I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by dudus » Sat, May 04, 2013, 3:06 PM UTC

It's become a common topic to just pown any change to any service from google or any large company alike. And I just don't see the point.

Google knows people that dislike changes are always louder than people that like changes. It doesn't mean they are in larger number. So no matter how hard you scream, don't fool yourself into thinking companies take these change decision lightly. The article claims it lack of UI tests which is an ignorant assumption.

The goal of the new compose is very clear. Allow you to write an email while still reading others. It undoubtedly completed the goal. Of course there are some drawbacks like having to remove fields that would be visible by default otherwise.

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

#282

Post by dudus » Sat, May 04, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

ninjazee124 wrote: post #163

My biggest gripe is not being to reply all with a single click!

You can change the default to reply to all in the settings.

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

#283

Post by schiffern » Sat, May 04, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #250

sanjeevmundluru wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shouldn't BE a problem in the first place... and that's just the problem.

and there shouldn't be corruption in government. Why is that relevant? Problems either exist or they don't.

Yes, problems in the new Gmail are relevant to an article on problems in the new Gmail.

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

#284

Post by auctiontheory » Sat, May 04, 2013, 3:56 PM UTC

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #185

chetanahuja wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please... Usage data is irrelevant. The UI design at google is now being run by dictat from the top. User studies and survey results are massaged until they can be contorted into conclusions that suite the already made design decisions.

You're obviously going to need to justify that, since Google are fairly well known for heavy A/B testing, collect a tonne of data and make probably the most popular analytics tool on the web.

That was before Marisa left.

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

#285

Post by LocalPCGuy » Sat, May 04, 2013, 4:33 PM UTC

3825 wrote: post #273

serginho wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ctrl + Enter is much more efficient for me.

How long has Gmail supported Ctrl + Enter? I agree. It is pretty sweet. Now I can go back and forth between Outlook and Gmail!

Ctrl-Enter is the one keyboard shortcut I wish I could disable. It is my most common mis-hit, usually when pasting something into an email and then hitting enter to advance to the next line. I also miss the ability to tab within the compose box, but on the web I pretty much always assume Tab is not going to indent text I'm typing.

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

#286

Post by shizzy0 » Sat, May 04, 2013, 5:36 PM UTC

Use a real mail client. The web is terrible for non-CRUD work.

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

#287

Post by buo » Sat, May 04, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

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.

At least we still have sane threading here at HN.

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

#288

Post by axelfreeman » Sat, May 04, 2013, 5:53 PM UTC

That's the thing what can happen with all the cloud services. They say it gets better over time but it can also get worse and you can only begging, hoping and crying that it will get fixed.

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

#289

Post by ams6110 » Sat, May 04, 2013, 7:01 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #280

cmircea wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody thinks Photoshop has a good UX, but that's not the point; the point is it's been consistent, with only small, helpful changes. If Adobe redesigned the Photoshop interface they'd instantly love half their market share, as people using software professionally don't like or have the time to learn something new just because it's better in some odd way. Microsoft did that with Office, the whole Ribbon fiasco, but t…

What exactly about Office 2003's interface was "extremely complicated"? It's been nothing but intuitive and helpful to me. The new versions of Office aren't hard to figure out either, though.

I haven't used Office in any significant way since the Ribbon. It was basically the final nail in the coffin for me. Even now, when I have to use a word processor or spreadsheet, I can easily find my way around LibreOffice menus, while Office's Ribbon is confounding every time.

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

#290

Post by ams6110 » Sat, May 04, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

Tomis02 wrote: post #21

I'm planing to move to fastmail.fm in the near future. I find the Gmail UI very sluggish and quite the opposite of being user friendly, and I also don't have any guarantee I won't become a horror story about how Google automatically shut down my account without me doing anything wrong.

Fastmail reworked their UI recently as well (shortly after the Opera takeover I think). I preferred the old UI which hadn't really changed in years, but the new one isn't too bad. I do 90% of my email in Emacs though, and only use a browser when I'm on a platform where I don't have ssh.