Order of To/From

We’ll see if there is anyone old enough to understand what I am talking about here…

Back in the “old days” when people knew how to design on the web and actually gave a damn, there was the concept of these fields in Emails & PMs…


To:

From:

Date:

Subject:

I want to have both a “TO:” and a “FROM:” field when a person open his/her Private Message.

If there is such a rule, What is the proper order of the “TO:” and FROM:" fields??

I guess I would go with the field order shown above. (Or should it be “FROM:” and then “TO:” ??)

What do you think, and why??

Sincerely,

Debbie

I just checked some emails I have received and one used the following order:

To:

Subject:

From:

Reply-To:

Priority:

Errors-To:

Content-Type:

Message-Id:

Date:

Another used:

From:

To:

Reply-To:

Subject:

Date:

Since I received both I don’t think the order makes any difference - as you’d expect given that all of them include labels to advise which is which.

If you are using the PHP mail() function then you don’t get a choice for the order of the first two - they have to be To: and Subject:

But what would you expect from a UI/UX point of view?

When you open an Email or a Private Message, do you want to see “To:” or “From:” first?

Debbie

I prefer to see To first so I can see which of my addresses it was sent to and whether it was sent specifically to me or whether I am just one of many recipients.

Just noticed that my email program actually displays in the order Subject: From: Reply-To: Date: To: Tags:

As I have the program configured to tag the emails in different colours depending on which of my addresses it was sent to I can see which address an email was sent to before I open it by looking at the colour of the entry. So by the time I open the email I have already checked the To: From: Subject: and Date: so the order they appear in within the email doesn’t matter.

If I’m getting it I hope that the “To” is me and I really don’t care if I see it or not. The only time it might be mildly interesting is if there are any Cc’s

Sometimes I’m more interested in the From, sometimes the Subject, and at times the Date.

As long as those are shown in the menu somewhere I’m happy, and I guess I could adapt to any rearrangement.

From a UX view, I think having “search for” and “sort by” are good features.

Now we’re getting into the things I’m interested in… How YOU think!

I would have you to say “I want to see ‘From:’ first, because I know the email is to me!!!”

Oh how the world has changed.

Not sure if I remember this correctly, since I haven’t used an Email Client in nearly a decade, but I’m pretty sure the defacto order used to always be this…


From:

To:

Date:

Subject:

(That is also the order you would expect to see on a Memo or Fax…)

Interesting!

Thanks,

Debbie

There is one vote for that way of thinking!

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

Hey! Don’t get greedy here!! (I’m already behind schedule enough!) :lol:

Actually, I do have the ability to sort by Name, Subject and Date in all views, but “Searching” is sadly a feature that does not exist anywhere on my website. (Yeah, I know, let the stoning begin!!)

Sincerely,

Debbie