[Lotus Notes Sucks: Example 69]
Mail Message Bloat
Problem
Lotus Notes really knows how to make a mail message bigger than it needs to be. Recently, I mailed a message with three small photographs. It seems the method in which the user puts the pictures files into the mail message makes a big difference.
When I originally sent the message, there were three JPG files (23kB, 12kB and 10kB) with some text. For some reason this message was 4.6MB in size. The method I used was "drag the file icon from Windows Explorer and drop it into the body of the mail message." However, if I put the JPG files into the body of the message by clicking the Picture command on the Create menu, the message is only 48kB. Let's recap:
| Technique | Resulting mail message size | Bloat factor |
|---|---|---|
| Drag and drop operation | 48 kB (47,221 B) | 1 |
| On the Create menu, click Picture | 4.6 MB (4,611,623 B) | 98 |
Analysis
This is just too stupid to comment on. There is no reason for mail message to be almost 100 times larger than necessary.
User Interface Guideline Violations
- Bloated mail messages slow email systems. This makes workers less productive. Workers run out of disk space sooner, etc.
- Forcing the user to do more work than necessary.
- Forcing the user to deal with stupidity.
Update for Version 6.5.2
This bloat problem seems to be fixed. Finally.
Conclusion
Lotus Notes still sucks because of all the other problems not fixed.