[Android Apps and Games] Vesem:
Yes, I think that is clearer.

Well... I'm not much of a programmer, but from what I see other users asking for when I go to IRC, mailing lists, Github issues pages, etc; it seems like there's a much stronger correlation between "options that are not clearly named, not grouped into sensible categories, not well-commented, and/or not adequately documented" and "people asking for help with the options" than there is between "many options" and "people asking for help with the options". Especially if you subtract one from the "too many options" column for every support request prompted by a "missing" option.

I would like to be able to say I feel bad for your failure, but... honestly I am pleased to benefit from this failure. I guess you have already discovered that making a piece of software as complex as a multi-account email client with no options at all is unrealistic. In my opinion, it is also undesirable, so I would cheerfully encourage you to fail more, fail harder, fail bigger. :D

Seriously, though: I can't understand why configurability would be, in and of itself, a negative. If the true, underlying objective is to minimize support requests overall, questions from users who are confused by too many options have to be balanced against questions from users who are confused or frustrated by lacking options. Also, there's a definite risk of "false positives", in which you conclude that options need to be reduced in order to avoid confusion, when perhaps the problem could be better solved by renaming some options to more closely reflect what (non-programmer) users are expecting, collapsing some of them into hierarchical sub-options, so that only if the top-level one is enabled (eg compact view) then sub-options to fine-tune the behavior or scope of that option become available as well (eg compact view for notifications), having a 'Help' button that leads to good thorough documentation of what the options do, and so forth. Just for a start, having all the options lumped together under "Advanced options" fails the "sensible categories" test. I can see how the current arrangement grew out of your plan to have no options at all, but given that the app as it stands now does in fact have options, the arrangement should work with the current reality, not keep trying to deny it. Right?

If your real objective is to make an app that is minimalist, fast, efficient, and intuitive to set up and use for both basic and advanced users (which I suspect it is), then I would urge you to really question your assumption that the way to get there is by sacrificing flexibility and minimizing the number of options per se. There are a lot of factors that can contribute to users finding the options confusing that aren't "more options == more confusion", and you'll produce better software in the long run if you put some major consideration into all of the other factors first, and only settle on reducing flexibility and functionality when all else fails.

Oh, I agree completely! I think I was unclear. I think the, uh, 'onboarding' experience was excellent. I was thoroughly impressed with how easy it was to set up my account. I'm currently using FairEmail for only one account and one identity, but I definitely do like the way the initial setup process, as you say, 'tells' you that you can set up multiple accounts and identities (rather than hiding that capability under "Advanced settings" :p). The point I was attempting to make is simply that once the user has done that initial setup, the setup screen has done its job and becomes just clutter. Things like "I don't like the way it's threading conversations and want to change it to strictly-by-date" or "this view is sprawling and cluttered, I'mma go turn off message text previews", on the other hand, you don't discover until you start actually using the app, which I assume is why the normal Android way of doing things is to have a "Settings" gear icon in either the main UI or the top-level menu, which takes you to the options screen. Everybody does it that way because it works.

So what I'm suggesting is that you take the existing initial setup process and transplant it as-is into an actual first-run wizard so that it comes up and does its thing only the first time the app is launched, and then goes away forever once the user hits the "Go" button under "Read messages." Obviously you still want people to have the option to add, remove, and manage their accounts and identities, but keeping the whole five-step setup screen around forever for the sake of two buttons that serve any purpose? That seems like a weird, confusing, and inefficient way to present what are, really, configuration options. So take the two configuration (or setup if you prefer) items that still have something to offer once the initial onboarding is done, and include them in the options screen. Then, you absolutely keep the gear icon, and when the user taps it, the app should behave in the expected Android way (thus reducing confusion), and take them to the options screen. Calling the screen that contains basic things like "dark theme" and "message previews" an "Advanced options" screen is misleading and weird, and more likely to increase confusion than decrease it. Then, the obvious way to keep the "manage accounts" and "manage identities" facility available is to add two new sections to the options screen: one called 'Accounts' which shows exactly what you currently get when you hit the 'Manage' button under accounts on the Setup screen, just inline with the other options where it belongs (though with a regular "add account" button instead of the floating plus sign thing, obviously); and likewise for identities.

Once the first-run setup has been done, "quick setup" doesn't really make sense any more, the "grant permissions" and "setup battery optimizations" items are literally grayed-out and useless, and the Go button under "read messages" doesn't offer any advantage over simply hitting the back button. So discard them once they've served their purpose instead of keeping them around crufting up the interface forever, and take the two pieces that still have something to offer and put them in with all the other configuration options where they belong. Then you could take the options that it actually makes sense to call "Advanced" (which really really should include allowing the user to do things you personally wouldn't, like open links without a confirmation dialog, btw) and, well, have an 'Advanced' options screen that's actually the advanced options.