This is my continuing rant on Lotus Notes & Domino. This application has to be the single most difficult email reader I have ever seen. Since I have to use it for work, all I can do is rant and continue my long list of what not to do when designing applications. It's a pretty healthy list. The designers of Lotus Notes are evil.
So, today's little jaunt...I had to fire up a colleagues client because he was out of town and needed some files. No problem said I. His client version was a step or 2 below mine (version 8), but a cursory glance made it seem as though not much was different. Au contraire, mon frere.
The problem occured when my colleague simply asked me to write him a new mail message from his client. I stared blankly at the screen for a minute or two. I am an educated man, and have used computer applications since I was a fetus. Well, maybe not a fetus.
I clicked his Inbox..there was a familiar icon for that. But where was the New Mail button? Hmm...New Message perhaps? Nope. The only thing remotely familiar was a menu option for New Memo...New Memo? That certainly can't be it. Memo...like an idea to jot down, or a yellow sticky note perhaps?
I will spare you the suspense. New Memo was it. So in Lotus Notes "New Memo" provides the functionality for "New Mail." Whoever named that over at IBM was a developer or maybe in marketing...but it is clear that they never sent a mail message before...or perhaps they were "sticking it" to Microsoft Oulook and every other mail reader on the planet by designing their own vocabulary.
Remember, the elements of good application design are not simply formats, pretty hues, Flash or Silverlight. It's the simple stuff. Like calling mail...mail.
