Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

taigeair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 344 posts

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

#211

Post by serginho »

buo wrote: post #76
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…

What bothers me most about gmail is the flat conversations, where you can't see that a message was a reply to an email in the middle of a thread. It seems I'm almost alone thinking this way, though -- it's not a complaint I often hear from other people.

agree

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

#213

Post by zaidf »

Yes, yes, yes. What the fuck is going on with design/UX at gmail? It just becomes suckier progressively.

Yesterday I attached a document 3-4 times during the course of my writing the email because there is no way to know if a document has been attached already. But if you start uploading another document, it will list out the documents already attached. What an incredible fail. And sadly, this is a trend, not an edge case complaint.

This reeks of design-by-committee fail. It seems like an experience built on compromises to merely accommodate ideas of many different individuals even if those ideas together make the experience suckier.

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

#214

Post by mynameishere »

nollidge wrote: post #159
mixmax wrote: post #74

Here's another total usability fail: Tab sends the e-mail you're currently writing instead of indenting text. Everywhere else tab indents text, and when you write an e-mail in gmail you'd expect it to act consistently with how it's used everywhere else. Start writing in gmail, hit tab to indent some text. Congratulations you've now sent half an e-mail to you boss.... I can't fathom who thought this was a good idea.

Does any web mail not do this? And did Gmail ever not do this?

Yahoo mail has tab-style tabs. And I think it's still considerably more popular than gmail. Gmail has some huge advantages, but they're all business-y stuff, like free POP. Yahoo's interface is perfectly good.

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

#215

Post by lovehashbrowns »

Google is great at ruining their UI. Starts out really well; you get a lot of power tools, the simple stuff is really easy to access and there's nothing confusing about the UI. And then it takes a nose dive after a few updates. Just look at how awful Youtube is. It's a disaster in there. It's almost as if the UI staff has a quota of changes that they have to fulfill every quarter lest they get tossed into a cauldron.

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

#216

Post by zaidf »

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…

What you're arguing for is better parent-child discussion relationship management in Gmail

What? No! He just wants to edit the subject.

Saying that we need better parent-child discussion relationship management is over complicating a problem with a simple solution that worked until some folks at gmail screwed it up.

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

#217

Post by davidsturnbull »

tomkarlo wrote: post #196
recoiledsnake wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gmail is designed for everyone and has to support the full spectrum of users, in particular the new ones (because they're the ones picking new email accounts - consider that they're partially trying to target people who still don't have email). If anything, the new Gmail with all the hiding and obfuscation going on is going affect the new users the most. The other users atleast know that something is possible and wi…

You're assuming that most users want to edit the subject of ongoing threads (and thereby break the thread.) I have my doubts it even occurs to most them. So not having that option visible makes sense. I understand what you're saying about hidden options being unknown, but generally overall cognitive load is one of the biggest issues for new users and one of the best ways to mitigate that is to remove visual complexit…

Changing the subject should not break the thread. Thread displays should be generated by creating a tree out of References mail headers.

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

#219

Post by eavc »

ebbv wrote: post #67

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.

Totally disagree. Android, Google Now, Knowledge Graph, Maps, Drive/Docs, Google+ itself, and the Play Store have all seen marked improvements since the rollout of Google+.

In Gmail, the new compose UI is an improvement in same ways -- for me it's an improvement overall, smart labels are an improvement, and email search has gotten significantly better.

Oh, and virtually every mobile application of theirs has gotten much better.

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

#220

Post by Draiken »

taigeair wrote: post #188
shrikant wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be in the minority here, but I actually think most changes to the Gmail interface have been improvements. My biggest gripe was when they did the overall visual refresh, which reduced the information density on my small laptop screen. Then they added a "Density" switcher, which made things alright again. I actually like it when interfaces change. Even when I was super busy I wouldn't mind learning and adapting t…

I love trying new things and I love learning new software but I've learned the new gmail UI and I don't like clicking 2-3X more for things I do pretty regularly. Like getting someone's email address.

I agree that for you it's 3 more clicks, but for the millions of other regular users, it's less useless info on the way.

People have to get that it's a product for many, not for all. You can agree with hiding emails or not, but a company as large as Google wouldn't hide it just for the sake of it. Obviously there was research and data that backed that change.

Bottom line is, if it was your company, you'd hide stuff to improve the experience of 90% of your customers at the cost of a few without another thought.

Post reply on HN