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Gmail, We Need to Talk

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Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#151

Post by ashark »

terinjokes wrote: post #146
manigandham wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home/Work are supported, you can easily set them if it doesn't learn on it's own: https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3273402?hl=en Also I'm not sure but it would seem you have some kind of plugin that might be interfering as GMaps is very smooth on Mac Chrome and Safari. And you might be single-clicking on the maps which brings up a gray marker to show you more detail of the nearest address to where you clicked. I…

I frequently, in Chrome on OSX, get Google Maps in such a state that attempting to interact with the map at all will cause it to "freak out" and randomly zoom or pan somewhere unexpected.

I find it entirely unusable on a Macbook touchpad, and even worse with a magic mouse. Sometimes I forget and go to the site, only to have it freak out on me part way through trying to do whatever I'm doing, while lagging like crazy of course, because at some point Google stopped giving even half a damn about performance, company wide.

Google Music kicks on my fan after a while. The only other thing I run that does that is Kerbal Space Program. One simulates space flight with nice (ok, decent) 3d graphics, the other plays f*cking music.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#152

Post by batiudrami »

maxxxxx wrote: post #142
rdtsc wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see something like this happening: Imagine this: you are Google. Raking in billions. PhD level scientists are hired to mop floors, and serve coffee to everyone. You hire top level designers, pay them $250k/year and tell them to improve Gmail. And they do...Gmail gets better. You make more billions, hire more designers, pay them more and ... tell them to work on Gmail. You now have 10 designers, "designing" GMail. C…

That's my theory too. It seems a lot of software has peaked a few years ago and gone downhill from there: - MS Office peaked around 2000 - Gmail 3 years ago? - GMaps 3 years ago? - I would argue Windows peaked somewhere between 2000 and XP The same applies to managers. When an organization works well, they have the need to change things around just because.

MS Office is much more usable now than it was in 2000. Consider a new user, with no experience in office software at all. They're presented with either two rows of incomprehensible buttons, no logical order, and additional features hidden in the menu bar, compared to having features (reasonably) logically organised behind tabs and grouped into sections and frequently with labels.

Sure, for power users, some things take two or three clicks which required one previously and I understand that's frustrating, but Office's old interface was a complete mess which got by on inertia - and there are still keyboard shortcuts and the customisable hotbar.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#153

Post by colomon »

gdulli wrote: post #67
icebraining wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm not a UX expert and don't have the vocabulary to describe what's wrong with it. What I know is that I used to enjoy using it. Not just for directions, but I'd use it for fun to explore new areas. And now I dislike and avoid using it altogether. Similar to Gmail. It's just feels like a mess of UI elements that show and hide and move dynamically, don't have fixed spots on the page, don't work consistently, etc. Lik…

I'm 100% with you. I don't know what's going on exactly, but five years ago it was an example I'd point to of a beautiful, instinctively easy-to-use interface, and today it seems like it never does what I want on the first try. Doesn't matter if it's the web interface or on my Android phone, though I think those are screwed up in different ways.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#154

Post by chris_va »

defen wrote: post #149
chris_va wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.google.com/maps/lite

I tried loading that on my system (latest Firefox, OS X Yosemite) - this is what I get: http://i.imgur.com/8IrwRAF.png All adblockers turned off, no errors in JS console, no other extensions installed, regular maps works fine.

(try using the search box)

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#155

Post by rdancer »

PhilWright wrote: post #22
soneca wrote: 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.

> Sending unsolicited email to public addresses in order to sell something is spam.

Only if it is sent in bulk.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#156

Post by goodata »

g_delgado14 wrote: post #102
csomar wrote: post #83

If you haven't already, you are better leaving Gmail 1. Have your own domain for emails. This is important. Gmail (or any service provider) can block you/remove your account for no reason and with no recourse. Your email is very important if you are doing serious work and have financial sites and data linked to that email address. 2. The very reason that I used Gmail was speed and storage. The very reason that I left…

> If you don't pay for the product, you are the product I'm starting to think that this statement is becoming really generalized. Anonymized data has the power to help society. I.e. anonymized cancer patient data to help doctors see larger societal trends without jeopardizing client privacy. I trust larry page and the Google team, and presume Google is handling my data responsibly.

>> I trust larry page and the Google team, and presume Google is handling my data responsibly.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/15/google-needs-to-do-a-lot-mo...

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#157

Post by Periodic »

XJOKOLAT wrote: post #61
wlesieutre wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ahh, lovely. What I really like is the strip along the top. I want to use Drive. I click on ... wait for it ... "Drive". Genius ... (not being sarcastic either)

I just realized that when I want to use drive I open a new tab and type "drive" and let auto-complete do the rest.

Since Google has hidden the other properties behind the grid icon I've completely forgotten they were there.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#158

Post by Consultant32452 »

badloginagain wrote: post #139
davidbanham wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that email using HTML? Hello there! Thanks for purchasing X for $Y. Your tax invoice is attached. Here's where you can track your delivery: http://example.com/tracking Thanks!

Such a minimalist design may work for some products/brands. But just as many companies, especially companies that put a lot of focus on brand management, may want nice images and responsive design. It's not an unreasonable request. Even if it's not as effective for click-through/customer re-engagement/etc. you should let the customer decide on what kind of emails they want. Data will prove if nice images and ads are…

I disagree. If you don't want your email to look the way Gmail displays it, use a different client. I don't want a million configurations for how I could possibly have my mail displayed. Show me a good option. If I don't like it, I'll use a different option. That being said, one thing I really miss in Gmail compared to other options is being able to do things like sort by the sender and that sort of thing. Instead I have to search for that sender which often gives me many false positives.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#159

Post by agumonkey »

gdulli wrote: post #26
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…

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.

Mostly it's indiscoverable. The v2 overhaul shifted everything toward a semantico-geographical google search, except it didn't improve the ergonomics, and even made the software 5x slower. The latest upgrade fixed some stuff but it still feels like a waste compared to the v1. btw, you something is wrong when you go to bing maps and you feel happy because "it" .. works.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#160

Post by agumonkey »

LukeB_UK wrote: post #48
potatolicious wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My beef with GMaps is its performance. The UI is for the most part fine (though there some awful blunders that were later fixed). Loading GMaps takes forever now and brings my entire browser to a freezing stop (Chrome OSX) until it's done doing whatever it's doing. This is a modern desktop (i7, 16GB RAM, discrete graphics). Even after it's done "loading" if you try to interact with the map right away it does so at a…

Try Lite Mode: https://www.google.com/maps/?force=lite

Too bad they don't tell you about it when your browser hangs.
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