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Desktop settings research: what we learned from your feedback

A few weeks ago, we conducted hour-long conversations with 10 of our users to dig deep into how you manage your preferences and configurations in Thunderbird desktop. While this specific research cycle focused on the desktop experience, our ultimate goal is a holistic strategy that ensures our mobile settings feel like a natural extension of your workspace.

Here is a quick look at what we discovered, what you valued, and how your feedback is actively shaping our design roadmap.

What you told us

You are incredibly passionate about customization, and appreciate Thunderbird’s robust functionality. Overall, a common thread that stood out was that most of you want to set up your space once and then make small tweaks to your preferences, you want it to look modern, and navigate effortlessly without running into issues with technical jargon.

Here are the key themes that emerged from our conversations:

• Ecosystem trust: Your commitment to Thunderbird is rooted in a deep trust for open-source software, the Mozilla brand, absolute transparency, and reliability.
• Set and forget: You customize extensively during your initial setup, followed only by minor tweaks to get your workspace just right.
• Clutter & noise: There is a strong desire to reduce workspace clutter and the cognitive “noise” within dense configuration menus.
• Search to navigate: While deep navigation menus can feel hard to find your way through, an in-app search function is your go-to for finding what you need quickly.
• The “inbox as a to-do list” workflow: Many of you don’t just read mail, you actively treat your unread inbox as a task list or interactive to-do queue.
• Terminology barriers: Even for advanced users, many settings feel overly technical, which causes hesitation when you’re trying to explore your options.

Improvements we want to make

We don’t want to just make minor fixes, we want to design a better workflow. Based on your feedback, here are the core design actions that will be driving our next phase focusing on general and account settings:

• Demystify the language: We are planning to replace confusing technical terminology with plain, clear language, so you always know exactly what each function does.
• Streamline information architecture: We are regrouping settings into logical, task-oriented categories to make manual navigation smooth and intuitive.
• Bring context to privacy & security: Instead of a flat list of checkboxes, we want to add clear explanations around data security and defaults so you can make confident, informed decisions.
• Functionality meets modern UI: Thunderbird’s robust functionality is its superpower, but a dated interface shouldn’t be a barrier to entry for newer users.
• Accessibility update: Based on a community member’s recent audit, we are also taking this opportunity to improve the overall accessibility of the settings experience.

What’s next?

We are hitting the ground running with these insights. Right now, our team is actively:

1. Finalizing our project scope to directly incorporate these research findings.
2. Mapping out and proposing a streamlined information architecture for settings.
3. Designing this layout holistically so that desktop preferences and mobile configurations

A massive thank you to everyone who offered their time and feedback for this study! We look forward to sharing more with you soon.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!