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I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something

taigeair.com

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

#311

Post by dwb »

grownseed wrote: post #112

As far as I understand, these UI changes are there to empower "multitasking" and bring Gmail closer to the way social networks and chat work. Now, I loathe the new compose, I like writing my emails in a structured way, with proper formatting, which this new feature doesn't let me do easily (or comfortably); I often use them as reference for docs and whatnot. I'm not saying this doesn't work for some people, but when…

I hate receiving long, structured, intricately-formatted emails. If you're writing documents in an email body, don't: that's what Google Docs is for. A good email is as short as possible.

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

#312

Post by tomkarlo »

taigeair wrote: post #225
tomkarlo wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understood... but all your points are about the negatives of that, and none are about the positives. It's pretty easy to come up with a bunch of arbitrary gripes about any major UX change. But you haven't made any effort to contemplate why these changes might make a lot of sense. For example, you're complaining about the need to do two clicks to make a link, but it seems to me that 90% of the time people just paste i…

Well we all know gmail is great that's why we use it so I didn't want to convert the converted. It's just I'd like my gmail web app to be more full featured. We can make it chat-like for mobile. I'm glad you're not encumbered by it though.

The line between mobile and desktop is rapidly blurring into irrelevance at this point... I'd guess gmail is used from mobile more than desktop at this point, and "mobile" devices are starting to look more and more like "desktops" when it comes to things like tablets, Android laptops (more of which are reportedly coming from the major OEMs over the next few months) and the Surface.

Expect to see more web services looking more like mobile, because while it used to be they were primarily web sites with mobile access, they're turning into mobile apps with some desktop web access. Installed base on PC vs. mobile should cross over this year, and usage trend is already ahead of that for lots of services.

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

#313

Post by tomkarlo »

mherdeg wrote: post #274
tomkarlo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend turning on the "Undo Send" extension in the Labs part of settings. It lets you choose to undo settings for ~5 seconds after you press send. It has saved my bacon countless times, not because I hit send accidentally, but because I realize I want to add one more thing or recipient to an email.

Heh. Imagining this UX patch 25 years ago: "I highly recommend turning on the 'Undo Irradiate' feature on the Therac-25. It lets you undo irradiation settings for a patient for ~5 seconds after you press irradiate. It has saved my patients countless times, not because the UI tricks me into irradiating patients with the wrong settings, but because I realize I want to add one more dose."

Yes, because sending an email by accident is just like irradiating a cancer patient to death.

Obviously, they've made it easy to send emails (pressing tab then enter) but that means that some folks send them by accident. But that's an acceptable trade, because it doesn't kill people.

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

#314

Post by GhotiFish »

emp_zealoth wrote: post #306
GhotiFish wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you. Asthetics actually have improved with many google services, quiet alot actually. You hear complaints about Youtube's design evolution. They've improved much more than they've missed.

The latest YouTube itrration is just god awful for me. Title should be above the thing I'm watching, not below. Because of that, the video sits in the top corner of my screen. And. I. Hate. It. Maybe there is a way to fix that, but guess what. I can't be arsed to look for it. It's nice to have an overhaul of your UI every now and then, but screwing it upside down every other day just makes me stop using it. Facebook…

My opinions are opposite yours. (except facebook, which I do not use)

Youtube has a functional layout for my purposes, particularly in find videos of my subscriptions, after a user style modification or two, youtube can really shine.

but GNOME?

   Want dontzap off? "No one actually wants that!"
   Want compose keys? "No one actually wants that!"
   Want your computer to stay on when you close the lid? "No one actually wants that!"
   want to hide the top bar? "No one actually wants that!"
   want to move the top bar? "No one actually wants that!"
There were some good choices made, yes, but GNOME also chose to removing functionality. Then it chose to provide no alternatives because it threatened their brand. GNOME 3's motto should of being "No one actually wants that!"

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

#316

Post by ChuckMcM »

shrikant wrote: post #100
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.

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…

That's the rub isn't it? You may be in the minority and represent 10,000,000 users. Now who reading this wouldn't love to have a product with 10M active users?

If I had to coin it as a law I would say "The probability of an acceptable UX for a product is a function inverse square of the number of users of that product." Which is to say its impossible. Hence the need for the UX to be morphable.

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

#318

Post by Matt_Cutts »

bborud wrote: post #209

On a related note: did Google hire some broken UX person with an immense fetish for annoying popups and interruptions? It seems that almost every product has some sort of "oh, let me intrude into your day and tell you about some annoying UX misfeature that you have to stop everything you are doing and look at right now"-popup nowadays. Of course, since I have 3-4 Google accounts (work, personal, hobby projects etc) I…

4 feet by 6 feet, you say?

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

#319

Post by iso8859-1 »

snaky wrote: post #251
buo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems like concept of threading is too complicated for average user these days. All the new & trendy software for communication have no threading capabilities -- Discourse, Google+, Github issues, Moot.

Reddit is bigger than all of those, combined :)

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

#320

Post by gcb0 »

philtar wrote: post #228
gcb0 wrote: post #199

Gmail got where they are for: - being offered by 2000 google, a company everyone loved and trusted - having a slick and useful UI it's not missing both those points. That means the market it serve is there for the taking!

Gmail got where it is because it offered a 2GB inbox when everyone else offered 25MB. It basically created a whole new market and got first mover advantage.

which would mean nothing if it was offered my hotmail.

the 2GB is a huge falacy. it only matered for us nerds. the bulky just moved because it was "google email"

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