Yahoo! Mail Beta Update

Posted by Andy Atkinson on March 28, 2006 | Post type: Gain

Yahoo! Mail is slowly rolling out a new Beta interface to users. The new interface touts Ajax support for a "rich client" feel, as well as some of the latest design patterns like tabbed browsing, and autocomplete. What does that mean to you? Most of the server interaction that previously happened with a full page refresh now happens in the background, and only a portion of the page may be updated instead of the entire page, meaning the application feels faster, more like an application that is installed on your desktop. Another major feature of the Beta interface is a reading pane that lets you simultaneously view the body of a message and the contents of a mail folder (like your Inbox).

Yahoo! Mail Beta

The notification area in the top right of the screen, above the messages, is often the only indicator of activity. The Beta application makes heavy use of Ajax to give it a rich client feel, with almost zero full page refreshes. In usage, it feels very fast, albeit not as fast as Gmail in my opinion. When you click "Check Mail", you'll see a spinning circle in the notification area.

Yahoo! Mail notification area in top right indicates activity

Tabbed interface and Autocomplete

Like most modern applications, the Yahoo! Mail Beta follows the tabbed interface and Autocomplete design patterns, allowing users to open messages in new tabs, compose a message in a new tab, or view search results in a new tab. Autocomplete is present while filling in text fields to help you choose a recipient from your address book, or presumably, from any of the email addresses in any of your folders. Autocomplete does not seem to be available on the search however. Tabs can be closed with the circled "X" on each tab (like the Safari browser), the preferred method over one "X" location in the top right of the tabbed interface (like the Firefox browser).

Yahoo! Mail has autocomplete

The following screenshot shows the autocomplete options in the "Compose" mode of a new email.

Yahoo! Mail autocomplete in Compose mode

Yahoo! Mail provides additional functionality around search. It opens search results in a new tab, saves recent searches so that you might click them again later, and highlights keywords in your search, making it easier to browse your results.

Yahoo! keeps searches

Reading Pane

The reading pane is a primary feature of the new Beta interface, and is designed to make a significant usability improvement by allowing users to view messages while simultaneously viewing the contents of a mail folder. This means you can be browsing a message body, and view a new message when it arrives without navigating away from the message you are currently viewing. Outlook 2003 has a similar interface to the reading pane. If you do not wish to use the reading pane, the Beta interface allows you to disable it.

Yahoo! Mail reading pane

Drag and Drop

Another feature that most users expect is the ability to drag and drop objects within a UI. Yahoo! Mail supports several drop and drop operations. One such operation is to drag a message from one folder to another. The following screenshot shows the images that are presented to the user as they attempt to drag a message from the Inbox to another folder that may or may not be eligible to receive it. For example, a message from the Inbox cannot be dragged to the Sent folder, but can be dragged to the Trash folder.

Yahoo! Mail supports drag and drop of messages

Yahoo! has updated the Contacts manager to have a consistent look and feel with the rest of the Beta interface. However the Calendar and Notepad functions have not yet been updated (to the public). A major usability improvement here is searching your contacts. The Yahoo! Mail Beta interface will allow you input a keyword or number and will automatically filter your contacts where your search meets the criteria. In other words, if you want to quickly browse contacts that contain "an" or "612" (for example), you can input these characters and you will automatically get a filtered view of your contacts. This is very intuitive.

Yahoo! Mail contacts have been updated

Summary

Pros

  • The Yahoo! user interface team has created a very handsome mail client, with large rounded buttons that are easy to read. Advertisements stand out, but are less conspicuous than in the legacy interface.
  • The feel of the application is much faster and more usable. Perhaps the biggest usability improvement is the reading pane, which allows users to navigate emails in a way that is unmatched by other online mail clients that I am familiar with. Depending on your specific usage, the reading pane may not be very valuable. For pure performance however, I still give the nod to Gmail.

Cons

  • Browser support is limited. At the time of this writing, spellcheck on Firefox for Mac did not work, but the rest of the user interface did. Safari users are out of luck, as the new Beta interface is not supported at all.

What about Gmail?

All things considered, my initial reaction is that I prefer the Gmail interface over the new Yahoo! Mail Beta interface. The spellcheck design of Gmail is to display suggested words in a drop-down menu, which is much faster than the pop-up window of Yahoo! Mail and other web mail clients. They both offer autocomplete of email addresses, which is something else most users expect. The Gmail search is faster in my opinion, and also offers highlighting of search results. Advertisements are less obtrusive in Gmail. I don't use "Web Clips" or the RSS Reader in Yahoo! Mail, so these do not affect my decision.

The reading pane of Yahoo! Mail is nice, but is not necessary for me, and does consume a large amount of screen real estate on a low resolution screen. On a large screen, the reading pane is useful, since it allows a person to quickly delete a message, hit R to reply, or other quick interactions with the keyboard (in IE on Windows).

I prefer the Gmail interface because I can view many messages at once without scrolling. Threaded conversations are great, I don't know why Yahoo! hasn't adopted this. I do like the tabbed interface of Yahoo! however, but in the end I'll stick with Gmail for its lightweight feel.

About the author(s)

Andy started Pain in the Tech in 2005 as a way to share tips and tutorials with friends and family, and evangelize great products and services. By 2008, Pain in the Tech had 7 contributors, thousands of daily page views. Site ownership was transitioned to Matt Thommes in 2008.

Comments

# Matt Thommes at 3/30/2006 11:18 am cst
I don't know... I love Gmail, but some of those features in Yahoo Mail seem to kick Gmail in the butt. The "Reading Pane" seems awesome, as well as drag-and-drop. I've wished for some type of "reading pane" in Gmail - since I sometimes take a while to compose a new message, and during that time, I get new emails. So I'd like to see my Inbox, while composing a message. But Gmail allows you to "Save" messages, so that's good enough for now. Does this new Yahoo Mail offer anything like "tags?" That's a key component of Gmail, and I wouldn't even consider another email program if it didn't have some kind of tagging option. I hate folders, and I hope to never go back to them. I still don't have the new Yahoo mail in my account.. hopefully I'll get it soon.

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c3999

# Andy Atkinson at 4/3/2006 3:45 pm cst
There are no tags that I can see. Yahoo! Mail still has the "Folders" method of email organization, instead of "Labels" (like Gmail) or *tags* . Tags would make more sense, and allow you to review old emails with *tag clouds* and other modern web application features. The reading pane is nice, but only makes up around 25% (or less) of the total application space, meaning you get a *tiny* window to read your emails. Contrast this with Outlook 2003 where you get about 80% of the total screen to read the body of an email, and the new Yahoo! interface will feel underwhelming.

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c3940

# Andy Atkinson at 9/14/2006 12:34 pm cst
Marshall Kirkpatrick of [TechCrunch](http://www.techcrunch.com/) notes that Yahoo! is [opening up the update](http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/14/yahoo-mail-beta-to-open-to-the-public/) to their mail client to the public today. I need to spend a few minutes with it and see if they've made more updates since my review above was originally created. Please leave feedback here on your impressions of the client if this is your first time seeing it. Marshall notes a similar conclusion to me, and emphasizes how big of a deal this update is since Yahoo! Mail is used by millions of people: >In other words, I think there’s still plenty of reasons to stay with GMail for now, but those for whom Yahoo! Mail is well suited are likely to be quite happy with it. Several of the new features, like RSS, drag and drop organization and calendar/maps could become a new standard in future offerings from other companies. It’s a good product that will change how hundreds of millions of people experience webmail and RSS.

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4111

# molly at 9/29/2006 5:50 am cst
I just got a new mail account at sbcglobal.net and It was in the new Beta form. I clicked on the button that said "switch back" and it switched back to the old mail format. I was wondering if anyone knew a way to put it back into Beta format?????????

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4135

# Nick M at 9/29/2006 12:48 pm cst
We were with Gmail for quite a while and recently switched over to Yahoo to host our domain and our email and let me tell you, it was one of the biggest pains I've gone through. Gmail doesn't provide an easy way to export (and yahoo doesn't provide an easy way to import) the mail. I understand what Gmail's going for - the no folders approach - but after working with folders at work and everywhere else, I have to say, I'm a bit used to it. Molly - you should be able to switch back to beta under the Options, I think. Or, I think you can if you go to the beta page as well.

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4136

# Shell at 10/13/2006 11:03 am cst
It is too sensitive & picks up everything i cross over with my mouse making it very difficult to check mail. How do I desensative this feature or permanently disable?

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4159

# Rick at 10/27/2006 10:37 pm cst
My biggest problem with Yahoo beta is that it *does* consume a lot of CPU which slows down my laptop. Also, the search feature is inferior to the current one (the no beta), since you cannot search in specific fields. Other than that, I think is vastly superior to gmail (in terms of features). OTOH, Gmail is simpler, and if simplicity and speed (although this only applies to CPU consumption, not network access) is what you are looking for, then that's the only case where gmail is better I would like to see Yahoo allowing IMAP access in their Mail Plus offering.

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4182

# Anonymous at 1/2/2007 8:14 am cst
I am experiencing consistant problems with Yahoo mail when pasting into word. More particularly html code into word. This function was running without pasting with control v from ie 6 for a long time. Now word freezes. Through research I found many people have the same issue. We can perform a work around with Paste Special, then select rtf format. The problem is that word tries to access the source of the html code as part of the paste function. When I perform a past into WordPAD, it performs flawlessly. I have reloaded Word, repaired, turn off firewall, checked for patches, turned off smart paste, changed the view. REinstalled again, removed all registry references to word, checked for viruses, spam, malware, etc... All of these actions did not change ie paste to word lockup problem. My research is pointing to Beta yahoo mail and some coding issues. Does any one have an insight to the issue? Thanks,

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4282

# SaadSoft at 5/12/2007 4:13 am cst
I have the same problem of yours, I'm afraid we sticked into this muddy Beta interface. But I hope they will be solved it ASAP. By the way, the same problem I have faced with Live Hotmail Beta but that time I left the interface loading for about 2 hours, after that it becomes working normally but a little bit slower so that I switched back to the simple interface. i hope with yahoo it will be the same progress. Saad

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4530

# Yuval Cohen at 5/23/2007 9:22 am cst
Had the same problem. Try following steps to switch to classic version: 1. Go to ("New Yahoo! Mail Beta") URL http://mrd.mail.yahoo.com/dc/landing... 2. Type in your yahoo username and password. 3. Now click on link "No thanks, remind me later". You will be in your yahoo mail box. 4. Now you can login into classic version and access your yahoo mail.

Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4521