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Gmail, We Need to Talk

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Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#91

Post by [deleted] »

potatolicious wrote: post #88
CamperBob2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the problem is that Maps looks different at random times. I just took this screenshot to answer your post: http://i.imgur.com/SaHMCF2.png Yes, there's a round "Directions" icon. This time . Frequently, searches for a given address don't bring up that icon or any other UI affordance that indicates how I might get directions to the destination. However, Maps does reliably fill half the screen with photo…

> "Yes, there's a round "Directions" icon. This time. Frequently, searches for a given address don't bring up that icon or any other UI affordance that indicates how I might get directions to the destination." This is sadly a really common UX failure in a lot of different apps. One thing that many people still don't seem to realize is that it's more important to be consistent than being smart . I like to call these "…

[deleted]

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#92

Post by archmikhail »

rconti wrote: 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…

May I add, the redesigned YouTube app on iOS is horrendous. These UI regressions have to catch up to Google eventually, right?

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#93

Post by brwnll »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

Maybe I am just really, really old at this point, but sending emails in plain text solves all these problems. I don't think I've ever received an HTML email that couldn't have been adequately represented in plain text and maybe an attached image if necessary.

You've never received data that needed to be displayed as a table?

If plain text email was the end-all, then instant messenger and SMS would have killed email a long time ago.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#94

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #87
rconti wrote: 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…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#95

Post by softbuilder »

icebraining wrote: post #32
gdulli wrote: 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.

Maybe GMaps is just polarizing software that seems awesome to some people and awful to others? Unless you're a Googler and/or on the Maps team? :)

One thing that is absolutely brain-dead is that (in Chrome) I can't type in maps.google.com and tab-search for my address. I can do this with Amazon.com or Netflix, but not an actual Google property? Weird.

Another thing that is just bafflingly absent is that GMaps doesn't know where my home and work are. Not just as locations, but as concepts. (Snide part of my brain wonders if the Maps team just lives at work.)

Another thing is that to make GMaps work with my Mac, I have to have a Chrome Extension to stop the map from freaking out. And then simple things like double-clicking to zoom in seems to have a non-predictable behavior where sometimes it zooms in and sometimes it tries to put a marker on the map.

Not everything in Gmaps is horrible. There are many nice features. But they've allowed the critical path through the software to become obscured and eroded.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#96

Post by pfooti »

scott_s wrote: post #25
badloginagain wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing emails are not the only ones that developers want to look not broken. To pick an instance at random: Confirmation emails for purchases made, especially if they have tickets as an attachments. If this email looks broken, customer thinks it's phishing or something, and might end up trashing it, just because styling is not supported consistently. And I take issue with your argument of "marketing emails are bad…

I did not argue that marketing emails are bad. I'm stating that I don't want them, and guessing that many users are like me. Regarding your example, I have no problem if such emails are not stylized.

I'm sure that you don't have a problem if confirmations are unstyled. But I'm also sure that a lot of users differ in that regard and would expect at least some styling on that non-marketing, but still system-generated emails. Examples include things like confirmations, notifications (that you've opted in to), or just richer and more complex conversations. I mean: to end users, the email experience is part of the brand, and if the brand emits terribad emails, or unstyled emails, it erodes confidence.

I'll grant that there's a lot of yucky and annoying html in some marketing emails. But there is still a use-case for html-styled emails, and just having plain text with "click here to see images of the food you're getting next week" is pretty darn 1994.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#97

Post by legohead »

GMail/Google, why are you tying Google Fi to my GMail account? I got it for my wife, who now has to have my GMail account setup on her phone for the service to work.

You say you don't have family plans yet, but it sounds like you will. Do you really expect me to be okay with having my GMail account setup on my children's phones?

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#98

Post by Karunamon »

brwnll wrote: post #93
LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

Maybe I am just really, really old at this point, but sending emails in plain text solves all these problems. I don't think I've ever received an HTML email that couldn't have been adequately represented in plain text and maybe an attached image if necessary.

You've never received data that needed to be displayed as a table? If plain text email was the end-all, then instant messenger and SMS would have killed email a long time ago.

If we're just displaying tables rather than interacting with them, that problem is solved.

    +----------------------------------+---------+------------------------+
    |               Col1               |  Col2   |          Col3          |
    +----------------------------------+---------+------------------------+
    | Value 1                          | Value 2 | 123                    |
    | Separate                         | cols    | with a tab or 4 spaces |
    | This is a row with only one cell |         |                        |
    +----------------------------------+---------+------------------------+

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#99

Post by danielsamuels »

smithkl42 wrote: post #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 t…

> And the other day, I had to spend the whole day troubleshooting rendering differences between Outlook and GMail.

We just build the template in Mailchimp and export it out as HTML nowadays. Never had an issue with that workflow.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#100

Post by mikeg8 »

BuckRogers wrote: post #14

I've been wondering about this and after reading that link, I think I'm going to switch from the Gmail iOS app to using the included Mail app. We'll see how it goes, but I do want my email as the developer intended.

As someone who just made the switch in the opposite direction (I've been using Mail for multiple emails accounts for a few years) I'd strongly suggest sticking with Gmail's iOS app. My email experience on mobile has been much more enjoyable, Mail was glitchy and difficult to use/organize for me.
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