Dear Consumer Feedback Department,

I've had my yahoo email since I graduated college in 2001. I've loved having it the last 25 years until now. It was fun to have the avatars, but I understand why that did not stick. I absolutely loved having the ability to choose my background or themed wallpaper and I truly do not understand why you took that away so now it is only black and white. I lived on the SF Peninsula for 10 years when Apple, Google and Facebook started and bloomed and I was a beta user for gmail in it's early to current stages and google classroom/drive, facebook applications and Apple applications for classroom purposes as a high school special education teacher whom's school districts partnered with these companies to create products, apps and programs for students, teachers, and regular consumers. Now I use all this for everything and my least favorite right now is the new yahoo mail. The ad column on the right is now twice wider than it used to be so I can no longer see the full width of my inbox messages and I cannot personalize my wallpaper/background of my screen. As a visual learner and retired journalist and professional photographer, how things are visually presented is huge so the points I just made are extremely important. I read that you are trying to streamline everything to be more modern, but truly believe it is important to note that not ALL consumers are into a black and white look. Black, white and grey are my least favorite colors unless its a themed party for a short time. I kept yahoo classic mail as long as it let me, but not it will not let me go back. I truly hope your company can find the happy medium with your goal to be modern, yet flexible for the users who also need colors and background choice. Personalization is still important even when trying to modernize.

I also can no longer use my arrow buttons to slowly scroll down inside an inbox message as those arrows now only hop up the down which email message I'm looking at. If the inbox message I'm reading is a long chain of messages holding down on the touch pad on my laptop and using my other finger to try to slowly scroll does not work as the message skips down too much with only a small movement. So then I just take my smartphone out to slowly scroll and read the email now instead of on my laptop, which defeats the purpose of being efficient on the laptop. Or I have take out and hookup my mouse to use the little finger roller on it to slowly scroll down, which also defeats the purpose of efficiency on the laptop when I used to be able to easily use the arrow buttons to slowly scroll.

I look forward to seeing how you are able to find a happy middle ground for all users/consumers. Please keep in mind that the classic email had a lot of ergonomic options, which in this day and age is still extremely important and helps with EVERYTHING, not just people who have known/diagnosed disabilities. It's also for all ages. I hope you integrate some of what was working and good for all types of consumers back to yahoo mail.

Regards and mostly sincerely,
Melissa Ke