Notes/Domino 6 and 7 Forum : Imagine you are an enduser....

Hi,

although I "love" Lotus Notes and develop for it for more then 8 years I am somehow frustrated with the "improved usability" of the build-in templates. To explain what this means i tried to look at the personal addressbook from an enduser perspective. Some of the following questions may be naive or provocative but they all have been asked to me ..

Imagine you are an "ordinary enduser" and will see the new personal addressbook for the first time:

A. The (Contacts-)View
1. Why can I switch between "Contacts" and "Advanced" if there are all "Advanced"-views already on the Contacts-Navigator?
2. There are "Contacts" and "Contacts by Category" views, where is the (more important) "Contacts by Company" view and btw. where can I define company wide contact-informations?
3. Why are the three "Persons" views ("Contacts", "Contacts by Category" and "Birthdays and Anniversaries") intersected by a group view?
4. What is the meaning of "Local" in the lower left corner?
5. What can I really do with the "Directories..." Action Button? It opens an address dialog where i can search for addresses.... and than?
6. The "Tools..." Button is very confusing: For certain actions it will work on the selected documents ("Copy into new group" and "Categorize") for others it will work on the highligthed document ("Visit web page" not even the selected...) and finally there is an action which has nothing to do with contacts, but with the overall "Preferences".
7. If I define more than one Email-Address inside a contact and try to "Write (a) Memo" only the first Email-Address will be used. How can I change this? And where can i define personal Email Addresses?
8. Imagine you have three contacts which are in three different categories:
Contact A -> Category A
Contact B -> Category B
Contact C -> Category C
Now I select Contact A and B and (unfortunately) Contact C is highlighted. Now I use "Tools - Categorize"...
Why is it that Category C is preselected? Why is it that when I create a new Category and assign it to the two selected Documents, that the old categories are gone?
9. Why do the contacts open in edit-mode and the groups in read-mode?

B. Inside the contact-document
1. Why is there an "X" to delete an Email-Address? And no "X" for other fields? Why aren't Internet Addresses validated for correct syntax, every browser application does this today?
2. Why can I enter a FAX-Address in the Email-Field and how is this connected to the office fax or home fax address?
3. Imagine there are a lot of persons in the same company. It's cool that the company information is taken from former entries. But what can I do if the company-address changes or this company has different addresses?
4. Why does the form "jumps around" if I open the "Additional business information"? (Have a look at the centered table. It jumps horizontally)
5. What is the meaning of "This is the protected text area of the form." which often appears at the bottom of the document? Am I not allowed to edit there?
6. Why do I have to define a year for a Birthday? And why isn't there the possibility to show birthdays or anniversaries in my calender?
7. I can define an Address Format! But what is this good for, where will it be used? And why does the Address Format Dialog Box uses another Font Size (11pt)?
8. If I click on the Email Address on top of the document I can write a memo to this person. But how can I write such a memo to an "other Email" Address?

I can go on for hours (well almost...)

You can argue, that a lot of the above could be implemented by a developer, but this is a standard template which should be complete by itself!

Any comments are welcome!