[ email 4 ]

but I'm aware that this could well have bad implications for the size of
the first tab vis-a-vis the other two.

Whatever standard is adopted, in my opinion it would be good if it can
also be applied to phone numbers and IM addresses, and reflected in the
labelling and/or layouts of those parts of the address card.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Ben