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I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

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Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#61

Post by rayiner »

imjared wrote: post #56
rayiner wrote: post #51

Gmail is now a cluster fuck of terribleness. Who the hell decided it was a good idea to make you type your email in what is basically a slightly larger chat window? Who decided it would be a good idea to put the "reply" edit box at the end of a potentially very long email? Oh, and make it fit like six lines of text. I swear, this is what happens when you let a bunch of kids run the show. "My emails are rarely ever mo…

Probably the same team that has usage data for hundreds of millions of users.

I'm gonna quote @kevingadd from down below because I can't say it better myself: "The new gmail is streamlined for particular purposes and not for others. You'd think that one of the biggest data companies in the universe would be able to gather actual data about how people use their software and ensure they aren't making it significantly worse to use for subsets of the customer base. Maybe this is what Google actually did, and they decided they don't care about the 1-10% of their users who use gmail for anything other than sending glorified SMS messages to people."

The new gmail is a toy for kids.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#62

Post by aaronbrethorst »

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that attaching large images makes the composer completely unusable. It is so bad it makes me wonder if anyone in Google actually uses the new composer.

They've fixed one bug where the image wouldn't scale to fit the size of its container (i.e. if you had a 3000x3000px image it would render 1:1 as opposed to being shrunk down), but even with the scaling it's still incredibly hard to navigate emails with more than one picture in it. I mean, I have a 1080p monitor, let me use it!

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#63

Post by endersshadow »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #42
kevingadd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying 'hit the big red compose button' totally misses the point of why subjects get edited. If you'd ever participated in a discussion list, you'd know that sometimes a single discussion thread branches out into multiple smaller threads. The best way to handle this is to reply with a new subject so that threaded conversation views in email clients show it as a new thread, but all the participants stay on the reply-t…

What you're arguing for is better parent-child discussion relationship management in Gmail. Something like Gmail + Google Group at a much deeper integration level, with the Google Groups part not sucking like Google Groups does now. Also, I'd love if I could take a mailing list thread (like from NANOG), and with one-click blow it out onto a thread on something like Stack Exchange. Email needs to continue to evolve. I…

A la Google Wave?

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#64

Post by c--misura »

I understand how some of these changes could frustrate users, but, honestly, the analogy ( used in the title ) of 'Photoshop' being user friendly just doesn't hold water. Also, the idea that every choice in UX needs to fit neatly into some Jakob Nielsen checklist is antiquated. I don't think developers/designers should blatantly ignore proven UI methodologies, but there does need to be a balance between standards, and aesthetics, or else, an application runs risk of becoming steril.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#65

Post by cmircea »

I agree with you. The newest updates annoy me a lot, especially the signature one - I commonly write emails in two languages and I need to check if the signature is the correct one; a pain now.

Furthermore I use the web client to manage all my email addresses, because it is, well was, convenient. Now if I need to send from a different address I have to take extra steps. WHY?!

But what alternative is there?

I'm on Windows 8. The built in Metro mail app is... not that great. Outlook 2013 has some parts Metro, some parts leftover from all the way back in '95. I'm not particularly fond of Yahoo either.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#66

Post by asperous »

imjared wrote: post #56
rayiner wrote: post #51

Gmail is now a cluster fuck of terribleness. Who the hell decided it was a good idea to make you type your email in what is basically a slightly larger chat window? Who decided it would be a good idea to put the "reply" edit box at the end of a potentially very long email? Oh, and make it fit like six lines of text. I swear, this is what happens when you let a bunch of kids run the show. "My emails are rarely ever mo…

Probably the same team that has usage data for hundreds of millions of users.

I thought good design was about designing for the extremes, not the mass majority of people that don't use your product to the fullest.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#67

Post by ebbv »

I can't remember the last Gmail change that was actually an improvement.

In general Google's changes since the Google+ rollout have been 90% terrible. There's been a couple of changes to Youtube that are better (like the really big mode), but overall changes to all Google services have been bad. I feel like they've really lost the plot.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#69

Post by k3n »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #40
georgefox wrote: post #28

I'm normally pretty easy to please with UI changes, but even I'm a little frustrated with some of the new compose quirks. Personally, I've had a very hard time putting together bulleted lists in the new compose. To start the list, you need to click the underlined A (for Additional Formatting), then the familiar bulleted list icon. I can live with that, though I'd certainly prefer one click. To do a nested list, thoug…

I can honestly say I've never used text formatting in an email, so I realize we're coming at this from two different directions. If I need a list of things in an email I'll do this: - step 1 - sub step a - sub step b - step 2 - etc Which gets me thinking about how cool it would be if gmail accepted and displayed markdown formatting..... Would that be a winner for you too?

I hate just about anything and everything about MSOutlook, but this is one feature that I sorely miss in GMail.

In MSO, at least if you have the option turned on (although I think it's on by default), you start a new list simply by typing "* some text". When you hit enter, a new bullet-point is automatically created, and hitting enter twice without entering text ends the list. Likewise, typing "1. some text" begins an ordered list with the same behavior of the unordered list.

Lists are so common, especially for development and business in general, that this has saved me tons of time over the years. While I do get annoyed at most of the other automagic formatting that MSO crams in, this particular feature is gold.

To your question: yes, a MD-enabled editor would probably be the best. MD is quickly becoming ubiquitous, at least in my realm, and is a great compromise between an overblown WYSIWYG abomination and plain text.

Re: I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

#70

Post by tomkarlo »

Does anyone really think Photoshop is a good UX for mass consumption (which is obviously the target for Gmail)? I've been using it since version 2, and I think it's a great product, but for new users it's a miserably difficult product to learn, especially for any kind of casual use.

There's a reason why users love apps like Draw Something or (more relevantly) Instagram or Paper. They're able to easily achieve the results they want without investing a huge amount of time in learning the software. Why is that so hard to understand? Not everyone wants to invest 40+ hours in learning Photoshop.

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