Almost every day we face an error related to the “Reply All” feature. It’s probably not ideally designed, it’s getting old in the age of instant messaging, but until email dies, it’s important to use it well.
We often hear that the email is dead and it is true that the Humanoid group, publisher of Numerama, is now organized around instant messaging and project management tools like Notion and Slack. Emails have therefore taken on a secondary function, which is that of trace in the hard, compared to the immediacy of the fast message. Ironically, it is the quality that we gave a few years ago to paper mail compared to email.
Therefore, our summary emails are often sent to several people, with aliases “in the loop” which allow several people concerned to follow the progress of a project, a freelance, a job interview… in short, important things. And what is our surprise when, almost every day, we realize that communication has not gone through or that a message has been missed by almost the entire group, sometimes leading to misunderstandings or appointments you missed.
In question: a person “in the loop” who did not use the “Reply to all” function or Reply to all on English interfaces.
As indicated by his name, it allows you to keep a group of people (or rather, email addresses) in copy of a response. Generally, when you receive an e-mail and the sender has copied several people, he sends you a clear hint: except for a confidential reply message, it is necessary to copy all addresses. The button we are talking about actually allows you not to have to enter them all by hand.
Reply all, a remnant of an ancient digital time
If we write this little post, it’s because we feel that the functionality is not as obvious as before for web users. On our small scale, we are seeing these errors multiply. It is highly likely that instant messaging, which is much more entrenched in people’s habits today, is to blame. Its ergonomics are basically much clearer: either you speak privately to a person, or you speak in a group. On the good old email, you always have the choice to reply, reply to all or forward. And quite often, the default choice is a answer simple which does not intelligently take into account the sequence of exchanges.
On Gmail, for example, the functionality is in the text composition field at the bottom of a message sequence or behind the reply button options. It can also be configured as the default action through a setting in the General tab. All mailboxes, on the web or in software, offer similar options.
So yes, we will probably be taken aback by those for whom behavior in the face of a group email has become second nature. But after all these years of evolution of the web, some classic uses are no longer as obvious as before and we hope that this nice reminder will serve some users for whom the reply to all is a vestige of unknown times, with unspecified ergonomics. And rather than judge, we always prefer to inform.
So consider Reply All, at least until the mail dies altogether. This will avoid misunderstandings!