Windows Live Mail Beta

Kahuna, Wave 11, Hotmail Beta

In October 2005 Microsoft started it’s 2nd wave of beta testing to a lucky 200,000 customers to introduce Windows Live Mail Beta. I only came across it a few weeks ago when an annoying banner started flashing the news on my Hotmail account asking if I’d like to try it. I did, and I have, and here I review it for you.

The Good Old Days

I signed up with Hotmail around 1998 when it had 2mb of storage, which seemed a lot for the time. However, within a few years the spam level had got so bad that I was going into maximum storage daily. I was wasting a lot of time filtering through 50-100 spam emails per day, so as soon as I got the chance I switched to Google Mail with its 1GB storage and virtually zero spam.

A few months after Google Mail launched, Hotmail quietly upped their storage to 250mb. I only realised when I noticed that I was using 1% of my inbox, whereas usually it was on 90%! Unfortunately this was too little too late and I had already made the full transition to Google Mail; using it for all my in and outgoing mail. Now the only thing I use Hotmail for is software/site sign-ups, freebies, etc., anything that is likely to encourage spam.

A New Breed

The ‘Windows Live’ branding is a new suite of services that are accessible from the browser without the need to download a separate application. It’s all to do with the new hype around AJAX that has been largely adopted by Google and Flickr. Microsoft has again fallen a step behind their (2nd) biggest competitor. There are a few other services with this branding and all are in beta for the moment – Safety Center, Favorites, OneCare Live, Local, Messenger and Search still to come.

This release uses the latest web technologies (the combination of JavaScript and XML) to bring the traditional Windows-based experience into the browser, including many of the features of Outlook/Outlook Express such as live spell-checking.

First Impressions

Although the colour-scheme is nothing new, preferring to stick with the tried and tested schemes of 80% of the web, it is pleasing to the eye using white, pale blues and yellow with shades of grey for the text and blue for the majority of the links. The design has been updated and cleaned up which will give customers the impression of a professional and familiar service.

There are 4 main sections in columnar layout:

1. Folders
2. Summary list of mail
3. Mail message preview pane
4. Advertisement

To be able to use the application, I have to put the window into fullscreen (1280×1024) so the columns become sensible sizes. I would be preferable to be able to customise the interface and use the layout that has become popular in Outlook of 2 columns, the 2nd split into 2 rows of message summaries and preview pane.

AJAX: For all your Cleaning Needs

There has been a lot of hype around AJAX, with more and more companies looking to get in on the act. While Google has been using AJAX for over a year now and are doing it quite well, others have not been so successful. They may be gaining wows for fancy effects, sliding objects and slick transitions, but they lose way more than that in usability/accessibility for the everyday user.

The new interface has been designed to behave more like a Windows stand-alone application, for example: you can drag and drop your messages into different folders, Ctrl-click to highlight more than one message, right-clicking opens a contextual menu; on a folder to delete, empty or rename, right-click on a message to reply/forward/etc.

Check Me, One, Two…

The checkboxes next to each message have been removed because you can now Ctrl-click to select multiple messages. I think these should have been left in place for 2 reasons;

• The first is for older users of Hotmail (and, selfishly, me) who have become adept at quickly selecting what they don’t want and clicking delete or selecting those they do and transferring it to a folder, etc
• The second is for mobility-impaired users who may not be able to perform these multiple-action-functions (i.e. click-hold-drag-drop or Ctrl-hold-click-move-click)

Embarrassingly, it took me a couple of weeks before I realised you could Ctrl-click for multiple messages, because I’m not my parents and I didn’t bother reading the instructions. As Live Mail has all new functionality it could be useful to have an optional bar above the tab line showing hints and tips for getting to know the system. Each time you log in to your mail there is a splash screen, which spans the mail summary list and preview pane, giving an in-depth explanation of a random bit of functionality.

Text Resizing

A few times, in this new version, I have received an email where the text size is so small it’s illegible and I’m not sure if the font-size is being affected by the styling from Hotmail or not? In any case, users who are visually impaired (or just prefer their text larger) need to be able to increase the text size on a web page. I tried to increase it by Ctrl-mouse up/down — I have to go both ways because I can never remember which way increases: in Firefox and IE it’s down as though you are bringing the page towards yourself, and in Opera you scroll up as though you are bringing yourself closer to the screen — I was impressed when it worked! The only problem I had was that there was about a second lag between scrolling and the text changing and a second is a long time on the web.

Frames & Scrolling

I used to use Hotmail in a window about 640 x 480 but with the new interface there are a few problems with this. It uses 3 frames which only expand to fit the window, meaning that the top third of the window is a banner and title the rest is the top half of your mail box. There is a scrollbar where you think you’ll be able to view the rest of your messages, however when you scroll down there is just blank space. To view the rest of your mail box you have to use one of 3 frame scrollbars to the left of the frame – this has rendered the main scrollbar useless.

Click

Any buttons or links in a web page should be obviously clickable, i.e. by being underlined or differently coloured to the rest of the content or look embossed like a real-life button. The links in Windows Live Mail break all these rules; the only way to tell they are clickable is to mouse-over and watch the cursor change. They didn’t jump out at me that these were the normal e-mail functions (reply, reply all, new etc) they just merge in with everything else, there is nothing distinct about them.

Another area that needs work is the tab bar. When you use a real-life metaphor on the web, the idea is that it should behave as it does in the real world. Inactive tabs should appear behind the current one, for instance by changing its background colour as if in shadow. The tabs on Windows Live Mail stay white as you move between them, meaning your only reference to where you are is a missing faint blue horizontal line. This is difficult to see amongst the other fields/buttons around this area and could be enhanced by adding a pale blue background to the inactive tabs.

Update 20 February 2006: I have just found a screen shot of the original layout and there was a pale blue background for the active tab which flowed around the buttons – this would work just as well, I wonder why it was removed.

Functionality

The main functions of email, operations such as deleting and creating messages, clicking between folders, etc should be instant. In my experience they are taking a lot longer than the same functions do in Google Mail, for me this is not acceptable and delays make me less and less likely to move back to using this as my primary email application. As this is a Microsoft product and all geeks are supposed to be Microsoft haters, I assumed there would be some ‘clunkiness’, but as it had been said that this release was been programmed from scratch I thought it might have been a little more streamline.

One of my gripes with the old Hotmail was the way you added contacts, the way you had to add a first and last name for each contact seemed unnecessary and helpful when you had 2 or 3 different addresses for a person, or when you they didn’t have names (i.e. a business address). In the new version it is much more convenient, either click “Add Contact” next to the person’s email address and it’s added into your contacts automatically or click the ‘Contacts’ tab –> ‘New Contact’ and enter the only email address if desired.

At the moment, in Firefox and Opera, IE has reduced set of features that hopefully will be added when the actual release comes around (they say they will, but who knows). I still see it as a struggle to put themselves on an even keel with Google as well as fighting to keep their existing users. Unfortunately, I think they are a few months too late.

And Finally

While I was digging around the CSS files to see the exact colours that had been used, I found these lines and comments quite amusing:

/* IE bug fix to allow "View->Text Size" to work. */
HTML { FONT-SIZE: 100.01%; }
...
height: 1%; /* used to get IE 5.0 to display inline and show border */
...
/* TODO: how do we set a minimum yet allow for column to grow width when needed? */


Source: Windows Live Mail CSS File

Update 22 February 2006

I have stupidly managed to opt myself out of the beta testing and I can’t get back in! Going back to the old way of Hotmail has certainly shown me how much nicer to use Windows Live Mail is – anyone know how to get back in?

Update 23 March 2006

In order to stop some of the repetetive comments, here is how to get back into Windows Live Mail either for the first time or if you’ve opted yourself out.

• Browse to Windows Live Ideas
• Scroll down to the Windows Live Mail beta box – third down, second column
• Click ‘Sign Up’
• Enter your email address and they say you’ll get an invite in the next few weeks

I’m sorry, but I do not have any invites available.

Posted in: Reviews

February 19, 2006