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 and is great to fall back on when I want to be reminded of just how bad applications can be.
By default, all unread mail in Lotus Notus is noted by being marked in bright red. This flies in the face of conventional UI design that has been generally accepted for years.
Stop signs are red, traffic lights are red, tomatoes are red (I hate tomotoes). The use of bright red alerts tells the world: stop, this is important. Heed caution. In most email applications this would be used to note urgency or a mail message marked as "High Priority."
Perhaps this was another way of differentiating the product from Microsoft Outlook which uses red by default only for priority messages, and instead favors the use of bolding in black color those mails that have yet to be opened. "That silly Outlook, we'll show them," I imagine the Notes team thinking.
This story does have a silver lining, that is, until the Notes team paints that cloud red too!I was pleased to find the in Preferences -> Mail -> Display there is an option to turn off this hideous UI faux pas and instead use a bolded, black font. Hmm, wonder where they got that idea?
