Vista - Vista Mail, sending photos, and Microsoft's inability to "get it"

So my mom, an inexperienced user, gets this new laptop with Vista (I
can actually hear the collective groan). One of the things she wants
to do is insert personal photos into emails, and I suspect this is one
of the most common things a PC user may want to do.

She inserts her SD card and is greeted with a window asking what she
wants to do. - GOOD
In a window that displays the photos there's a button for "email" -
GOOD
During the process for creating the email she's asked if she wants to
resize the image. This is somewhat confusing to a novice, but it
makes complete sense and is very useful. -GOOD
Then after confirming the size, the email is created with the picture
as an attachment - BAD!

The picture should appear embedded within the body of the message.
This is what my mom, and probably most other users, would want!
Microsoft, on the other hand, thinks it's more useful to insert the
photo as an old fashioned attachment represented with a little icon.
Those ******** don't even have a nag window to offer the choice!

This is typical Microsoft.

So because my mom wants the final behavior 99 out of 100 novice users
would want, I had to jump through hoops and figure out how to insert a
picture into an email. I even went into Vista Mail's "Help" which is
so useful in how it's basically a system-wide help document instead of
one dedicated exclusively to the specific piece of software I used.
(sarcasm)

Eventually I noticed the "Insert" menu on the email window (yea, did
"duh" there on my part) and, being a savvy user, quickly figured out
how to insert the pictures. But how do I explain these steps to a
novice? :
"OK mom, you have to click Insert-> Photo which launches an 'Open
Dialog' common control, then expand the 'My Computer' tree to locate
your SD card volume, select the desired photo, and then grab the
resize handles on the inserted picture to shrink it down to a useful
size. Oh, and remember to be careful in maintaining that aspect
ratio!"

Nice user friendly experience there! I'm surprised she didn't figure
that out on her own!

Now how the hell does Microsoft think I'm going to explain that
process to a novice? They almost had the process done right with a
simple and easy interface, but they had to screw it up on the last
step. They just couldn't stand the idea of doing something right.
Hell, even me - a savvy user - would sometimes like to use a computer
to perform a simple task without having to deal with a pile of
nonsense. Why can't Microsoft ever place the user experience first?

When it comes to a Microsoft experience you'll either find the
implementation broken due to numerous bugs that they'll fix in a few
years, or a working experience that's so poorly designed you consider
joining the Amish church.

Did you actually send that email with the photos attached?
Most email clients (including Windows Mail) will show attached
photos in received email as inline at the bottom of the body.

--
Gary VanderMolen, MS-MVP (Mail)


"scs0" <scs0@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:479f1874-0039-4dd2-a320-6721a99059f8@xxxxxx

I didn't try since there was no indication that the behavior would be
different than what was shown on the sender's screen.
It's basically a worthless feature if you ask me because it prevents
the sender from labeling photos with text between embedded photos.
You'd think as big and powerful Microsoft is that they'd be able to
design software better than a group of college interns.

If you need to insert text between photos, start a new email,
make sure you are in HTML format (the default), click Insert,
Picture. This allows you to place pictures where you want them
with respect to text.

--
Gary VanderMolen, MS-MVP (Mail)


"scs0" <scs0@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:9d0dd913-cecd-498e-adb6-e63018e69f01@xxxxxx

Thanks for the advice, but to be honest you haven't even addressed the
core problem. It's the 21st century, novices are using PCs, and
Microsoft has created this new Vista operating system and a family of
(what it sees as) user-friend apps and they completely miss the mark.


How am I supposed to explain to my novice mother to "Make sure your
email is in HTML format", use the "Open File..." common control dialog
to select photos by using the "Insert--> Picture" tool, navigate the
PC through "My Computer" to find the SD card volume, and then grab the
handles on the corners of the photos to resize the photos so that they
fit on screen? She's a NOVICE. She wants to insert her SD card, see
a window displaying her pictures, hit the email option, and be
presented with a new email with her photos embedded in the email.
That's exactly how a novice would expect it to work, and in 21st
century Windows, that's how it ought to work.


Microsoft's behavior is so close to how it ought to work that it's
failure to get the final step right seems like an intentional act by
Microsoft to maintain their philosophy of aggrivating the user.


I am not a Mac fan by any means. I find the Mac community bordering
on cult-like with their bizarre love of the Mac, but I can honestly
see how Macs are gaining in popularity with novice users because Apple
does at least seem to understand the importance of the user
experience. Microsoft just doesn't get it.


BTW: Do you work for Microsoft?

Please note, it is the custom in newsgroups to quote the message
one is responding to. This helps with continuity. I often answer
more than a 100 messages here per day, so recalling the context
of what went before is difficult.

I don't consider the feature to intersperse photos with text to be
a novice level. But reasonable people can disagree about that.

I believe the newer Windows Live Mail program may handle that
feature better: http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview

No, I don't work for Microsoft.
What are Microsoft MVPs: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

--
Gary VanderMolen, MS-MVP (Mail)


"scs0" <scs0@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:82a6c068-c492-4e97-b469-32a24337ada5@xxxxxx