[Android Apps and Games] Vesem:
Well, I try. ;)

Is this a conclusion backed by some sort of substantiation or research, or a stereotype backed by anecdotes and confirmation bias? :p

Ah. I take it the permissions and battery optimization steps are doing some sort of dynamic check so they are grayed out only if those Android settings are already in the recommended state, then? If they are not simply a one-and-done thing, then I agree that it makes sense to keep them around.

I continue to be puzzled by the insistence that some configuration options should be permanently separated out into the category 'setup tasks' which is kept in a different screen (with a radically different visual presentation) than the 'options'. I would be genuinely interested to hear the rationale for that, particularly because to my mind it seems obvious that this quirky and counterintuitive separation is exactly why the advanced options aren't more accessible.

Like, yes, I understand that on first run it makes sense to have some basic setup steps presented to the user in a linear, numbered progression to get the app from "unconfigured blank slate" to "ready-to-use email client". And, as I said before, I think that your existing setup screen is well laid-out and does its job well in that context . BUT! Once the user has completed the first-run setup, from the moment they first land at the inbox view, there's a permanent and meaningful change of context, right? The app is no longer a blank slate after that, and walking in a linear order through the setup steps is not likely to be part of a user's workflow often—if ever. That part is done.

Renaming 'advanced options' to just 'options' and letting people judge for themselves what's advanced strikes me as a step in the right direction.

As for adding the 'More' step... I have doubts. First, it seems like kind of a random detour on the way to the immediate objective of "now you have a working email client; here is your inbox". I feel like in the context of first-run setup people tend to be eager to get through the wizard and check out the app itself. Making all the options (including the 'setup' configuration options) a coherent entity that's easy to find would solve the problem without adding a distracting sideways step to the onboarding process. And second, I would say that at the point where you are considering pulling the navigation menu open during first-run setup so you can direct users to the configuration options that you have hidden behind an unobtrusive button under the header "Read messages" at the bottom of a screen that many users are likely to dismiss as irrelevant once they've done the initial setup of the app, well... Maybe that's an indication that the design decision to keep a subset of configuration options in a separate 'Setup' screen which is supposed to serve as "the center of all setup tasks" (ie the hub of all configuration) after the initial setup has been completed has turned out to be counterintuitive and unhelpful in practice. Maybe consider eliminating the source of the confusion instead of adding an intrusive "Look here!" step to the initial setup process to work around it.

---------- Post added at 05:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:08 PM ----------

Absolutely. Your 'Setup' screen is efficient and clearly laid out, and does a fine job of guiding the user through the initial setup of the app. (Which is a thing that generally happens once and only once per install.) And once you find your way to the options screen, the items on it strike me as pretty clear, with helpful explanatory notes and reasonable category headers. My intent was to challenge your general assertion that more options ⇒ more support questions ∴ fewer options is better, not to crap on your naming of the options you do have.

OTOH, if there's a reason beyond "I like to" for keeping a first-run setup wizard "as is" in the main navigation menu to serve as the hub of all configuration, even after first-run setup has been successfully completed, I'd be intrigued to hear it. Obviously it's your app, and you can keep it that way just because you want to, regardless of whether it makes sense or not, but why would you?

At the risk of repeating myself, my main suggestion for how to improve users' ease of accessing the options/setup tasks/configuration/settings with a minimum of confusion and related support questions is as follows:

Rename the 'advanced options' screen to 'options', as you suggest.

Add a header 'Accounts & Identities' to the 'options' screen. Take the view that's currently found at 'setup'→'1. Setup accounts' and the view that's currently found at 'setup'→'2. Setup identities', and plunk them right in there under that header. (Preferably this would be the actual summary views that come currently come up when those buttons are tapped, but if that's not feasible, having buttons for 'manage accounts' and 'manage identities' in this location would get the job done.)

Add a header 'Android system integration' to the 'options' screen. Put the permissions test and link that are currently found at 'setup' → '3. Grant permissions' and the battery optimization test and link that are currently found at 'setup' → '4. Setup battery optimizations' under that header. (Or add them under the existing 'Miscellaneous' header, if you prefer.)

In the app's main navigation menu, remove 'Setup' and replace it with a link to the 'options' screen.

Take what is currently the 'setup' screen, with little or no modification, and put it in an actual first-run wizard, so that users who are launching the app in an unconfigured "blank slate" state will still get walked through the basic setup steps to get them to "working email app; here is your inbox!" in the same concise way they currently do. Once it has been run through to completion once, dismiss it. It has served its purpose; its presence is more confusing than helpful in the context of an already-configured app; all of the things that it allows you to add, manage, change, and check really, factually are configuration options; and all configuration options will now be found in a single, coherent 'options' screen if the user wants to manage, change, or check them later.

What is the downside to this change? You make all the options accessible and easy to find, you keep the nice smooth onboarding process, the user can still access all the functionality provided by the so-called "setup tasks" if they want to change those things later, the user experience becomes less confusing, and there's less clicking around to different screens in order to make configuration adjustments at any time later after initial setup has been done.

Really, what am I missing? What case can be made for not doing this?

And, for the record, I am using FairEmail as my daily email app and finding it quite usable. I'm here arguing about how to improve it, rather than just uninstalling it and going back to K9 or whatever, precisely because I like the app and think that it fundamentally gets most things right.