Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose • Hacker News Board

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#151

Post by graeme » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:21 AM UTC

thezilch wrote: post #144

graeme wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misread pg's point. He didn't say jobs produced perfect consistency. Pg said that forcing consistency tends to result in bad design decisions. Maybe jobs could do it, page can't. To disprove that point, you'd need to show an example of forced consistency across apple platforms that degraded usability. Showing inconsistency isn't responding to the argument.

I really can't see the line between the top-most comment, about bugs, pg's special insight into Jobs, and the conclusions you've drawn. What Jobs has to do with the class of issues bulleted, in the top-most comment, is beyond me. There's not even any proof being shown that what Page or Google is doing is wrong; just a bunch of parroting of blanket statements. I really didn't want to compare Apple and Google or Page a…

I'll try to state it more clearly. I'm just restating pg.

1. Pg says forced ui consistency tends to be bad. 2. Maaaybe a skilled design genius like jobs could do it (maybe), but most people shouldn't try.

His argument didn't turn on Jobs. It was a rhetorical flourish to bolster the idea. If even the best in the field (according to pg) couldn't do it well, then others should be wary.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#152

Post by vmarsy » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:27 AM UTC

siddboots wrote: post #112

ihnorton wrote: post #27

Lately I've had a persistent feeling of annoyance with several Google products. Each annoyance is small enough to tolerate individually, but in aggregate it seems to me that Google has really lost something in the attention-to-detail department; this kind of persistent annoyance was the same thing that led me to Google from other services years ago. Two examples: - maps: new interface is so terrible that I am activel…

Youtube: * Buffering was nerfed/broken some time ago. I can no longer watch 720p+ videos on youtube at all. * Changing video quality now has a long and unavoidable delay, and often fails outright. * Google are evidently uneasy about the profile name that I signed up with, and have been repeatedly nudging me to change it. I don't know how to reassure them about my choice. * Advertising. Everywhere.

A trick I use when I change quality is immediately clicking on the time bar, it enforce the change right away.

I agree with all the annoying points above!

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#153

Post by frozenport » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:50 AM UTC

Thunderbird

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#154

Post by colmvp » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:50 AM UTC

siddboots wrote: post #112

ihnorton wrote: post #27

Lately I've had a persistent feeling of annoyance with several Google products. Each annoyance is small enough to tolerate individually, but in aggregate it seems to me that Google has really lost something in the attention-to-detail department; this kind of persistent annoyance was the same thing that led me to Google from other services years ago. Two examples: - maps: new interface is so terrible that I am activel…

Youtube: * Buffering was nerfed/broken some time ago. I can no longer watch 720p+ videos on youtube at all. * Changing video quality now has a long and unavoidable delay, and often fails outright. * Google are evidently uneasy about the profile name that I signed up with, and have been repeatedly nudging me to change it. I don't know how to reassure them about my choice. * Advertising. Everywhere.

I can watch 720p+ videos but I have definitely noticed recently that loading is slower and sometimes more inconsistent.

The subscription feed is a mess. Before it was a grid and now it's in a list. The only reason why I know there are more videos uploaded than what's in my feed is because video authors title their videos in parts. So if I see "Part 3" I know that Part 2 and Part 1 are somewhere, just not in my feed.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#155

Post by colmvp » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:51 AM UTC

kenko wrote: post #91

dasil003 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay I played fast and loose, but I meant this: By definition of the length of a day, if you are sending any serious volume of emails then most of them are going to be short.

"By definition of the length of a day, if you are sending any serious volume of emails then most of them are going to be short." Or you could type fast.

Someone on the other end has to read that.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#156

Post by colmvp » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:54 AM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #34

I agree with this post's use of the word "ruined". That's what the new Compose did. It's a usability train wreck which I'm astonished they put out at all, let alone impose it on users against their will. There are big things wrong with it and there are little things wrong with it and the sum total is frustrating and disconcerting. It's one thing to redesign a website, but email is a huge part of my daily work, and th…

Eh. I wouldn't call it a train wreck. I'm perfectly capable of accomplishing 100% of what I need to accomplish in Gmail, which is create, send, sort, search, and delete.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#157

Post by illumen » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:55 AM UTC

habosa wrote: post #115

What gives me anxiety is complaining about minor UX changes for a class-leading free product on a site that's called "Hacker News". I hate to get all old-fogey but Hacker News has really turned into "the random opinions of people in the startup world". I learn a lot less on this site than I used to. Sorry to the OP, it's not your fault that you provided content the community likes and I have no personal issue with yo…

It's comments like yours that I don't like. Also, I don't like this comment I'm writing.

Gmail had good UX, and people went to it for that. Now it has a few flaws. As people who care about UX, these flaws are worth discussing.

Some 'hackers' don't do UX, which is fine. So those people may find the topic boring. But many people here are making things, and find the UX direction of the leading web email client interesting. If only to see future trends in web site development. Other reasons this is interesting is to see how they are monetising their apps more, and how they are trying to make email a worse marketing channel.

Having worked at Google, it is understandable if you get annoyed when people bash your company. But that comes with being successful. So don't sweat it too much.

xo

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#158

Post by dhruvbaldawa » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:56 AM UTC

Google products changes recently have been a pain to use. Damn, its so annoying coping up with these crappy UX changes nowadays

1. First of all the new Gmail inbox with the tabbed interface, it does not show you the number of unread mails in each of the tab, once you have opened a tab, the new mails count vanishes. There should at least be an option for enabling that.

2. Hangouts, it just sucks. Does not work reliably on a data connection, messages are received late. Can't discover online contacts on the UI easily. Makes it easier to chat but harder to find people to chat. I still don't get why did it replace a fully functional chat client with a half-baked piece of crap !?

I don't even want to get started about Google+, the connection model is very good, but the execution is very crappy. Why is Google forcing everyone onto Google+ ?

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#159

Post by colmvp » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:58 AM UTC

newobj wrote: post #89

Holy cow. I'm starting to experience outrage outrage and this post may have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Indeed. Of all the 'usability nightmares' I've seen on the internet, Digg was by far the worst offender and deservedly so given the transition of users from Digg to Reddit. Gmail has made some odd changes (specifically compose on the bottom right) but ultimately it hasn't irked me at all. I mean, if people want a free e-mail service, they can still go to Outlook or Yahoo.

Re: Anxiety over the new Gmail Compose

#160

Post by thezilch » Wed, Sep 04, 2013, 4:58 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #151

thezilch wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can't see the line between the top-most comment, about bugs, pg's special insight into Jobs, and the conclusions you've drawn. What Jobs has to do with the class of issues bulleted, in the top-most comment, is beyond me. There's not even any proof being shown that what Page or Google is doing is wrong; just a bunch of parroting of blanket statements. I really didn't want to compare Apple and Google or Page a…

I'll try to state it more clearly. I'm just restating pg. 1. Pg says forced ui consistency tends to be bad. 2. Maaaybe a skilled design genius like jobs could do it (maybe), but most people shouldn't try. His argument didn't turn on Jobs. It was a rhetorical flourish to bolster the idea. If even the best in the field (according to pg) couldn't do it well, then others should be wary.

I really doubt pg would be suggesting, as an entrepreneur and investor in entrepreneurship, to be wary about besting supposed idols. Myths, hearsay, and not scientific.

The top-most comment is fair to point out bugs, but I don't see the correlation with Jobs and his genius, UI/UX brush. Are you suggesting mandates for consistent UI -- whatever that has to do with the article's discussion about the compose window -- creates more bugs? Makes Maps slow? They should fix those things, but it has nothing to do with UI / UX consistency nor Jobs.