FastMail Changes Poll

[FredOnline]

Here's your chance to vote on the poll.

[the bishop]

Wish it would help. Didn't help the last time that <unnamed people> updated the interface which removed features (how that's an update is beyond me?).

Triple thumbs down. Will let my accounts all run out unless things are restored. Not gonna have this again now that Polarismail is starting to introduce the things that FM is removing.

[akorvemaker]

I'm not completely happy, but I like the direction it's going.

Overall, I really like it. But I strongly feel that it wasn't quite ready for prime time.

[thymara]

I'm not completely unhappy but then I'm basically unaffected, I use a desktop app for my mail, mail.app, and it provides all that I require. If I have to go into the beta I have been able to find workarounds for just about everything.

My unhappiness stems from the implementation plan, or the apparent lack of one. I spent 25 years doing and managing technical support in a telco and had I implemented anything in this manner my 25 years would have been shortened quickly.

With a track record like this you have to ask - what will they do next?

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by thymara

With a track record like this you have to ask - what will they do next?

This is my major concern, combined with other evidence that they do not understand what business and power email users need (e.g. ability to operate conveniently across multiple computers and mobile devices).

Note that I did not vote in this poll because none of the alternatives really cover my position. So far, about half of my customers that use FM are pretty angry and I could easily convince them to move. I am actually recommending that we let the dust settle and avoid the disruption of a move until (in the cold light of day) it really seems necessary. It is certainly not something I recommend doing without due preparation. Note, though, that my customers almost all have their own domains (which I strongly recommend) which makes a move a little less disruptive. For instance, they do not need to worry about changing office stationary, marketing materials, contact details on websites and the like.

[Quilleron]

I'm unbelievably angry on a number of fronts:

1) The new interface in nothing that I have ever asked for or wanted and looses a lot of the features and simplicity of the old interface as well as its customisability (bully for drag and drop!)

2) Even what is being called the classic interface has lost some of the functionality that was available on the old interface.

3) Despite assurances that the classic interface won't be discontinued there seems to now be no guarantee that that's the case.

4) I don't see that the new interfaces (either of them) are any faster than before and to me going faster isn't an issue if you can't do half the things you used to be able to do with a single mouse click.

5) Both designs take up far more space than the old ones did and I can't see in a single view as many messages or folders as I could previously.

6) I don't have the time or wish to learn how to use a new interface and to support all the people I have put onto FastMail through that same learning curve.

7) The way in which the whole thing has been handled has been completely inept and amateur.

I could probably add some more points; I keep trying to tell my self to get over it but I'm reeling at what to me is the loss of one of the pillars of my online world.

[Tricia Marie]

Honestly speaking, I am shocked with the so conservative attitude to change show by many users here... The new interface is something many of us were waiting for it for a long time: It's a state-of-the-art improved interface in line with other email service providers today.

I read this forums since 2005 and I am suscribed to Enhanced since 2006. And in all this time this is the best improvement I see to happen to FastMail.

Of course some basic features are missing but I see this UI is not the final work, so maybe we should be patient with the technical team to solve these....

Very happy with the new UI, after seeing it for the first time I never returned back to the old interface...... just times are changing guys and it's for the good of all I am sure.

Tricia Marie

[Terry]

I have been with f/m over 10 years and I think the new U.I is probably the worst one they have ever had...

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by Tricia Marie

Honestly speaking, I am shocked with the so conservative attitude to change show by many users here... The new interface is something many of us were waiting for it for a long time: It's a state-of-the-art improved interface in line with other email service providers today.

I read this forums since 2005 and I am suscribed to Enhanced since 2006. And in all this time this is the best improvement I see to happen to FastMail.

Of course some basic features are missing but I see this UI is not the final work, so maybe we should be patient with the technical team to solve these....

Very happy with the new UI, after seeing it for the first time I never returned back to the old interface...... just times are changing guys and it's for the good of all I am sure.

Tricia Marie

First, I have no objection in principle to the new interface, as an alternative. For the kinds of customers I support, it provides little that is useful, while high priority issues are not addressed. However, I understand that it will be simpler and more intuitive for many users with simpler requirements. It is reasonable that Opera should try to cater to those.

I have two huge objections though:

• These changes were sprung on us without warning. I was faced with busy business people who were unable to efficiently work until I could figure out what happened and tell them how to proceed. Apart from FM's credibility, it also hurt my own.
• We had been repeatedly promised (including a few days before the change) that the existing interface would remain fully supported. In reality, the existing interface (even having been able to work out how to reach it) is not the same as before. Most of the functionality is intact, but things like fonts, layout and menu structure have changed. While menu structure is not critical, the other two are sometimes important.

It is difficult to have confidence in an email service that can perpetrate this.

[Terry]

Originally Posted by BritTim

• We had been repeatedly promised (including a few days before the change) that the existing interface would remain fully supported. In reality, the existing interface (even having been able to work out how to reach it) is not the same as before. Most of the functionality is intact, but things like fonts, layout and menu structure have changed. While menu structure is not critical, the other two are sometimes important.

It is difficult to have confidence in an email service that can perpetrate this.

Exactly the classic interface is no longer the classic interface that also has been changed.....

Please bring back the classic as it was a WEEK A GO.

[andrej]

I was going to say incandescent with rage but I switched to CFLs a while ago.

[ChinaLamb]

Originally Posted by andrej

I was going to say incandescent with rage but I switched to CFLs a while ago.

As someone who has studied polling and statistics, this poll is useless. It draws upon negative remarks and the questions are poorly worded by someone who is obviously upset by the new changes. Therefore the poll will naturally be skiewed based on the design of the poll. The proper thing to do would be to use a proper Likert 5 point scale. Based on the question Do you agree with the changes?

Strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree and strongly agree.

Another question which would be good is:
I'm considering leaving fastmail over these changes:
Strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree and strongly agree.

almost 50% of the responses already don't see anything significnatly big about the change. almost 20% more say they have 'concerns.' Yet 'Concerns' is not sufficiently defined. It is a step above compalining, and it is two steps above leaving fastmail.Therefore we can say that concern is not concerned enough to leave fastmail, or to even complain about it.

Therefore almost 70% of people may have some concerns but are not upset enough to do anything about it. That's not bad for a new -interface redesign.

10% say they are leaving, 8% say they are complaining...

What is a troubling number which, as a trained pollster, I have no idea how to deal with is the statement, "I'm incandescent with rage and want someone's head." Does that mean they are leaving fastmail?

The problem is that the questions overlap in meaning, and thus should be separate polling questions.

[Tappahannock]

Originally Posted by Tricia Marie

Honestly speaking, I am shocked with the so conservative attitude to change show by many users here... The new interface is something many of us were waiting for it for a long time: It's a state-of-the-art improved interface in line with other email service providers today.

I read this forums since 2005 and I am suscribed to Enhanced since 2006. And in all this time this is the best improvement I see to happen to FastMail.

Of course some basic features are missing but I see this UI is not the final work, so maybe we should be patient with the technical team to solve these....

Very happy with the new UI, after seeing it for the first time I never returned back to the old interface...... just times are changing guys and it's for the good of all I am sure.

Tricia Marie

Tricia, imagine you are a doctor who has come into the room to hook up a patient to a ventilator and overnight someone replaced it, without warning, with a different model with different options and lots of the buttons moved around and by the way, it's not working quite right either.

I would think it's the power users and those who have days busy with other urgent content who are most affected and most irate. I 've always thought Fastmail was a place where power users tend to end up, so that there might be more than an average percentage of us compared to what would be found on other services.

At one time we were Fastmail's target audience, but now we are merely an inconvenient legacy resulting from Opera's need to acquire a working system as a shortcut to get a mail back end into their own product family. They needed a proprietary version of Gmail and now they have one.

They didn't fully understand the user base they were acquiring, but in the larger strategic picture I doubt very much whether the hue and cry arouses much concern at the executive level. The existing user base is the sideshow, just a distraction from the future user base for the ultimate product.

Casual users who would be just as satisfied with an entry-level product like Gmail probably have little cause to complain about the new version and may also have ample time on their hands to explore it for the sake of novelty or curiosity. Opera may (clumsily) have done the right thing for the user base they're moving towards, even though it was the wrong thing for much of the legacy base.

[FredOnline]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

As someone who has studied polling and statistics, this poll is useless. It draws upon negative remarks and the questions are poorly worded by someone who is obviously upset by the new changes. Therefore the poll will naturally be skiewed based on the design of the poll.

I'm afraid you're completely wrong with your assumption that I have an axe to grind here.

For the past year, my FastMail had been relegated to a secondary account, that I mainly access through a local client.

The changes, therefore, have minor impact on my requirements.

Admittedly, the questions were thought up on the spur of the moment, as it seemed important to get an overview of people's thoughts.

No one else had set up a poll, YOU say you have experience in this field but YOU did not set up a poll.

Why not, if you think you can do a better job, I'm sure everyone here (including me) would look forward to participating.

[thymara]

Originally Posted by Tappahannock

Tricia, imagine you are a doctor who has come into the room to hook up a patient to a ventilator and overnight someone replaced it, without warning, with a different model with different options and lots of the buttons moved around and by the way, it's not working quite right either.

I would think it's the power users and those who have days busy with other urgent content who are most affected and most irate. I 've always thought Fastmail was a place where power users tend to end up, so that there might be more than an average percentage of us compared to what would be found on other services.

At one time we were Fastmail's target audience, but now we are merely an inconvenient legacy resulting from Opera's need to acquire a working system as a shortcut to get a mail back end into their own product family. They needed a proprietary version of Gmail and now they have one.

They didn't fully understand the user base they were acquiring, but in the larger strategic picture I doubt very much whether the hue and cry arouses much concern at the executive level. The existing user base is the sideshow, just a distraction from the future user base for the ultimate product.

Casual users who would be just as satisfied with an entry-level product like Gmail probably have little cause to complain about the new version and may also have ample time on their hands to explore it for the sake of novelty or curiosity. Opera may (clumsily) have done the right thing for the user base they're moving towards, even though it was the wrong thing for much of the legacy base.

Your analysis, if correct in that Opera is targeting a new user base and will do so to the detriment of their legacy base, validates the criticisms of the business and power users of FastMail and further suggests that if they want similar service to what was provided in the past they need to look elsewhere.

My concern, as a casual user attempting to escape the Google and FaceBook behemoths with their my-way-or-the-highway approach, is there are an ever-decreasing number of alternatives. Desktop operating systems, Windows 8, Apple ML and LInux, are taking on the look and feel of smartphones which, at least to me, means that power users, and supporters thereof, will occupy a shrinking niche, not unlike the corner grocery store.

A Facebook acquisition of Opera would be the final blow to FM users. There is a paradigm shift coming in the email reselling business - embrace it and move on.