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Re: Gmail and accessibility

for

From: Emma Duke-Williams
Date: Sep 19, 2007 9:40AM

On 18/09/2007, Cheryl D Wise < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Those are some of them and with Google mail there is also the whole indexing
> question. Google uses that indexing to determine what ads to serve with your
> mail.
>

LIke someone else, I'm a reluctant Google addict ... I do use Gmail,
primarily for mail lists etc., and then mostly because mailman
archiving is not that good, whereas Gmail searching is much more
powerful.
It also means that I can set my work email up to have out of office
messages, without having to worry about clogging up mail lists with
out of office messages, which I know annoy some people.

Re. The adverts. I don't find them a particular problem, indeed, it's
clear that it's automated, as the adverts don't always relate to what
I'm writing about. For example, I spent several years in PNG (Papua
New Guinea), yet when I mention it, I invariably get information about
.png graphics...

Re. The Conversations. That's something that many people find
difficult to grasp conceptually, along with the tagging. They both
take some getting used to - which could be an accessibility
consideration for those with cognitive problems who are used to other
systems.

Re. Downloading to a client. I tend to download to Thunderbird - which
means that I can "de-conversation", can put into folders, can do all
the usual things; but, I still have the online backup, the ability to
receive large attachments, and to not have to worry that my inbox
could get full up if I can't get to it for a few days, as can happen
with some ISPs.

I do agree Google as a whole is perhaps a little big, but having been
a Google fan since it was in beta, when colleagues thought I was odd
not to use Yahoo! for searching, I have a soft spot for it!

Emma

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New URL: Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/