brilliant hack to re-enable reverting to the old gmail UI: http://qwerjk.com/revert-gmail http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/gmail/qwerj...
It works! I love you.
GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
221–230 of 234 posts
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
The flames die down when people realize that there are design improvements that help them down the road. OS X Finder UI is a mess anyway, so changes that make it easier for non-technical folk are probably net positives. I don't have a good public example in mind, but the users at my employer often flip with volcanic rage when applications are changed -- even godawful VB5 legacy apps. Usually you can discern the "I ha…
> With respect to GMail, when people like pg who get the big picture are saying that the UI sucks, it probably sucks. this very website proves that that is not necessarily true.
This website's UI is not the prettiest, but it's extremely intuitive and functional. That's much more important in most cases.
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who says they're awful? You just don't like them. Fair enough that you don't, but putting your opinion forward as fact (like most of the people here and the OP) doesn't really advance the argument. Perhaps a lot of people have trouble finding the compose button on first use?
> Who says they're awful? You just don't like them. Well yes, but he is the guy who wrote Gmail, and that does add a little bit of strength to his argument.
It shouldn't be a free pass though ;)
"A big red button is awful." isn't much good compared to "A big red button is awful because ..." or "Instead of a big red button you should do ..."
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With respect to GMail, when people like pg who get the big picture are saying that the UI sucks, it probably sucks. this very website proves that that is not necessarily true.
This website's UI is not the prettiest, but it's extremely intuitive and functional. That's much more important in most cases.
Agreed of course, and actually I don’t mind the look.
The problems are: small unreadable font, small controls/buttons, content too wide to read comfortably, doesn’t correctly support mobile, links that rely on cookies that expire (what is this? 1998?).
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#225I can't fault Google for experimenting, but the 'all or nothing' approach they took to the rollout was an example of false choice. The classic coloring could have been offered as a theme to lessen the impact of the UX changes. In case you miss the old color scheme, try this Stylish theme: http://userstyles.org/styles/64637/gmail-google-mail-classic... Follow Jason's post to fix icons and spacing: http://jasoncrawford…
All or nothing? They gave users an entire year to transition!
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
WRONG. All of my labels/mailboxes are set to show: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7100/7117915617_c0c8cab3fc.jpg Any other wrong advice you'd like to try to contradict me with?
Well, it works just fine for me. Look, non-eyeburning theme, different coloured stars, non-hidden mailboxes. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7101/6972254464_24774f868a_z.j... Just for kicks, I switched to the default theme - same deal, mailboxes hide properly, etc. The red button's annoying, but hey, that's why I switched theme. Perhaps you might want to quit flaming people (and Google) and fix your settings or browser…
Nice downvote, but compare his screenshot and mine. There's something pretty clearly wrong with his stylesheets or browser or something. There are no visible controls in his new GMail section - something that nobody else seems to have.
Further, he doesn't seem to be even the slightest bit interested in figuring out what's going wrong.
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use excel every week or so and I grumble at that stupid ribbon every time. I _was_ a proficient excel user once upon a time but now I feel like I'm trying to cook in my kitchen after some "organization expert" came in and moved all my stuff. IMO, life is too short to have to re-learn stuff you already know.
Same boat. I was a very proficient Excel user. The ribbon completely fucked my workflow. In addition, they broke just enough of the shortcut keys to break my flow.
What shortcut keys did they break?
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#228I posted this in the comments of the blog yesterday but it hasn't been approved yet, I imagine there are a lot of comments to get through. Please excuse the second person singular grammar, I'm copying this straight from the notes app on my phone:
Your last two points I agree with, but given they are optional and can be switched off I think those criticisms are not only misplaced but suggest a sense of entitlement similar to the designer's arrogance you bemoan.
On your first point though you are simply wrong. The thing you incorrectly call 'visual texture' is actually clutter.
The borders for individual table rows are superfluous as the baseline of the text draws that line regardless. Additional borders duplicate these baselines and demand that a user reads twice as many visual elements in order to interpret an interface.
The same is true for coloured backgrounds. If a distinction of utility has already been inferred by shape and proximity then to add an additional visual cue adds little more than another layer of complexity. This is unnecessary visual information that a user has to decode. Time that could be better spent performing the tasks they've actually come to the app to do.
I'd suggest having a read of Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information to get a better grasp on these concepts.
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has effing tabs so you can have a "compose" tab open and reach your email for info to copy-paste in your message. Something as basic as this is missing in gmail's default interface. Having to save and go back to drafts is cumbersome, as are other work-arounds.
Pop the compose into a new window and/or tab? The assumption is probably that tabs and windows are built into your browser, why build another layer of tabs?
This is not the default behaviour. Popping it out will send you to the main page, having two full email tabs and no good clue about which is which. It's worse than Yahoo's way, or the basic html interface in gmail.
Re: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People spend many hours perfecting their workflow in one environment and FLIP THEIR LIDS when someone changes it. It's not a rational thing I've had some thoughts on this recently, and wholeheartedly disagree. We spend aeons engineering stability into every other interface within a software ecosystem, since it's supposed to improve stability, reduce surprising breakage, improve engineer efficiency, discoverability,…
Gmail gave people months to use the two interfaces side by side before dropping the old interface. And they flooded users with notifications of every incremental change, and were roundly mocked for that too. It is impossible to satisfy everyone all the time.
The approach is good, but the time given is too short. Compare with how long XP was kept alive alongside Vista.