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Gmail, We Need to Talk

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31–40 of 247 posts

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#31
post #23

GMail, we need to talk. We need to talk about how substring searches do not work, 11 years after your launch. We need to talk about how you've slowly engineered out everything that was good and unique about GMail. We need to talk about how you "flattened" the style, removed colors from threaded messages, and just decided to use shades of grey everywhere. We need to talk about how difficult it is to tell one message f…

> substring searches

God yes. What the hell man??

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#32
post #26
post #23

GMail, we need to talk. We need to talk about how substring searches do not work, 11 years after your launch. We need to talk about how you've slowly engineered out everything that was good and unique about GMail. We need to talk about how you "flattened" the style, removed colors from threaded messages, and just decided to use shades of grey everywhere. We need to talk about how difficult it is to tell one message f…

Maps has really become a chore to use, too. I remember getting directions used to be easy once and now it's like interacting with enterprise software.

What? If you left-click in a place, a small card appears with an arrow that you can click to get directions. If you right-click, you can get directions from or to the place. And if you search, you also get a very visible round button with an arrow and the label "Directions".

How is it hard?

EDIT: Sorry if this came out as aggressive. I'm just dumbfounded, that's all.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#33
post #23

GMail, we need to talk. We need to talk about how substring searches do not work, 11 years after your launch. We need to talk about how you've slowly engineered out everything that was good and unique about GMail. We need to talk about how you "flattened" the style, removed colors from threaded messages, and just decided to use shades of grey everywhere. We need to talk about how difficult it is to tell one message f…

If we can list all the things that were good, perhaps we can just re-create it and then pack it with some snazzy css framework to make it look good.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#34
GMail, we need to talk. Thank you for making it complicated for people to send me "rich" text emails. Thank you for making it harder for embedded tracking images to function correctly. Perhaps the moving target that are your rendering changes will lead to a simpler, more featureless, email landscape like we once had. I really appreciate the time and money designers are forced to spend on annoying me; if i have to deal with the full frontal assault on my eyes, they should at least have to work for it. Please keep up the good work and thanks for encouraging people to focus on the iOS market instead (those people will buy anything AMIRITE?).

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#35
post #23

GMail, we need to talk. We need to talk about how substring searches do not work, 11 years after your launch. We need to talk about how you've slowly engineered out everything that was good and unique about GMail. We need to talk about how you "flattened" the style, removed colors from threaded messages, and just decided to use shades of grey everywhere. We need to talk about how difficult it is to tell one message f…

I've very recently moved away from GMail for various reasons, but part of the transition was using their web panel to tidy up some things.

Wow, I agree with you that it's visually worsened. I'm shocked at how much harder it is to visually parse information in there. It's not harder to use overall per se (from what I remember) but the number of visual indicators defining what's clickable or a message in a thread or a sliding panels hiding tags or pop-up reply panels that are just harder to work out is very surprising. I actually stumbled on an interesting piece today discussing this exact point, I forget where I saw it[0].

I admit to using desktop/clients for virtually all email stuff so going back into the web panel was a surprise to say the least.

[0] http://www.nngroup.com/articles/clickable-elements/

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#36
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sole responsible for acquisition on a startup and I solely (for now) use direct cold email (it is B2B, email sent to public adresses, so it is not spam). I only use plain text emails. I don't even use email tracking so that hidden pixel doesn't trigger any annoying warning on the email client that ruins the experience.

Sending unsolicited email to public addresses in order to sell something is spam. Calling it 'cold email' to make it sound like a legitimate process does not change the fact you are spamming.

you may be right regarding definitions of spam, but as a user I treat relevant-and-targeted(-yet-unsolicited) emails very differently than I treat automated junk email.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#37
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maps has really become a chore to use, too. I remember getting directions used to be easy once and now it's like interacting with enterprise software.

What? If you left-click in a place, a small card appears with an arrow that you can click to get directions. If you right-click, you can get directions from or to the place. And if you search, you also get a very visible round button with an arrow and the label "Directions". How is it hard? EDIT: Sorry if this came out as aggressive. I'm just dumbfounded, that's all.

I have the same complaint. I can't explain how it has changed, but it used to be easy. Now it is difficult and error prone. I guess I just never paid attention to it when it was easy.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#38
post #23

GMail, we need to talk. We need to talk about how substring searches do not work, 11 years after your launch. We need to talk about how you've slowly engineered out everything that was good and unique about GMail. We need to talk about how you "flattened" the style, removed colors from threaded messages, and just decided to use shades of grey everywhere. We need to talk about how difficult it is to tell one message f…

You can still use the "Basic HTML" layout for GMail. It's actually pretty great.

It doesn't look "modern", but if you ask me it's more usable.

https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html&zy=h

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#39
Why has Gmail made it so hard to delete emails? I use various imap connections to gmail, and they've all replaced the delete icon with an archive button. Only the web app still has an easy to click delete button.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#40
Being the only coder at my startup, you have to do everything. And the other day, I had to spend the whole day troubleshooting rendering differences between Outlook and GMail. It reminds me of the old days, back around the time of IE6, when it was all-but-impossible to get FF and IE to render the same HTML - except worse, by at least an order of magnitude. It's astounding to me that the same companies who've worked their asses off to make sure that their browsers all render HTML and CSS exactly the same, haven't given the slightest thought to making sure that their email clients can get along. This is a huge time-suck for developers. Glad to see that they're getting the public shaming they deserve.
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