1521414 - default sort order to newest/most recet messages first [was New email account populates with old email displaying on top first req]uiring tinkering with date filter

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 481143

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Profetik777]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:64.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/64.0

Steps to reproduce:

Add a new gmail or outlook (free consumer version) to thunderbird.

Actual results:

Folders and email begin to populate with OLD email on top, first. This requires user to tinker with date sort filter (2 clicks) to have most recent email appear on top.

Expected results:

The most recent email should populate on top without requiring user to use date filter button.

The user should just import/add their account and be able to see what came in most recently and get straight to work without fiddling with date filter sort button.

The main benefit for this is to reduce friction between user and input to get to work, and increase the potential for work flow.

#thunderbird-ux

Comment 1

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

What do you think, Richard? The default sort order is old messages first. Some people work like that.

Comment 2

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

It would be good if we'd have some statistics what the users have set. With the setting mailnews.scroll_to_new_message default to true TB should automatically go to the new messages.

Comment 3

[Profetik777]

Is there a sample of users that you pull from to determine this kind of thing? As a pre-sample of sorts that could be an initial fielding setting configurations/defaults? Or are you able to look at some internal dataset to determine?

It would be nice if a "cross section" of thunderbird users (from many backgrounds/use cases) were able to be pulled together to form a standing "focus group". This group doesn't have to be huge, but large enough to give us a nice way to test our "hunches" about how defaults should be set up.

Comment 4

[Matt]

Did we get any telemetry over the last 3 years?

Note that there is one click involved to reverse the sort order from descending to ascending. Unfortunately, the sorting functions of the column headers are not particularly discoverable.

Comment 5

[Profetik777]

Attachment: ksnip_20221226-163523.png

Comment 6

[Profetik777]

I've loosely been apart of efforts of a ux design committee that Ryan and I were beginning to get off the ground in 2018. One of the first things were to do outside of outline areas to tackle was to begin the process of formulating quick ux focus groups that we can spawn in relatively short time. Those efforts fizzled out - and we ended up having a full time ux designer taking the reigns.

I personally think having a ux focus group that meets quarterly or at least 2x a year is critical to tighten up the feedback loop on get trusted answers for things like this.

On a whim, I did a quick/dirty unofficial survey on this topic - and found that everyone who replied/answered preferred LATEST FIRST. These were done in two communities - 1 with many technical/power users , another with a mix of casual technical/power users. See attached.

P.s.

After trying this again on a new install , I found that when trying to select LATEST FIRST, my email had to "load" bc despite me changing the view, the emails were still populating OLDEST FIRST (which is to be expected by me, but maybe not a non-technical user).

Having to sit around to use my email (when the user should be able to install, just see their latest email, and JUST DO WORK) seems like a remnant of old crusty email clients of old. Its going to be 2023 - I am sure we can do better given the technical and ux talent within the project to enhance the first run ux on something this simple.

Comment 7

[Profetik777]

Attachment: ksnip_20221226-163527.png

Comment 8

[Profetik777]

Attachment: ksnip_20221226-163523.png

Comment 9

[Profetik777]

Attachment: 4.jpg

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

THis was done in version 120/128esr