In Praise of Email

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

While some aspire to minimize traditional email and prefer other communication platforms, email systems have presented strong advantages over alternative messaging channels. The systems offer simple organization and search features and let users personalize categorization based on folders. But a move to Google Apps prompted the author to appreciate the value of tags for managing email content by facets such as date, project and name, singly or in combination. The accuracy of search in email extends to related Google applications. Information architects would do well to rethink features in existing systems and redesign them to meet users' evolving and increasing needs.