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Essential data handles
As we dive headlong into a data-driven age, it's worth pointing out that users will always need certain tools to navigate and overcome the glut. Call them "data handles" - tools to give users the ability to find, filter, move, edit, and let go of the data as they need.
Whether in an email program, file system, social network, or the many cloud computing apps coming in the future, these are a few basic, essential features:
• search: find data via textual search
• sort: by alpha, or by date, in all relevant fields
• tag: assign multiple categories, possibly with one primary category
• export: convert to a portable and/or open-source format
• simplicity: simplicity in the UI is even more important - and yes, is a feature - when there are so many other distractions clawing at the user's attention. A confusing or cluttered interface is a major liability for the user today.
Just for kicks, let's compare two popular email programs:
Apple Mail:
• Good: search, sort, and simplicity
• Needs improvement: tag and export
Gmail:
• Good: search
• OK: tag (called "labels")
• Needs improvement: sort (doesn't exist!), export, and (debatably) simplicity
(I'll note that there are areas in which Gmail surpasses Apple Mail - the spam filter is outstanding, for example - but here I'm just evaluating the data handles.)
After these essentials are in place, by the way, secondary bit-literate features become important - like data tracking (for a few simple items, especially temporal metrics) and visualization.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'tag' - Gmail has labels which you can put multiple of on one individual email. As far as sort, that is a somewhat religious debate, and I can sort of understand. For example, what exactly would you want to sort on? Sender? Well, see, you can already search by sender and get pretty much the same view. I would like to know what other things you typically 'sort' by, and think if they really are searches in disguise. Gmail is somewhat unapolegetic of forcing its worldview upon you, but it really can allow you to work more efficiently.
How is it that apple mail's search counts as good? I have found it so unreliable, I actually forward copies of all my mail to a gmail archive so I can do my searching there. Just got tired of mail.app not being able to find things I knew were there.