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Gmail, We Need to Talk

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Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#171

Post by ViViDboarder »

qewrffewqwfqew wrote: post #77

I've become convinced that gmail's goal is not to improve email, but to extinguish and replace it. This article talks about one minor aspect of that. In addition: * breaking established addressing conventions. Gmail (last time I used it) made it difficult to distinguish between To: and Cc:, both in received emails and when sending. * messed-up quoting, and other broken conventions. * the one that's been discussed to…

Why would Google want it to be easier for you to market via email than paying them for ads?

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#172

Post by BuckRogers »

mikeg8 wrote: post #100
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.

Thanks for the info. I may just do that then, or just go with a shorter trial period. Pretty sure I can use both of them at once with no issue.

I'd love to know who and why my parent comment was downvoted.. I hate that, you can't say anything on here without downvotes.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#173

Post by manigandham »

nandhp wrote: post #163
ryukafalz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On my phone, if I type in the name of a store, it gives me the most popular store of that name in the United States instead of the nearest one, because I have wifi locaiton turned off. That's the only reason. If I turn it back on (I don't want it on), the results are sorted as expected. I'm assuming you do have GPS location turned on, and that you're allowing location access on that page and waiting for a GPS lock b…

> if not, how do you expect it to know where you are? IP addresses are usually enough to get to the right city.

Not on mobile carrier Internet, those can appear as very far from where you are

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#174

Post by superuser2 »

rconti wrote: post #119
archmikhail wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I honestly believe there's a revolving door of Product Managers at Google that come in, decide to leave their "mark" on a product by making a bunch of arbitrary changes, then move on to destroy other products. Hard to complain when they're free, but... I do my best.

You joke, but having Product Managers on a "rotation" seems to be all the rage in Silicon Valley these days.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#175

Post by RawInfoSec »

It's email. SMTP. It's not instant messaging and it sure isn't a browser.

Point blank, it's easy to see that this is by design and not by quirk or fault. If anything Google are looking to maintain usability by keeping as close to RFC spec as possible.

One of the biggest problems facing email today is SPAM, and general deliverability. Once you veer far off spec it gets a lot more difficult to manage these two issues.

For example, look how nice Greylisting worked in theory, until you realize that most IT or hosting companies don't have a clue how to configure an MTA within RFC specs and do silly things like retrying delivery every 5 mins.

When your dealing with complex systems, it's better to keep each part of that system well oiled and within a predictable spec. And then Microsoft adds HTML support to Outlook so that marketing execs can throw 15 sales related images and some wording about saving trees...

Often, solution providers should have given an alternative when asked to do things that break from standards. As we often say in this field, "Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should."

Kc/

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#176

Post by d23 »

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…

Here's a few more: randomly zooming out to full-earth view, changing the area of my search after I've already zoomed in, crashing all the time on mobile, randomly giving me results halfway across the earth, randomly changing my destination when I zoom in, randomly zooming out to full-state view.

These are the obvious ones. There are more subtle UX fumbles too. If I click my house while I'm in my house and click directions, I probably don't want directions to my house. I probably want directions from my house.

Edit: Oh! That ridiculous thing it does when my phone vibrates. Someone decided they could detect frustration by using my accelerometer. Now any time I get a text message and am using maps, maps gets insecure and asks me to submit feedback.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#177

Post by d23 »

icebraining wrote: post #115
andyana wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't run through it right now, but I guess there are simply too many steps to go from address to navigation. It used to be, as best I recall, input address -> click navigate. The error part comes in from making me visually choose from a list of addresses after I have already put in a specific address (search is not needed). The difficult part comes in to play when I am trying to get somewhere and the app is making…

But you don't need to search. Open maps.google.com, then type the address and click on the arrow; it'll open the two directions input screen with the destination already filled in. Now you can just choose the origin (e.g. click on "my location") and it'll show you the route.

This is the problem. You can't argue a user into accepting that their experience is better. You have a whole swath of people saying maps has gotten significantly more cumbersome over the last few years. Telling the user they are wrong and giving them coping strategies to handle the UX awkwardness is just insulting.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#178

Post by cxseven »

JBlue42 wrote: post #168
mfisher87 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my phone, if I type in the name of a store, it gives me the most popular store of that name in the United States instead of the nearest one, because I have wifi locaiton turned off. That's the only reason. If I turn it back on (I don't want it on), the results are sorted as expected. This is clearly an intentional anti-pattern, and it's been there for over two years. I have to actually type, for example: "Fry's el…

So much this. I also liked the one period of time I used to type in my US zip code for Movie Showtimes and somehow be routed to theatres and showtimes in a town outside Naples, Italy. This was on a desktop, not a phone. Not the biggest deal in the world but it seems every useful thing Google comes up with seems to degrade in quality over time and increase in complexity.

My theory is that this has something to do with the average Googler's tenure lasting 3 years. With such a high turnover, the overwhelming majority of employees are probably much happier achieving the supposed glory of making something new rather than understanding and maintaining the old system.

Maybe another reason for the change is that, back in the Marissa Mayer days, hiring standards used to be much more brutal. Google was still reaping the rewards of bucking the trends of web portals jammed with ads, but eventually lost its confidence in nerd-driven products and instead began to imitate Apple, Facebook, and inexplicably, Microsoft...

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#179

Post by JBlue42 »

cxseven wrote: post #178
JBlue42 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. I also liked the one period of time I used to type in my US zip code for Movie Showtimes and somehow be routed to theatres and showtimes in a town outside Naples, Italy. This was on a desktop, not a phone. Not the biggest deal in the world but it seems every useful thing Google comes up with seems to degrade in quality over time and increase in complexity.

My theory is that this has something to do with the average Googler's tenure lasting 3 years. With such a high turnover, the overwhelming majority of employees are probably much happier achieving the supposed glory of making something new rather than understanding and maintaining the old system. Maybe another reason for the change is that, back in the Marissa Mayer days, hiring standards used to be much more brutal.…

Those are good theories.

My personal one is that they just can't stop tweaking. It's not like there aren't some fundamental improvements with a lot of their services but everything needs to get touched and then it ends up like that car Homer tries to design in that episode of The Simpsons.

I know that you're supposed to constantly iterate and try and improve performance, design, etc in software but is there anything in the general literature / case studies of 'improving' too much and degrading the core product(s)?

Not to mention that it's always funny to search for an issue on Google, find the links to the forum, see all the people that chime in with a similar issue, the few souls that try to help, then, as you scroll, the further desperate comments of "They don't care about us." Shouts in the wind.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#180

Post by dredmorbius »

eggnet wrote: post #105
Karunamon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 | | | +----------------------------------+---------+--…

That only works if you can guarantee monospaced font rendering on the client. It also looks ugly.

You cannot guarantee squat. Which is pretty much the gist of TFA, within a single vendor's various client interfaces to its own unified email system.

However, as I put on my True Scotsman hat and kilt, any true email client will present monospaced fonts, therefor those which fail to do so aren't real email tools.

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