Re: [Usability] Mail clients put the Subject field in the wrong place

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

> Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:51:20 +0200
> From: Hynek Hanke <hanke brailcom org>
> To: mpt myrealbox com
> Cc: Usability gnome conference <usability gnome org>
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Mail clients put the Subject field in the wrong
>     place
>
> > > Hynek was using Evolution, a mail client that -- like most mail clients
> > > -- puts the Subject field above the message body in the composition
> > > window. As long as mail clients do that, and as long as humans go
> > > through forms top-to-bottom, it won't be surprising that they usually
> > > don't use the Subject line to summarize a message that they haven't
> > > even written yet.
>
> Well, shouldn't the To: field also be at the end then? ;)
> Like ``I want to write something to someone. Ok, I will write it,
> then I will think what it is and whom do I want to send
> it to...'' :)

It depends on how organised you are really and I think the problem is a
lot of us dont have a good summary in mind until we are done.

What would be really cool would be to Automatically summarize the message
and recommend a specific subject line instead of just using no subject.

Abiword includes OTS, the open text summariser which would be worth
looking at if anyone actually wanted to try and implement something like
that.

- Alan