You'd be surprised at the effort that users will and won't engage in.
I know plenty of utterly non-technical users who have strong opinions about what are the uses of an email list versus the uses of a web forum versus the uses of a Facebook group page.
Which means, to me, that on the one hand, these folks would be interested in a new messaging approach if it was strongly distinguished from the functionality of email and on the other hand, these users quite likely wouldn't bother with something that seem too much like email. Essential, it seems like average people are up for multiple communications mediums but treat each medium as kind of a given, not something that's going to evolve.
> average people are up for multiple communications mediums but treat each medium as kind of a given, not something that's going to evolve.
People have been thinking like that for a long time about a lot of things. They have strong opinions about when to use a car vs. truck vs. minivan, or when to take the bus vs. the subway. They also have strong opinions about the purpose of each room in their home and each piece of furniture in their office. This is OK because most of these things don't change very often, and when they do (e.g. a new subway route or a major renovation), the change is obvious. Today's technology, on the other hand, changes very quickly and in subtle ways. It's hard to catch up with all of that, so the inertia becomes more noticeable. I shared a Dropbox folder with my father a while ago, but he still sends me large files as email attachments.
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You'd be surprised at the effort that users will and won't engage in.
I know plenty of utterly non-technical users who have strong opinions about what are the uses of an email list versus the uses of a web forum versus the uses of a Facebook group page.
Which means, to me, that on the one hand, these folks would be interested in a new messaging approach if it was strongly distinguished from the functionality of email and on the other hand, these users quite likely wouldn't bother with something that seem too much like email. Essential, it seems like average people are up for multiple communications mediums but treat each medium as kind of a given, not something that's going to evolve.
I'd be interested in ways of dealing with this.
> average people are up for multiple communications mediums but treat each medium as kind of a given, not something that's going to evolve.
People have been thinking like that for a long time about a lot of things. They have strong opinions about when to use a car vs. truck vs. minivan, or when to take the bus vs. the subway. They also have strong opinions about the purpose of each room in their home and each piece of furniture in their office. This is OK because most of these things don't change very often, and when they do (e.g. a new subway route or a major renovation), the change is obvious. Today's technology, on the other hand, changes very quickly and in subtle ways. It's hard to catch up with all of that, so the inertia becomes more noticeable. I shared a Dropbox folder with my father a while ago, but he still sends me large files as email attachments.