How to cope with the Gmail redesign

There are 2 distinct threads woven through this discussion. One directly addressing Gmail's redesign which touches mainly on UX and implementation issues. The other being the more perennial debate between desktop vs. web mail clients. I wish HN allowed for comment collapsing at least which would make this and other conversations easier to follow just the threads that are of interest. (Reddit has this, not sure why HN doesn't)

It took me fully 5 minutes to figure out where the "create a filter" option was since I couldn't figure out the magical combination of what to select when to make it appear.

Very annoyed.

There's different kinds of consistency though. Make everything use the same palette? That's a kind of consistency.

Make everything use the same interaction design? That's a kind of consistency.

Years ago I had to use a piece of visualization software that was designed around consistency in the interaction model for the software. It sounded nice, but what it meant was that where there was intersection in the interaction models between visualizations it worked well, but where there were differences they either chose to just not implement that function, or bury it in some menu somewhere.

It was infuriating to know that a particular kind of visualization should offer a certain feature (like finding the average on an axis of a scatter plot), but because some other completely different visualization (a semantic graph) didn't have such a concept they just simply left it out.

I'm not arguing that gmail isn't good at what it does. But it is at an inherent (huge) disadvantage of being executed in the browser.

Just some comments. Thunderbird became dramatically better at searching a couple of years(?) ago. I frequently feel limited by search in gmail, I've assumed that there are advanced features lurking around somwhere but the UX is so bad I just don't.

I don't see how storage can be a problem. With gmail you hit the limit at But, perhaps the most important one, I don't get why everyone seems to believe it's native or web, never both. Of course you have both... The question is why you'd want such a blunt tool for something as important as mail on your workstation. Yes, browser access is still awesome - that's why you have both.

And when you consider security it's borderline to irresponsible being logged in constantly in the browser and since I value instant notification that alone is a dealbreaker on my WS.

And if you're on a laptop with a bad connection relying on gmail or something similar is a sure way to get a heart attack.

I use this regularly now, but I'm still dead set on moving back to having email in my workstation. Now, Google seem ruthless in their hunt for your information and this alone should be enough to make a decision. But it's a bigger problem than just that: you are at their mercy for any change they introduce, and they are a critical component of the internet for many if not most of us. Namely this interface change, or the availability of that simple html option. One could argue that the same can be said for any "cloud service" but email is typically a bit too critical to many of us. It definitely is for me. And they would push their integration plans whatever your opinion is and whatever the consensus is. This modus operandi seems to be the new standard at Google.

The last straw was a recent incident I had with my Android phone. So apparently in one of the recent updates of Google Talk they realised they could just log me into their one-and-only Google Account with gmail, etc. included. I had very carefully avoided Gmail's app (which they won't let you delete). I had refused to "sync" anything or add my Google account. Now, Google wouldn't let me log-out or delete my account.

I don't have any particularly compromising information in my phone. I don't have any "secret" numbers and the labels make sense just to me. I have it set up so if I lost it, it wouldn't be a big problem. But now I had my email forcibly open in my phone for anyone to see. Now I had to lock the screen and be extra-careful. Google doesn't let you delete your account from the phone easily. They provide this "option" but if you click on it they will let you know that you can only delete your account from the phone by doing a factory reset. Goodbye installed apps, settings, highscores, everything. So I did, and proceeded to create an account just for the phone.

Now, searches are getting painfully slow and they're quite poor compared to Thunderbird. But I'd still prefer gmail for the convenience of having it always available and always synced from anywhere, if only they weren't so insisting in upping their stakes and in forcing people into an all-or-nothing situation. I bet it makes business sense for them, it just doesn't make it for me.

I lost my youtube account when they stopped allowing independent accounts (had it locked to someone else's Google account and couldn't get this person to release it). I cannot afford to risk losing my main email account, so I'm taking preventive action while they still allow a relatively easy migration back to the desktop.