I’ve been thinking about something while working on JustMail.
Not what an email client should do.
What it should feel like to use.
There’s a difference.
If we were sitting at a coffee shop and you asked me what features an email client needs, I could probably give you a pretty boring list.
Send email.
Receive email.
Reply.
Forward.
Attachments.
Folders.
Search.
All the usual stuff.
We’ve been doing those things with email for decades.
But that’s not really what I’ve been thinking about.
I’ve been thinking about that moment when you open an app.
Does it feel calm?
Do you immediately know where things are?
Can you change something without hunting through five menus?
Or do you open it and feel like you’re sitting in the cockpit of an airplane?
I’ve used software where I’m pretty sure half the screen exists because somebody, somewhere, once asked for a feature.
That’s not necessarily bad.
Some people need incredibly powerful tools.
But most mornings, I just want to check my email.
I don’t want an experience.
I don’t want to learn a workflow.
I definitely don’t want to spend ten minutes figuring out where a button moved after an update.
I just want to read my email.
That’s the feeling I’m chasing with JustMail.
It Should Feel Like Yours
This is another thing that bugs me about modern software.
Everything looks the same.
You might get light mode.
You might get dark mode.
And if the developers are feeling particularly generous, maybe you get to choose from five accent colours.
I miss being able to make software mine.
Maybe you like things compact.
Maybe you want bigger text.
Maybe you love blue.
Maybe you absolutely hate blue.
Why should I decide that for you?
I’m the guy building the app.
You’re the one staring at it every day.
So customization is something I care about.
Not because I want 400 settings scattered throughout JustMail.
That would go against everything I wrote about last week.
But where customization makes sense, I want you to have it.
There’s a balance there.
I’m still figuring it out.
Fast Matters
I also think software should respond when you ask it to do something.
That sounds ridiculously obvious when I write it down.
Click.
Something happens.
Yet we’ve somehow reached a point where waiting for software has become normal.
Spinning circles.
Loading screens.
Splash screens.
“Just a moment…”
Obviously, some things take time. Networks aren’t instant, servers can be slow, and email itself has plenty happening behind the scenes.
I can’t control all of that.
But I can control my part of it.
I want JustMail to feel quick.
Not benchmark quick.
Not “our app opens 17.4% faster than the competition” quick.
I couldn’t care less about that.
I mean the kind of quick where you don’t think about it.
You click something.
It works.
That’s fast enough.
Predictability Matters Too
There’s another quality I think gets overlooked.
Predictability.
If a button did something yesterday, it should probably do the same thing today.
If you put something somewhere, I’d better have a pretty good reason before I move it.
Updates shouldn’t make you relearn an application.
I want updates to feel more like:
“Oh, that’s better.”
Not:
“Where the hell did everything go?”
I’ve definitely said the second one while using software.
More than once.
And Then It Should Get Out of the Way
Maybe this is the biggest one.
Software shouldn’t constantly remind you that it exists.
I don’t need JustMail trying to become the most important application in your life.
Hopefully it isn’t.
You’ve got better things to do.
Open it.
Check your messages.
Write a reply.
Close it.
Go make another coffee.
Go outside.
Spend time with your family.
Build something.
Whatever.
The best compliment somebody could give me might actually be:
“I don’t really think about JustMail. It just works.”
I’d be perfectly happy with that.
I’m still working toward it.
There are rough edges.
There are things I want to improve.
I’ll make some good decisions and probably a few dumb ones along the way.
That’s software development.
But I know what I’m aiming for.
I want JustMail to feel fast.
Familiar.
Personal.
Predictable.
And quiet.
Not software that demands your attention.
Software that respects it.
That’s the kind of email client I want on my computer.
So that’s the one I’m trying to build.
Until next week,
Kev