Sim’ Hampel’s IBM eye: Lotus Notes sucks?

January 5 2006

So there's this site out there called "Lotus Notes sucks".  I've never linked to it before, I've read it, but it is so hard to get past the closed-minded nature of the site's author that the overall message is lost.

My colleage Sim' Hampel recently spent some time dissecting the site in detail, though, and says

So let's be perfectly clear. I absolutely love Lotus Notes.

Now that I've said that, I actually agree with a large part of what Lotus Notes Hater has to say. I read through a large number of the bugs and issues that he mentions on his site - and largely I agree that they are bad UI design, or meaningless errors, or confusing behaviours, and so forth.
Sim' evaluates some of what is discussed on the Notes sucks site.  But he brings the discussion up a level:
Concentrating on the end-user client niceties from a novice's point of view is not the whole story, and this is why I still insist that, despite its shortcomings, Lotus Notes is still the best choice out there as an enterprise messaging platform and distributed application development platform. Don't underestimate security, reliability, managability, scalability, flexibility, and all the other benefits that the platform provides the enterprise. Anybody who has experienced this knows that there really isn't anything available that can truely compete with Notes and Domino in this arena. Don't underestimate how much your users will complain and be bitter if your messaging platform becomes unreliable and stops them doing their jobs effectively - even with a pretty UI. It doesn't matter how nice the UI is if you still can't access your email!
Sim' and I have discussed his article, and I think it's worthwhile reading.  I don't entirely agree with it... I've watched usability videos of Outlook users using Notes, Outlook users using Outlook, etc. ... each product has its plusses and minuses.  I'm not going to turn this into a competitive posting.  My point is simply, Notes may have its quirks, but so do many many software programs.  Because people "live" in e-mail, they are exposed to more of the e-mail application's quirks than most of the other software they use.  Notes 6.x and 7 have made significant improvements, and from what I've seen out of the labs in the last few weeks, Notes "Hannover" is going to be a major "wow" at Lotusphere 2006.

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [25]

Post a Comment

  1. 1  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 1/5/2006 7:26:07 PM

    Not been there in a while, has to be one of THE funniest sites ever.

    The trick is to read the complaint on the left and guess what criticism he is going to come out with. I'm doing well.

    "You've Got Mail!" - lol

  1. 2  Michael Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 1/6/2006 5:06:27 AM

    All I can say is "amen", well said Sim. A great response.

    Also I think I will borrow the following quote:

    "It doesn't matter how nice the UI is if you still can't access your email!"...

    :)

  1. 3  Henning Heinz  | 1/6/2006 6:42:01 AM

    Come on, be honest and say that you laughed at least at 65. About Lotus Notes.

    @Michael

    If the UI looks nice, people tend to blame themselves if they cannot access an application, if the UI is ugly then it is the applications fault. Unfair but often true.

  1. 4  Mike Brown  | 1/6/2006 7:28:44 AM

    Still a distressing number of genuine Notes howlers on the site though.

    Take the latest one (as I write this), 78: Meeting Invitations. It's so ludicrous I couldn't believe that it was true, but I just tested it for myself and it's just as he says: there's no way to close the Request Information email without sending something. (On 6, at least - not tested on 7).

    What WERE the developers thinking?

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 5  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/6/2006 7:45:40 AM

    @4 - fixed in 7.0 ;)

  1. 6  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 1/6/2006 10:50:07 AM

    Unfortunately I have a few qualms about the ownwer of the site. The first is that he lacks the backbone to sign his name to his rants. The second is that, in at least one case, he accepted a user's complaint as Gospel without testing it himself.

    There are enough baffling behaviours in Notes and Designer that sent me over the edge sometimes (and I have blogged about them), but not enough to want to "switch" and lose what makes Notes/Domino a strong platform to begin with.

    And I will end with a simple thought. If Lotus Notes sucks so bad, why has Bill Gates been trying so unsuccessfully to do what Notes does with his software, and why did he go and hire Ray Ozzie?

  1. 7  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 1/6/2006 12:16:25 PM

    @6 - I agree, it's hard to have any respect for the guy. Having "Lotus Notes sucks" as the conclusion for everything is witless and totally unconstructive. Some of the issues are, let's be honest, things that should be sorted out. Some are already fixed. Some demonstrate that this guy lacks an understanding of some of the aspects of Notes. It's a shame that in his effort to be funny and to ridicule Notes any possibility of taking a constructive approach goes out the window.

    The other point I'd like to make is not a new one, but it stands. Microsoft have spent the development dollars on the client rather than security and resilience (or they've spent the dollars and haven't got their money's worth). Outlook may be prettier, but wouldn't they love something like the ECL?

  1. 8  MarvinK  | 1/6/2006 1:34:48 PM

    The UI does matter... maybe not in the long run, but it does in the short run when people are evaluating products. Its what makes the switch to Exchange more tempting that it otherwise would be for a lot of companies. Lotus has needed Hannover for a long time--I hope its as good as it looks. A nice clean, pleasant UI is a good way to get your foot in the door (or KEEP your foot in the door), so people don't immediately dismiss. It gives them time to start appreciating the back-end advantages like security, reliability, scalability and manageability.

    Its not a matter of Notes being unintuitive, its more about the first impression. Lotus Notes client looks like a clunky Win3x or Java app... many people are turned off before they even start thinking about where any buttons are located. Its too bad Lotus has taken SO long to respond to this... surely this alone has lost them many companies to Exchange. Its ridiculous, but its the way it is.

  1. 9  Dag Kvello  | 1/7/2006 7:10:17 AM

    I don't get this "Notes is ugly, Outlook is pretty" thing. In my eyes it's the opposite. Outlook is pretty ugly :-)

    I use OutLook 2003 at work and it's unstable, inconsistet (CUA91/94 what?), slow, big, has very limited functionallity and much more.

    Let's not forget Security, it's non-existent.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and Outlook fits better in the category "Familiar" than "Pretty".

    It's "Roseanne Bar Naked" :-), it's more familiar to most guys than "Elle McPheson Naked", but no-one can really call Roseanne more pretty.

  1. 10  Jeff Picco  | 1/7/2006 5:14:47 PM

    I got a good laugh while reading the web site. Mostly because I've heard the same complaints from many of my clients / users over the years - and that's just how I deal with pain...

    I hope Hannover is the answer. It would be nice if the complaints that Notes is not user intuitive and too slow would go away.

  1. 11  Frode  | 1/9/2006 6:11:04 AM

    I'm being blunt here: #8 is correct and #9 is dangerously wrong.

    We do have a UI problem and we cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand about it anymore. Pull just about any 'regular' user off the street and they will tell you the current UI inconsistent and outdated. While beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, Notes needs a shift towards something most people percieve as beauty. Make Hannover deliver.

  1. 12  Dag Kvello  | 1/9/2006 10:53:59 AM

    #11, well if I'm wrong then that is just your opinion, wich should make it 1-1.

    It would be nice to know what part (or all) You feel is wrong?

    I'll stick to Outlook not being pretty, just familiar. Or atleast familiar to those who only use MS apps.

  1. 13  Frode  | 1/9/2006 12:00:25 PM

    #12

    If you count #8 it's 2 - 1 ;-)

    Seriously, I deal with a lot of end-user requests and the genereal verdict on the UI is clunky and outdated. Why is irrelevant.

  1. 14  Nathan T. Freeman  | 1/10/2006 5:08:15 AM

    I just wanna know why Dag thinks that Rosanne Barr naked is more familiar than Elle McPherson naked.

    I've seen these { Link } a lot more than these { Link }

    As much as I love the UI revisions in Hannover, does anyone notice that the basic idea of a list of emails is still there? This is less an interface overhaul and more an interface consolidation. It has the benefit of reducing complexity by being more contextual. But fundamentally, it's the same concept of presentation.

  1. 15  Dag Kvello  | 1/10/2006 9:13:20 AM

    #14

    Hehehe, well My guess is that the majority of men (with wives, girlfriends etc.) are more familiar with seeing women that look closer to Roseanne Barr than Elle McP when they go to sleep at night :-)

    What they watch on the Internet, Movies, mags etc. when the cat is away is a whole different story.

    My wife looks more like Elle than Roseanne by the way, wich is why Lotus Notes is more familiar to me than Outlook :-)

  1. 16  Don Mac Gregor  | 1/10/2006 9:34:05 AM

    I'm loking for the OUTLOOK SUCKS site.

    My company stopped using Lotus Notes for email, and changed to Outlook. I've never used a system that crashed so much. Want to include an attachment? Outlook crashes. Want to send a link? Outlook crashes. Look at your monitor sideways? Outlook crashes?

    Lotus Notes may have crashed, but very very infrequently.

    Before I was "migrated" to Outlook, my manager statred calling the thing LOOKOUT! Now I know why.

  1. 17  Don Mac Gregor  | 1/10/2006 9:34:10 AM

    I'm looking for the OUTLOOK SUCKS site.

    My company stopped using Lotus Notes for email, and changed to Outlook. I've never used a system that crashed so much. Want to include an attachment? Outlook crashes. Want to send a link? Outlook crashes. Look at your monitor sideways? Outlook crashes?

    Lotus Notes may have crashed, but very very infrequently.

    Before I was "migrated" to Outlook, my manager statred calling the thing LOOKOUT! Now I know why.

  1. 18  Bill Brown  | 1/11/2006 12:28:48 PM

    Google returns about 12,000 hits for "Outlook sucks" { Link }

  1. 19  Natesh Parameswaran http://nateshpp.blogspot.com | 1/12/2006 10:30:22 AM

    Well said Ed.

    Outlook may have its own positivities but Lotus Notes has proved, over time and IS the best email and collaboration platform around. It is here to stay.

    Cheers,

    Natesh.

  1. 20  Datapanic  | 1/13/2006 9:37:11 PM

    I work at a big ISP and we used to be a small ISP before the "merger". We were using Outlook 97,98, 2000...2003 and I've never had serious problems. Now, were forced to use Lotus Notes v6.something and nobody is receptive to it. I haven't used it long enough to know about it. There's nothing I have found to like about it, and I think I'm going to move on to a place that doesn't use it unless I can fwd my notes mail to someplace else - the Notes GUI is not appealing and the pull down menus are not organized - it looks like something thrown together from the late 80's..

    Just my opinion. I think it all boils down to what people are accustomed to and older business don't easily change. I am a unix (Sun) engineer and my view is that MS is going to continue to be "the standard" of email clients no matter what IBM does with Notes.

    Just my 2-cents...

  1. 21  Chrisl  | 6/17/2006 1:01:10 AM

    I dont have any problems at all.

    I use thunderbird.

    easy, fast, powerful

    therefore i'm happy

    :-D

  1. 22  Chris  | 7/7/2006 5:46:59 PM

    It looks like something that was thrown together in the late 80's because it, at least from a UI perspective, hasn't evolved in the past 10+ years (and that's being generous).

    Nobody likes it where I work either - and not just for e-mail, for anything. Since we now have some alternative collaboration technologies available to us, I always take a poll to see if people would prefer to use Notes (for whatever project/task we are doing) or some other option. It is always a unanimous vote *against* Notes.

  1. 23  Stan James http://wanderingstan.com/ | 2/2/2008 1:56:55 PM

    @16 Don Mac Gregor: There is no official "Outlook Sucks" site, but I've got a 67 point list started here, complete with screenshots and some videos:

    "67 Reasons That Outlook Sucks"

    { Link }

    E.g.

    9. Outlook 2007 has removed keyboard shortcuts from the email editor.

    * Because you wouldn’t want people to be able to work any faster…

    10. No concept of nicknames (like every other email program on the planet.)

    * Why can’t I email my friend Daniel Newman with just “Danny”, as I refer to him, without losing the fact in my contact info that his legal name is Daniel?

  1. 24  andrew  | 2/26/2008 7:31:57 PM

    Lotus Notes is an execellent mail and calendaring program.