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I was a paying customer for a while. The web-app was super snappy and the ui (minus usability and simplicity and minus sane defaults that "just work") design wa
by jFriedensreich 6y ago
I was a paying customer for a while. The web-app was super snappy and the ui (minus usability and simplicity and minus sane defaults that "just work") design was state of the art and reminded me of apple or metalabs in some regards (reading about them also being in canada is especially interesting).
BUT i had to leave because the usability and amount of settings and exact reasonability about the workflows and data was just not doable for me. Especially sharing with my PA and managing a small team gave me nightmares. I would maybe setup all the preferences one day and understand what my assistant could see and do at what point and what "archiving" exactly meant in which situations. But after a few days it was all a blur again and i was just anxious about using this thing without accidentally missing messages or losing track of what was going on. They seem to have build every feature on earth and support any workflow for teams possible but without the guide, visual feedback and structure to be effective.
Going back to stupid gmail was just relieving, because it was possible to reason about even though it felt ancient in comparison. The fact that i had to write them to delete my account instead of just being able to do that in settings made me really angry back then because i had no idea it was just 4 people, i assumed a team size of front.app or intercom.
A major problem of email team inboxes in general (missive was better than others but also had issues) is the sync with gmail, they all do not sync back in a way that you could go back without losing significant metadata and labels. I know this is a hard problem but especially front.app gives me the feeling they also use this knowingly for a hidden lock in.
- plehoux 6y agoSorry for the anxiety! Your critic is a valid one, and one we struggled with a lot, how to make a powerful and simple app at the same time. We worked a lot in the last year to simplify some of the app's concepts and help onboard colleagues. > The fact that i had to write them to delete my account instead of just being able to do that in settings made me really angry back It's now possible in app. :)
- jFriedensreich 6y agoI know how hard this must be and i feel bad for having been an angry customer :D the blog post really put everything into context and shows where you are coming from and how extremely impressive your achievement is. My feeling is to reach the next level of the product you have to upset a lot of users in some areas to really empower the key audience and product.