GHC11 included an Open Source Day, a hackathon where participants worked on a variety of projects including GNU Mailman. These are some rough notes for the session.
Notes for next redesign
Terri to fill in based on paper prototypes.
Current redesign feedback
Note: all this testing was done in IE8. Cross-browser testing hasn't been carried out yet. Feedback is grouped by task. Actions are in normal text, commentary in italics, proposed modifications in bold.
Making a new list
- Click "make new list" button
Met with "Login Required" page - "What if you don't have a login?"
- Enter a random email in the login field
- Login fails
*The "Login Required" page needs to allow you to create a login if you don't already have one.*
- Enter an existing account into the login field
- Login success, we see the "Create a new List on" page
*The "Mail Host" field is not aligned properly with other interface components*
"Why do the radio buttons have big boxes around them?"
*Typo: "Liste Index" should be "List Index"*
*Radio buttons should have something selected by default.*
*"Initial list owner address" should be prepopulated with the email you used to log in - we just entered that on the last page! Then users can have the option to change it if they want.*
*Language selection takes up WAY too much of the interface. You could preselect something based on login location, or just use English as the default.*
*Make sure to do compatibility tests with different browsers – IE8 only shows the display on half the screen (the bottom half is unused space).*
- Clicked the "create new list" button
- Arrive at what looks like an admin page
*The list name we selected is repeated twice in the header of the page, it should only be seen once.*
What is the contact/todo box, anyway? It doesn't work.
*Make the contact/todo box either do something or take it away... it's not clear what purpose it serves.*
- Click on "view overview of all mailing lists"
- See the list of mailing lists, and our new list is there, yay!
- Click on "list settings" for our new list
- Arrive at a different admin page
Wait, why are there different admin pages?
*Change the background image, the lines are distracting*
*Put in some sort of naming and navigational consistency between the different admin pages, right now the names (on the links/buttons) used to refer to the same admin page change depending on which other admin page you're on, and the navigation between them is not consistent.*
- Attempt to use the "Go to drop-down box" at bottom right corner of screen, not clear what this does
Subscribing users
- Clicks on "Mass Subscribe" button
*"Emails to mass subscribe"* text needs to be at the top
*Add an "upload file" option for mass-subscribing people, and allow choice of delimiters*
- Add duplicate emails
*If you try to subscribe someone who's already on the list, or have duplicate email addresses in the list, the software should filter those out - right now it throws an HTTP 409 error and it's not clear if any of the users you just entered are subscribed at all.*
*Once the subscription is successful, mailman should take you to another page - possibly the main admin page. Right now it takes you right back to the mass subscribe page, which you don't need to be at any more.*
Adding a new domain
- Filled out all the fields, clicked button
No message, nothing shown... oh wait, there's my new domain, but that was hard to see
*When you try to add a new domain, the software should show you the results of your action - did it succeed, fail, etc - put a message at the top*
*http://mailman.state-of-mind.de link is broken - adds an extra http:// to the url*
Other notes
cancel for the delete list link does not work in IE8.
View Archives for the list does not work in IE8
List Identity link, content filtering link and all the links :all the radio buttons should not be surrounded by boxes
*this link also has the options in the list page again listed on that page ( like Link Identity. Content Filtering, Privacy.......) - these need to be removed from this page.AutoResponse link gives an HTTP Error 400 "Cannot convert parameters: autorespond_owner".
Digest link does not work and gives an error "AttributeError at /settings/SSList@mailman.state-of-mind.de/Digest/ 'Nonetype' object has no atrribute 'makefile'"
Privacy Considerations
We're used to transparency-by-default settings in open source communities, but some mailman users may need more stringent privacy settings to be available. For instance: schools with course mailing lists that need to comply with student privacy laws, discussion lists for abuse survivors, etc.
Here's a list (created by some open source hackers who are also in academia, one of whom is a security researcher) of DRACONIAN PRIVACY MODE features that should be available – perhaps not default, but available – in mailman. Most are already options, some may not be, but they should all be present in the redesign.
- Hide email of sender; replace Sent/Reply-to with email of list.
- Strip email headers - make sure there's no information traceable back to the original sender, all headers should dead-end at the mailman server.
- Hide existence of list.
- Hide subscriber list.
- Hide archives.
- Moderated/announce-only posting.
- Awareness of external links used in the interface, and enabling people to remove them - mailman instances have a link back to the mailman project in their footer by default, which could reveal the existence of a server people want to keep private. (Admittedly, this is a pretty extreme case.)
- Moderators can't see anything except the moderation queue - they have no access to things like the subscriber list, etc.
Basically, mailman should never expose any user's identity or information without their consent.
Side note: some of these can be flipped to create good open practices (for instance, using the links to mailman in the footer, we could begin to compile a list of sites that use mailman).
Making a New List
All testing was done in IE8. Testing in other browsers is needed.
- Click "make new list" button
Met with "Login Required" page - "What if you don't have a login?"
- Enter a random email in the login field
- Login fails
The "Login Required" page needs to allow you to create a login if you don't already have one.
- Enter an existing account into the login field
Login success, we see the "Create a new List on" page
The "Mail Host" field is not aligned properly with other interface components
"Why do the radio buttons have big boxes around them?"
Typo: "Liste Index" should be "List Index"
Radio buttons should have something selected by default.
"Initial list owner address" should be prepopulated with the email you used to log in - we just entered that on the last page! Then users can have the option to change it if they want.
Language selection takes up WAY too much of the interface. You could preselect something based on login location, or just use English as the default.
Make sure to do compatibility tests with different browsers – IE8 only shows the display on half the screen (the bottom half is unused space).
- Clicked the "create new list" button
- Arrive at what looks like an admin page
The list name we selected is repeated twice in the header of the page, it should only be seen once.
What is the contact/todo box, anyway? It doesn't work.
Make the contact/todo box either do something or take it away... it's not clear what purpose it serves.
- Click on "view overview of all mailing lists"
- See the list of mailing lists, and our new list is there, yay!
- Click on "list settings" for our new list
- Arrive at a different admin page
Wait, why are there different admin pages?
Change the background image, the lines are distracting
Put in some sort of naming and navigational consistency between the different admin pages, right now the names (on the links/buttons) used to refer to the same admin page change depending on which other admin page you're on, and the navigation between them is not consistent.
- Attempt to use the "Go to drop-down box" at bottom right corner of screen, not clear what this does
Subscribing users / mass-subscribe
- Clicks on "Mass Subscribe" button
"Emails to mass subscribe" text needs to be at the top
Add an "upload file" option for mass-subscribing people, and allow choice of delimiters
- Add duplicate emails
If you try to subscribe someone who's already on the list, or have duplicate email addresses in the list, the software should filter those out - right now it throws an HTTP 409 error and it's not clear if any of the users you just entered are subscribed at all.
Once the subscription is successful, mailman should take you to another page - possibly the main admin page. Right now it takes you right back to the mass subscribe page, which you don't need to be at any more.
Adding a new domain
- Filled out all the fields, clicked button
No message, nothing shown... oh wait, there's my new domain, but that was hard to see
When you try to add a new domain, the software should show you the results of your action - did it succeed, fail, etc - put a message at the top
http://mailman.state-of-mind.de link is broken - adds an extra http:// to the url
Other misc issues to be addressed
- Cancel for the delete list link does not work in IE8.
- View Archives for the list does not work in IE8
- List Identity link, content filtering link and all the links:
- all the radio buttons should not be surrounded by boxes
- this link also has the options in the list page again listed on that page ( like Link Identity. Content Filtering, Privacy.......) - these need to be removed from this page.
Subscriber info summary (membership management page)
- name
- email address(es)
- date of starting subscription
- How frequently does the subscriber login/post?
- Phone number if willing to give that info (optional)
- description of who they are (optional)
- list version (drop-down) eg. student, engineer
- text box where they can enter more info if needed. (e.g. useful for Systers' essays)
- How often do they want messages?
- daily/weekly/monthly
- form (digest, others?)
- Facebook/twitter info (optional) if they have it
Simple interface notes
What are the most relevant options?
- list name
- description
- subject prefix
- welcome/goodbye message
Links to...
- membership management
- changing setup options (many options are set really one-time and seldom changed, like language options)
- tend moderator requests
- archives
Advanced setup options
- digest format
- non-digest format
- privacy
- bounce processing
- auto-responder
content filtering & topics
Change simple setup options
discard held messages aver < 0 > days (hours, minutes, months?)
- Change list ownership pwd
Language option <English> (drop down multi-select?)
Use Cases for colleges and universities
College Classes:
- reuse mailing lists with different users (e.g. teaching comp 1001 every semester...)
- delete everyone on the list
- and move them to another list
- and have a custom "you've been moved message option"
- allow users to share their address with others (or not – note: FIPPA)
- add/import new users
- from another data source
- and allow different delimiters
- expert subscription list
- privacy
option to not reveal the senders' email address.
- option to make lists of subscribers unavailable even to other subscribers (see draconian privacy notes)
- clone a list/templates