First, in trying to reply to Maurice’s response to my previous problem post, clicking on the “Reply” button in the email took me to what looked like generic search results. There was no context of my original problem post or Maurice’s reply. After going in circles, even after locating my original post and seeing the notation that Maurice had replied, there was no option to do a reply so I am doing another post.
Second, Maurice informed me that there was an Advanced Search function ‘hidden’ within the functions in the Edit menu and asked what could be better about it. Here you go:
- Don’t hide the function two layers down! I never would have thought to look for an ‘advanced’ search function in the Edit menu. Search is something used quite often in email so there should be a more direct way to get to it. Put a link of some kind next to the search box in the main interface.
- I find the interface in the advanced search form is non-intuitive and doesn’t directly address the search criteria most often used. My experience as an IT professional, from the birth of email to today, is that the vast majority of searches involve the following: Looking for a message to / from a particular person; usually in in-box, sent, trash, or all messages; within a particular date range; with / without attachments; with specific search terms. I urge you to organize the advanced search interface to be able to easily toggle these choices, as well as to search in a particular folder beyond the main ones I have listed above.
I recognize that you do not want to be an Outlook clone and that mostly is a good thing. However, there are some things that Outlook does well, and Search is one of them. Please review what Outlook can do for Search and integrate equivalent functionality and ease of user interface in your product, while still respecting your cleaner and more modern interface.