I look at UI changes in a totally different way now. My saw me come online on Skype, so she called me. There's an ocean between us currently. She said she called me because she was writing an email to me, but couldn't find the Send button, so didn't know how to send it. Either it made her feel stupid or frustrated, or she felt so sad that she couldn't send an email to me that she had spent some time writing, or whatever, but she started crying. She was crying because she couldn't find the Send button in gmail. She's approaching 60 and isn't as technically adept as some of us, so that is admittedly a factor.
Seeing her cry about this made me change the way I think about what some users go through when they experience unexpected UI changes. I remember hearing people say they got confused by Windows 8 tiles, and didn't think it was such a big deal. After seeing my mom cry over a UI change, I think there are better ways to implement UI changes than simply shoving them down people's throat. Sure, if it must be done, it must be done (UI change), but don't shove it down people's throats unexpectedly and with no hand-holding at all.
On a similar but different note, there were stories of children getting upset at the new look of iOS 7. When I saw the headline I thought it odd, because I doubt the designers of iOS 7 ever thought they'd actually make someone cry with the new design.
But what can be done about it? Good design is important, but sometimes things have to be changed, and ultimately a lot people just don't like change. Even if it's the best design in the world, somebody, somewhere will struggle with it being different. I think some "hand holding" as you suggest would be a good idea, but I'm not sure how that could be done in practice.
I think it's easy to underestimate or fail to appreciate the huge number of people who learned to use computers by rote. I have more than one relation who uses GMail by first typing "gmail" in the Google search bar. For them, just moving the send button would at least cause a hiccup in their workflow. Any UI optimization is a show-stopper.
> Seeing her cry about this made me change the way I think about what some users go through when they experience unexpected UI changes.
I can understand. My mother is her 60s and is now a Ubuntu user, has broadband, uses Skype & Gmail.
It took her a long time to get used to it. It is funny she has never used Microsoft or Apple or other computer before on a long term level. She thought, Windows for example was a very user "unfriendly".
But back to the complexity. I remember when she was learning it was very frustrating both for her and me. I think it is easy, and she didn't. Now the other day there was a post on HN about how to start a Boeing airliner. I at that moment understood what it is like being faced with a new interface with new rules and paradigms. If I had start a commercial aircraft I would start crying too probably.
Then of course every time Google or Ubuntu messes with their interface, it causes her and me (having to re-teach her) considerable stress.
Sometimes I think corporations go through re-design just because they can. Like there is an timer set to go off every 6 months and designers, new bosses, CEOs all see it go ding and say "aha, let's redesign it". Sometimes it doesn't make it better, it just makes it different even if it was already pretty good.
I have a particularly common word as a gmail address (not common like a grammatical article - think more like "experience@gmail..." or something like that). I know the UI's gotten bad in a usability way by the increasing frequency of mistaken emails sent my way because people keep inputting their subject in the "To" field.
> She said she called me because she was writing an email to me, but couldn't find the Send button, so didn't know how to send it.
Yeah, the send button used to be in a horrible place in Gmail. Nowhere close to the editor, and oddly detached from the compose area. I always had trouble finding it.
Thankfully they fixed it in the UI update the author's complaining about. Now it's where I'd expect it to be...attached to the email composer.
I said it before and I got downvoted to hell, but I'll say it again. Just because those of those of us on HN can deal with these UI changes does not mean that the vast majority of the public can. We ARE the minority, and when designing systems we should expect people to be computer illiterate. I am the computer-go-to-guy whenever something goes wrong or family members/friends need help, and ANY UI change always leads to difficulty. Something as small has the UI change from IE7-8-9 was enough to trigger a "how do I use this thing?" every single time. Same when MS Office introduced the ribbon.
It's the reason Apple have done so well - they didn't invent anything new which hadn't already been done, they just added better UI that appealed to the masses.
I have to say, I agree with most of what is written in that blog, I've gotten used to some of the changes now but still a lot of the time keep looking around to see where the hell something has gone (the attach files expands out to reveal more options, why the hell is add URL link under attach options?)
I watched my mother attempt to deal with Windows 8 and she was quite confused by it. What makes it worse is that Microsoft (and most others) are now actively trying to get users to sign up to things they don't need to and make this the 'easy' path.
My mother is smart enough to know not to randomly sign up to things but this means she now has to try and navigate the 'advanced' path through a UI.
Skype on Windows 8 is a UX abomination. Whenever I get a call and it's ringing, I can never find where to pick up and miss the call. Every time. I'm sure I'll figure it out one of these days.
Outlook mail also sucks totally. It's quite impossible to find some of the key buttons with it, like the send button. I have complained about it, but as far as I know, there's no fix for the problem.
The problem with hand-holding is how many times have you created good looking prompts to introduce a new feature and then find that the client just clicks through them ignoring what was written?
This redesign of Gmail, like most of the Great Google Redesign happening in the last couple years, demonstrates to me that Google is constantly breaking one of the most basic rules about UI design: "Good Design" is not about making it pretty. "Good Design" is about making it easy to use; If you can do both, great. If you can only do the latter, then it will just have to be less pretty.
The Old Google was the latter (very usable, not beautiful).
The New Google is the former (looks visually pleasing, very unintuitive to use).
I curse every time I compose an email now in Gmail. Why have they hidden all the controls? Why is EVERYTHING one click away? Is ANYTHING gained AT ALL by HIDING all those buttons that are there to be used?
Heck, I still can't tell you how to make a hyperlink. I think you have to mouse over the hidden buttons. Or do you click on the hidden buttons? I think if you click on the hidden buttons then you end up clicking a button that's next to the "hyperlink* button, by mistake.
> Google is constantly breaking one of the most basic rules about UI design: "Good Design" is not about making it pretty. "Good Design" is about making it easy to use;
I suspect that the problem is that for established products, like gmail, "easy to use" just means "the exact way it is now": user familiarity trumping every other metric.
And I suspect there is only so many times a HCI design team can say "we ran a study and we should do nothing" before they are deemed useless. Eventually things have to be changed to preserve jobs and since the only metrics of "good design" in HCI, currently, are "ease of use" and "looks good" it usually results in something that "looks" easier than the old one through hiding (or removing) features and padding the shit out of everything.
The Google redesign seems to be about creating a walled garden, tied together by Google Plus, Android, and aggressive highlighting of other Google services on each page.
Maybe they fear that if they don't trap the users, Facebook will. Either way, the continued high user figures at Yahoo show that it's possible. To do it, they need to stop being a search engine (to discover others content, leave the garden), and become a portal, the only web experience you'll ever need.
I think this becomes necessary because on a tablet, people use apps, and if those aps are deep enough, they may never escape them. You could make a tablet that just ran the facebook ap, an a subset of users would be happy. They need a counter trap.
To me, to them, any other GUI changes that crept in are likely incidental. Does it tie in with Google Plus? Will it work on a tablet?, Does it look like our tablet ap?, would be the primary question.
On the other hand, good design isn't simply making every single button and control visible on the page so nobody ever has to click more than once to use one. Good design is recognizing which features are used the most and making those one click away while hiding less used features that for most people just clutter up the interface.
It seems that the same thing is happening to Youtube. There is now a 'settings' button in the bottom right of the player that I need to click first before changing the player size, video quality, or the annotations. I do not understand why they added this extra step.
One thing I cannot stand is that google tracks links in my email. It's one thing to track links in the search results, another very different thing to track links in messages, which to me is unacceptable.
They did improve some things, like draggable tags. The search bar was a nice effort but not a good input system in the end[1]. It's a trend rotation, you gain some you lose some, they should acknowledge user rants and work on correcting things.
[1] most of the time, web based interfaces are less efficient than many COBOL screen based terminals, fragile, laggy, non-burst oriented.
> "Google’s actively trying to make email less fussy and formal--or, in other words, to make it a little more like instant messaging."
> "email is just too much work"
> "Jason Cornwell, Gmail’s lead designer, explains, one of the ways to do that is simply to "give you permission to write shorter messages."
Why is gmail trying to compete against iMessage or Whatsapp or fb chat? Email IS for work and should be optimized for it. Email is a useful medium because you are allowed to write long messages and permitted to respond later during the week. A friend would not read your text if it was 500 words long.
Also recall reading a justification that less formatting should be used in emails and that was part of the UI decision. Don't recall whether that was from Gmail team or a writer editorializing but fact is I use formatting to make my emails more clear to people. This whole new idea of having quick conversations through email feels like trying to shove a square peg in a round hole to me.
Are you really suggesting that email should just be for work, and that we should ignore personal use cases: photo and link sharing, for example, or just writing a thoughtful message to a seldom-seen friend? Lots of Gmail users do those things, and I reject the notion that email providers should just cede that ground to proprietary communication silos.
The point that I was trying to get across in that article was not that all messages should be shorter. Rather, that the form of the composition UI sets expectations for what the message itself should look like. The form of Gmail's old compose set the expectation that it was a formal medium; that writing something short might not be appropriate, and that writing an email should be like writing a memo in a word processor. That makes messages feel less immediate, less personal, and as a result raises the bar for sending shorter and/or personal messages.
The goal was not to prevent users from writing long messages, but rather to provide a better balance between the two. Ultimately, though, this isn't a personal vs work issue. Facilitating short messages is arguably even more important in work settings where everybody tends to be inundated by large amounts of legitimate work-related email. There is real value in having a UI that gives users signals that it is ok to write shorter messages.
At the same time, on a 1366x768 browser window I can fit more than 3 paragraphs of lorem ipsem from http://www.lipsum.com/ in the default Gmail compose window before it even starts to scroll. In full screen mode at the same resolution you can fit 5 paragraphs before it starts to scroll. The UI isn't preventing you from writing something longer if that's what you need to do.
I like the new interface. I find it easy to use and streamlined. Since we are all talking about our old parents, FWIW my mother (60) found it easier to use the new interface then the old interface.
There is really nothing objective that is pointed to as to why it "sucks". I get it you don't like it. I imagine most people do, here is an XKCD comic about the situation your in http://xkcd.com/1172/
There is really nothing objective that is pointed to as to why it "sucks".
The post repeatedly mentions functionality that used to be one click away, but is now multiple clicks away. That is about as objective as measures come. You may not mind it, but you can't say it's just subjective.
The post also points out how UI controls shift relative positions based on the view being presented. One could define a metric that assesses the effect, and anybody calculating the metric would get the same result. Again, you may not mind controls jumping about as you work, but you can't say it's not objective.
I like it, too, and the amount of hate it receives baffles me. I like the fact that the message-compose window does not stretch across my whole screen - my laptop screen is quite wide. I don't want anything to stretch all the way across. I have no problem replying inline, I very rarely ever change the font of an email, and I very rarely change the subject. I don't do these things very often, so I would prefer that they're hidden.
I also use GMail mostly for personal emails, not professionally. I wonder if that's part of it. But, even then, I use Notes for professional emails, because I have to. The GMail changes work well for how I use it, but there's also the fact that I constantly compare it to Notes.
Agreed - I enjoy it. It's been streamlined to be good at conversing easily with people via e-mail. If you use other more "Outlook-type" features a lot in e-mail you might be annoyed.
If you're writing a marketing e-mail with HTML or something longer, it's probably not great. If you like to use a lot of rich text formatting then it's probably not great, but for actual, pithy e-mail, in plain text, quickly, I think it works really well. Keeping your messages in the background to cross-reference things without opening 12 windows is awesome.
That said - I did have to search for a second to figure out how to edit the subject. A couple of quick tweaks or the addition of a "message settings" button for more admin-type tasks would make it just a bit better.
Google has moved all their UI towards "don't worry your pretty little head about it" mode.
It's incredibly insulting. But it is aimed at people who don't know they are being insulted so it works out perfectly for them.
What I do not understand is why it would be so hard to give us options.
Just give us the option of having the old compose box back, with all the controls visible, all the form fields visible, for the other 50% of people who know what they are doing.
99% of emails don't include formatting. 99% of users never set anything but "TO" instead of the anachronistic BCC and CC thingies (how many emailers even know what a "Carbon Copy" even is?)
On a handheld where real-estate is at a premium? Those features are tucked away semi-hidden. And for the sake of consistency, that UI is mirrored onto the web form.
Also, changing the subject of a reply is hidden for very good reasons - many applications use the subject of a reply for threading. Changing that subject line is going to break the user's expectations of how threading works. Even if Gmail handles the threading with grace, the e-mail client at the other end may not, and that can causes a mess of broken expectations. Better to leave this seldom-used feature (changing the subject of a reply) hidden to avoid the trouble.
The inability to fullscreen and the tiny composition window are, imho, unacceptable though.
Also I do not see why even after deliberately setting a (B)CC this is collapsed back into a single TO-line (only visually - when you click CC again you see how it's actually configured to be sent under the hood, but this has confused me a few times already).
I actually really like the new Gmail design and it's helped improve my workflow. However I have a relative who uses computers only for work and rarely. I took the time to teach her Gmail and she finally got the hang of it. One day she called to ask me for help attaching something. It took me a few minutes to realise I couldn't help because she was still on the old UI and I couldn't walk her through it over the phone as I was on the new design. I mistakenly got her to update to the new UI (so I could more easily support her) and now she has constant issues trying to understand basic interactions. If she has an email open in the background + the compose window does she press send on the compose window or background email? Sounds simple but you'd be amazed and how complicated this is for some people and how stupid it makes them feel.
The problem seems to be communicating changes. Rather than the basic instructions given when a new design is introduced companies like Google should be producing detailed 30 minute walkthroughs of the new design and giving users the option to watch that.
I love the new Gmail and I think it makes a lot of sense if you embrace the idea of conversations/threads, and if you don't insist on having a 10 line signature. (Also, keyboard shortcuts help a lot though I agree not everyone has time to learn to use them.)
The new design makes email more lightweight and fluid; replying to a thread or composing a new message feels less like work and less ceremonious.
I agree the formatting options are a pain to use though...
I used to love Gmail because I thought it was fast, reliable, secure and had a great UI. Now I kinda hate the UI, it's not quite as fast as it once was, and I don't feel like it is a good place to store my email.
However, what all the posts about Gmail fail to do is point to a substitute. I need a web-based mail client which can provide mailboxes with my own domain, fetch mail from outside boxes and send through them, and filter and order my mail according to a set of rules I define. Also, it should not be hosted in the US or by a US based company, and should have at least a decent UI.
I would love to pay for such an alternative but, alas, I doesn't seem to exist today
For me, GMail reached an optimum in terms of user experience some three or four years ago. Then it was a mixture of changes that were nice but of minor significance (the look of the main interface is prettier now than those few years ago) and of "reverse improvements" of usability like very confusing and ugly icons, hiding core functionalities, all the "social" crap etc. I guess this might partially be the result of UI people coming and going to the GMail team, new people arriving always want to prove they can do better and do things their own way, and if things are already good, they can only get worse this way.
What? The text box expands as you type to fit the content. I would be very frustrated if it took up most of the screen space for no reason at all and I couldn't see the email I'm replying to.
2. Edit subject (when replying)
When you reply and edit the subject you're starting a new conversation. It's what the big "compose" button is for, except now your conversation starting email contains junk from other emails. I'm happy if this UI change discourages people from doing this.
3. Formatting (when replying)
First valid point, hiding this under a button makes no sense to those who use formatting. I'm just glad if I receive less HTML emails because of this change.
4. Adding cc and bcc (when replying)
Second somewhat valid point. Although I think it's still intuitive while keeping the UI uncluttered.
5. New email (compose)
You have several options to make the area larger. I love that I can look up other emails while composing a new one without the need to open a new window. In fact, I would like to see this while replying. The "feel there is no more space to write anything" is a ridiculous argument to hinder a useful feature.
edit: I would even make the point that if your emails are most often so long that they take up most of the screen you're doing communication wrong.
It's just my opinion but I would say that many Google products really suck from usability standpoint. I use computer all the time and I would say that I am pretty advanced user... and yet I think that sometimes it is really difficult to quickly find something in Google Analytics and I think it's UI is counterintuitive and user unfriendly as hell. And I have to admit that I hate Google Groups - when I am searching for a solution to some problem and I see something promising in Google search results I just continue searching when I notice that the result goes to some thread in Google Groups and I don't bother checking that out - if I were looking for the example how NOT to do this I would use Google Groups.
I've been working on a theory that they produce awful UIs as a disinformation campaign. Consider a scenario where an unmedicated paranoid dude thinks GOOG is sniffing his wireless, recording whereever he goes on the internet, and sharing it all to the NSA, CIA, DHS, and his local HOA zoning committee. Unfortunately this is all true, except for the HOA thing, but the dude is crazy so the point isn't if he's accidentally correct or not. Lets say he tries to spread the paranoid meme to an angry gmail user. The gmail user is going to respond "heck no, these guys can't operate some incredible elaborate spying program, they can't even write a simple email UI after email UIs have been in continuous development for about four decades". Thus the public impression of the "don't be evil" is maintained.
I think if the Mighty GOOG ever divorces itself from .gov / .mil then we'll see them release sane UIs.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how my theoretical model applies to .com with UI issues like APPL. Perhaps they're a mere manifestation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Or something else... it would hardly be the first time that totally different root causes leads to similar appearing results.
I totally agree with exactly those points. What's going to make me finally leave Gmail and migrate everything to... where is it I can migrate my stuff to?... well, I'll leave when they take away "Chat" and replace it with "Hangouts" like they did on Android where "Hangouts Replaces Chat". The LAST thing I want is Hangouts, chat is meant to be quick, private, light weight and how Hangouts "replaces" that I'll never understand. I'm unreasonably bitter over this, I know.
I think what you fail to understand is that Google are building a tool for the masses and I would bet that they have analysed what features people actually use and most of the time the majority of people don't change the subject or modify the recipients or format the email.
In short - they're catering for the typical user, and the typical user doesn't use all the features that the OP thinks they need.
To be fair to Google, Gmail has always sucked...but it sucked many millions of times less than Hotmail or Yahoo mail, and still sucks many millions of times less than them even with the new revamp.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel there is a trend that it is absolutely necessary to "fuck with" something that already works for the sake of [insert rationalization here]. It's like changing the semantics of how Unix pipes work. Don't do it. Go build something new. Leave the shit that already works Good Enough (tm) alone.
[+] [-] PakG1|12 years ago|reply
Seeing her cry about this made me change the way I think about what some users go through when they experience unexpected UI changes. I remember hearing people say they got confused by Windows 8 tiles, and didn't think it was such a big deal. After seeing my mom cry over a UI change, I think there are better ways to implement UI changes than simply shoving them down people's throat. Sure, if it must be done, it must be done (UI change), but don't shove it down people's throats unexpectedly and with no hand-holding at all.
[+] [-] Osmium|12 years ago|reply
But what can be done about it? Good design is important, but sometimes things have to be changed, and ultimately a lot people just don't like change. Even if it's the best design in the world, somebody, somewhere will struggle with it being different. I think some "hand holding" as you suggest would be a good idea, but I'm not sure how that could be done in practice.
[+] [-] smackay|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdtsc|12 years ago|reply
I can understand. My mother is her 60s and is now a Ubuntu user, has broadband, uses Skype & Gmail.
It took her a long time to get used to it. It is funny she has never used Microsoft or Apple or other computer before on a long term level. She thought, Windows for example was a very user "unfriendly".
But back to the complexity. I remember when she was learning it was very frustrating both for her and me. I think it is easy, and she didn't. Now the other day there was a post on HN about how to start a Boeing airliner. I at that moment understood what it is like being faced with a new interface with new rules and paradigms. If I had start a commercial aircraft I would start crying too probably.
Then of course every time Google or Ubuntu messes with their interface, it causes her and me (having to re-teach her) considerable stress.
Sometimes I think corporations go through re-design just because they can. Like there is an timer set to go off every 6 months and designers, new bosses, CEOs all see it go ding and say "aha, let's redesign it". Sometimes it doesn't make it better, it just makes it different even if it was already pretty good.
[+] [-] moogleii|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peeters|12 years ago|reply
Yeah, the send button used to be in a horrible place in Gmail. Nowhere close to the editor, and oddly detached from the compose area. I always had trouble finding it.
Thankfully they fixed it in the UI update the author's complaining about. Now it's where I'd expect it to be...attached to the email composer.
[+] [-] kamjam|12 years ago|reply
It's the reason Apple have done so well - they didn't invent anything new which hadn't already been done, they just added better UI that appealed to the masses.
I have to say, I agree with most of what is written in that blog, I've gotten used to some of the changes now but still a lot of the time keep looking around to see where the hell something has gone (the attach files expands out to reveal more options, why the hell is add URL link under attach options?)
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
I know it's not perfect, but little ever is.
[+] [-] scanr|12 years ago|reply
My mother is smart enough to know not to randomly sign up to things but this means she now has to try and navigate the 'advanced' path through a UI.
[+] [-] michaelwww|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sami_Lehtinen|12 years ago|reply
https://plus.google.com/106938703242944328523/posts/AU5F7oeV...
I have added red marks to the screenshot, so it's bit easier to find those buttons.
[+] [-] Veus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nakedrobot2|12 years ago|reply
The Old Google was the latter (very usable, not beautiful).
The New Google is the former (looks visually pleasing, very unintuitive to use).
I curse every time I compose an email now in Gmail. Why have they hidden all the controls? Why is EVERYTHING one click away? Is ANYTHING gained AT ALL by HIDING all those buttons that are there to be used?
Heck, I still can't tell you how to make a hyperlink. I think you have to mouse over the hidden buttons. Or do you click on the hidden buttons? I think if you click on the hidden buttons then you end up clicking a button that's next to the "hyperlink* button, by mistake.
Come on, Google.
[+] [-] EdiX|12 years ago|reply
I suspect that the problem is that for established products, like gmail, "easy to use" just means "the exact way it is now": user familiarity trumping every other metric.
And I suspect there is only so many times a HCI design team can say "we ran a study and we should do nothing" before they are deemed useless. Eventually things have to be changed to preserve jobs and since the only metrics of "good design" in HCI, currently, are "ease of use" and "looks good" it usually results in something that "looks" easier than the old one through hiding (or removing) features and padding the shit out of everything.
[+] [-] shubb|12 years ago|reply
Maybe they fear that if they don't trap the users, Facebook will. Either way, the continued high user figures at Yahoo show that it's possible. To do it, they need to stop being a search engine (to discover others content, leave the garden), and become a portal, the only web experience you'll ever need.
I think this becomes necessary because on a tablet, people use apps, and if those aps are deep enough, they may never escape them. You could make a tablet that just ran the facebook ap, an a subset of users would be happy. They need a counter trap.
To me, to them, any other GUI changes that crept in are likely incidental. Does it tie in with Google Plus? Will it work on a tablet?, Does it look like our tablet ap?, would be the primary question.
[+] [-] marknutter|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cli|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanSrich|12 years ago|reply
You're right but this is an anomaly to me. How is it that Google hires PHDs in HCI to design this stuff and they're still getting it wrong?
Perhaps I have misconceptions about the organizational structure of large companies but they do hire these people for a reason no?
[+] [-] rom16384|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|12 years ago|reply
[1] most of the time, web based interfaces are less efficient than many COBOL screen based terminals, fragile, laggy, non-burst oriented.
[+] [-] seferphier|12 years ago|reply
Reasons for redesign:
> "Google’s actively trying to make email less fussy and formal--or, in other words, to make it a little more like instant messaging."
> "email is just too much work"
> "Jason Cornwell, Gmail’s lead designer, explains, one of the ways to do that is simply to "give you permission to write shorter messages."
Why is gmail trying to compete against iMessage or Whatsapp or fb chat? Email IS for work and should be optimized for it. Email is a useful medium because you are allowed to write long messages and permitted to respond later during the week. A friend would not read your text if it was 500 words long.
[+] [-] jcc80|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasoncornwell|12 years ago|reply
The point that I was trying to get across in that article was not that all messages should be shorter. Rather, that the form of the composition UI sets expectations for what the message itself should look like. The form of Gmail's old compose set the expectation that it was a formal medium; that writing something short might not be appropriate, and that writing an email should be like writing a memo in a word processor. That makes messages feel less immediate, less personal, and as a result raises the bar for sending shorter and/or personal messages.
The goal was not to prevent users from writing long messages, but rather to provide a better balance between the two. Ultimately, though, this isn't a personal vs work issue. Facilitating short messages is arguably even more important in work settings where everybody tends to be inundated by large amounts of legitimate work-related email. There is real value in having a UI that gives users signals that it is ok to write shorter messages.
At the same time, on a 1366x768 browser window I can fit more than 3 paragraphs of lorem ipsem from http://www.lipsum.com/ in the default Gmail compose window before it even starts to scroll. In full screen mode at the same resolution you can fit 5 paragraphs before it starts to scroll. The UI isn't preventing you from writing something longer if that's what you need to do.
[+] [-] dkhenry|12 years ago|reply
There is really nothing objective that is pointed to as to why it "sucks". I get it you don't like it. I imagine most people do, here is an XKCD comic about the situation your in http://xkcd.com/1172/
[+] [-] dmlorenzetti|12 years ago|reply
The post repeatedly mentions functionality that used to be one click away, but is now multiple clicks away. That is about as objective as measures come. You may not mind it, but you can't say it's just subjective.
The post also points out how UI controls shift relative positions based on the view being presented. One could define a metric that assesses the effect, and anybody calculating the metric would get the same result. Again, you may not mind controls jumping about as you work, but you can't say it's not objective.
[+] [-] scott_s|12 years ago|reply
I also use GMail mostly for personal emails, not professionally. I wonder if that's part of it. But, even then, I use Notes for professional emails, because I have to. The GMail changes work well for how I use it, but there's also the fact that I constantly compare it to Notes.
[+] [-] sailfast|12 years ago|reply
If you're writing a marketing e-mail with HTML or something longer, it's probably not great. If you like to use a lot of rich text formatting then it's probably not great, but for actual, pithy e-mail, in plain text, quickly, I think it works really well. Keeping your messages in the background to cross-reference things without opening 12 windows is awesome.
That said - I did have to search for a second to figure out how to edit the subject. A couple of quick tweaks or the addition of a "message settings" button for more admin-type tasks would make it just a bit better.
Everyone's a UI critic.
[+] [-] ck2|12 years ago|reply
It's incredibly insulting. But it is aimed at people who don't know they are being insulted so it works out perfectly for them.
What I do not understand is why it would be so hard to give us options.
Just give us the option of having the old compose box back, with all the controls visible, all the form fields visible, for the other 50% of people who know what they are doing.
[+] [-] Pxtl|12 years ago|reply
99% of emails don't include formatting. 99% of users never set anything but "TO" instead of the anachronistic BCC and CC thingies (how many emailers even know what a "Carbon Copy" even is?)
On a handheld where real-estate is at a premium? Those features are tucked away semi-hidden. And for the sake of consistency, that UI is mirrored onto the web form.
Also, changing the subject of a reply is hidden for very good reasons - many applications use the subject of a reply for threading. Changing that subject line is going to break the user's expectations of how threading works. Even if Gmail handles the threading with grace, the e-mail client at the other end may not, and that can causes a mess of broken expectations. Better to leave this seldom-used feature (changing the subject of a reply) hidden to avoid the trouble.
The inability to fullscreen and the tiny composition window are, imho, unacceptable though.
[+] [-] icoder|12 years ago|reply
Also I do not see why even after deliberately setting a (B)CC this is collapsed back into a single TO-line (only visually - when you click CC again you see how it's actually configured to be sent under the hood, but this has confused me a few times already).
[+] [-] ozh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|12 years ago|reply
The problem seems to be communicating changes. Rather than the basic instructions given when a new design is introduced companies like Google should be producing detailed 30 minute walkthroughs of the new design and giving users the option to watch that.
[+] [-] kaoD|12 years ago|reply
That's the lazy way.
I even doubt that's a solution; the average user won't read one-liner warning/error boxes.
[+] [-] scg|12 years ago|reply
The new design makes email more lightweight and fluid; replying to a thread or composing a new message feels less like work and less ceremonious.
I agree the formatting options are a pain to use though...
[+] [-] chris_wot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenport|12 years ago|reply
We have plenty of chat an other collaboration tools for your vision of email.
[+] [-] Jacqued|12 years ago|reply
However, what all the posts about Gmail fail to do is point to a substitute. I need a web-based mail client which can provide mailboxes with my own domain, fetch mail from outside boxes and send through them, and filter and order my mail according to a set of rules I define. Also, it should not be hosted in the US or by a US based company, and should have at least a decent UI.
I would love to pay for such an alternative but, alas, I doesn't seem to exist today
[+] [-] markdown|12 years ago|reply
It's much cleaner and snappier than gmail and yahoo.
[+] [-] Geee|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stiff|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lonik|12 years ago|reply
1. No Space to write
What? The text box expands as you type to fit the content. I would be very frustrated if it took up most of the screen space for no reason at all and I couldn't see the email I'm replying to.
2. Edit subject (when replying)
When you reply and edit the subject you're starting a new conversation. It's what the big "compose" button is for, except now your conversation starting email contains junk from other emails. I'm happy if this UI change discourages people from doing this.
3. Formatting (when replying)
First valid point, hiding this under a button makes no sense to those who use formatting. I'm just glad if I receive less HTML emails because of this change.
4. Adding cc and bcc (when replying)
Second somewhat valid point. Although I think it's still intuitive while keeping the UI uncluttered.
5. New email (compose)
You have several options to make the area larger. I love that I can look up other emails while composing a new one without the need to open a new window. In fact, I would like to see this while replying. The "feel there is no more space to write anything" is a ridiculous argument to hinder a useful feature.
edit: I would even make the point that if your emails are most often so long that they take up most of the screen you're doing communication wrong.
[+] [-] honzzz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|12 years ago|reply
I think if the Mighty GOOG ever divorces itself from .gov / .mil then we'll see them release sane UIs.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how my theoretical model applies to .com with UI issues like APPL. Perhaps they're a mere manifestation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Or something else... it would hardly be the first time that totally different root causes leads to similar appearing results.
[+] [-] andrewhillman|12 years ago|reply
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fix-compose-for-gm...
I love it.
[+] [-] mbesto|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blakesterz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellweaver666|12 years ago|reply
In short - they're catering for the typical user, and the typical user doesn't use all the features that the OP thinks they need.
[+] [-] martin-adams|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AmVess|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laichzeit0|12 years ago|reply