The Division of Information Technology opened use of its new version of WiscMail’s web mail client pilot program to all students, staff and faculty this week, aiming for campuswide implementation Dec. 1.
The updated version of WiscMail is modeled after Gmail and other commercial emailing account systems and now features various aspects that enhance the user-friendliness and performance.
Senior Administrative Programming Specialist Brian Rust said DoIT makes upgrades to MyUW features at fairly regular intervals by asking for feedback to improve through a student advisory group and groups of staff and faculty.
“It has been a while since we updated the (WiscMail) web interface, so we decided to take a number of the things that they had recommended (into account),” Rust said.
DoIT has been working on this WiscMail adjustment for the past several months, Rust added. Rust said the mail team started working on the upgrades late in spring 2009, tested them over the summer, then started the pilot program this fall.
“The upgrade cycle is just something that we plan to do,” Rust said. “The specific functions that we want to upgrade are dependent upon what kind of feedback that we get from people. We will plan to make major changes to the program once a year, but we don’t anticipate what some of those changes are going to be.”
After three years of using WiscMail, senior Mike Kujak made the switch over to Gmail out of dissatisfaction with a few WiscMail features.
“I have always thought it works fairly well,” Kujak said. “I mean, there’s a couple of things I don’t like about it so much like contacts. … I have definitely had problems with the quota … [while Gmail’s e-mail system] has a massive quota that I will never exceed.”
Kujac also mentioned he likes the way Gmail groups replies under the same heading, so users can see everything that has gone on in a conversation just in one message, whereas WiscMail makes users go through and find all of the different replies.
“(Students were looking for) more functions like being able to do a number of things simultaneously through the web interface rather than having to use a desktop client to access a lot of functionality,” Rust said.
In response to students’ desire to be able to do a number of things simultaneously through the interface, the new WiscMail added a multitasking feature allowing users to read and write multiple messages at the same time.
Attempting to become more user-friendly, the pilot program also makes searching more simple as users no longer have to navigate away form their screen to conduct a search or move messages into different folders.
“We also take a look at what kind of new functionality may be coming down the pike … and decide whether or not we want to implement some of the new features that are offered,” Rust said.
In the future, DoIT seeks to advance in terms of new-age technology involved in the My UW homepage such as chatting and calendar features, Rust said.
