Webmail unveils new look, features

Webmail users will be hit with something unexpected today. The old Webmail will be a thing of the past, and a new Webmail with user-tested modifications will assume its place. \nRick Jackson, messaging team manager, said response from users signaled the need for change. In the spring of 2003, UITS conducted their annual user survey, and feedback from the survey indicated that users were not altogether happy with the current version of Webmail. \n"The comments in the survey indicated that people wanted to be able to more easily determine how much space they had used of their quota, they wanted frames so they could read mail while still being able to look at their inbox list, and they wanted to be notified if they received mail while logged in to Webmail," Jackson said. \nMeanwhile, UITS Support Centers were receiving similar noise from discontented users, Jackson said.\n"This helped validate the feedback we obtained from the survey," he said.\nThe new Webmail includes a quota display, so users will know how much free space their account has available. The status of messages (unread, read, responded to, etc.) is color-coded and more elaborate. Messages and folders are opened in different windows, so a user can look at what he or she is writing while viewing the inbox simultaneously. Also, while a user is logged in to Webmail, there will be a notification if new mail arrives. These are just a few of the improvements on the old Webmail.\nJunior Hillary Morrow said she thought letting users know how much space they have left would be helpful.\n"That will be really good, because there are a lot of people like me who never delete their mail," Morrow said. \nJackson said UITS did not design the new Webmail. The software for the new Webmail is actually "heavily modified" from a version of Internet Messaging Program available at www.horde.org. According to the Web site, the Horde Project writes Web applications like IMP under open-source licenses. \n"Open-source software is free and developers are expected to add to the source code to share with other developers," Jackson said in an e-mail interview mediated by Greg Moore, communications specialist for the UITS Communications and Planning Office. "That way the software code gets developed without any cost. We made modifications according to our needs and those modifications are added to the source code for other institutions to use if they care to."\nUITS tailored the original Horde IMP to the wants and needs of users based on results taken from pilot and usability tests. \n"Pilot testing is done by whoever signs up to use a new system," Moore said. "Our Support Center folks are often involved in pilot testing because they have to support any new system." \nMoore said that close to 2,000 people signed up to do pilot testing. Following pilot testing, a small number of subjects were brought into UITS usability labs to test the user-friendliness of the system. \n"A usability lab uses scientific observation methods to collect usability data," Moore said. "That data was shared with the messaging team. The messaging team then made modifications to the software based on that feedback."\nJackson and Moore stressed that Webmail users need not worry about the change in format. The system itself will stay the same. Messages are still stored in a server independent of the software used to access them. \n"Users can continue to choose between Webmail, Pine, Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator, Eudora and other mail clients to access the same mail store," Jackson said.