Re:Asynchronous UIs - the future of web user interfaces
by jaylevitt on Thursday November 17, 2011 @09:37AM
(#3247751)
Not to mention that in any Internet mail system, the Sent Items folder has no real link to what's been sent; the fact that your outgoing emails also get appended to your Sent Items folder is a pure client convenience, done via a different protocol over a different connection with a different copy of the message body, and it's quite possible for them to show up even if the transmission itself failed.
Re:Asynchronous UIs - the future of web user interfaces
by alecbenzer on Wednesday November 16, 2011 @05:26PM
(#3245379)
Right, when things are important, you could just break the user's perception that things are happening instantaneously and give an asynchronous notification when the operation succeeds, instead of just when it fails, couldn't you?
I understand that for some messages, sure, you want an acknowledgement. I just don't see how that process is notably different for an async web client compared to what's already out there on desks and phones and particularly as compared to a blocking web UI.
If you had a blocking UI, any of those 'interruption' events could occur while you're staring at a spinner. And you (rightly) wouldn't know or feel confident that the message was sent until you re-established your connection and verified the item had made it to your sent items. Which is the same as it would be with an async client: it's an important email, so until you saw it in the Sent Items folder, you wouldn't have the warm-and-fuzzy feeling.