Slashdot Mirror
Google Testing Gmail Redesign
An anonymous reader writes "Google is testing out some big changes for Gmail. Some of the changes are: the sidebar has been replaced with a slide-in pane, the 'compose' button has been moved, and there's a new feature called 'reminders'. From the article: 'Gmail may soon look nothing like the Gmail we all know so well. Google has invited a select group of users to test a completely new interface for the webmail client, according to Geek.com, which appears to be part of the trial. The test version of Gmail — which may never see an official release — dispenses with design elements that have been present from the very early days of the email service.'"
Like Slashdot Beta, this is probably being driven by âoeweb designersâ and marketers. It's not good enough that something have reached a state of maturity that works well with users, and they like. Throw away the furniture and toss out the Persian rugs, white carpet and a do-over by Ikea is what we need, right?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
They already RUINED Google Maps, please don't ruin Gmail as well.
I think I might have to consider running my own crap, I'm sick of Google.
I've been meaning to move everything associated with my gmail account over to the email associated with the domain I purchased recently. Hasn't seemed to be a really pressing need to go ahead and do it -- but now there is! Thanks Google... and goodbye!
Google's motto should be "We don't care about design, and it shows!"
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
seriously, since when is a minor UI edit stuff that matters
what a sad downspiral
Wish it was open source, would love to run this on my own server.
... and completely despise all the changes. Then in another week or so I'll get used to it and not mind it. A week after that I'll think the old interface looks atrocious.
Like they have maps. Iused the old maps to look at real estate but the new version is worthless.
I went from using it 30 40 times a day to 0.
I think I'll stick with a standalone IMAP mail client, something that doesn't hide functionality beneath layers of inconsistent and ludicrous UI. Maybe emacs
Since you've posted as an Anonymous Coward, how will Google know where to send the cute boys to give you a blow job?
Just over a month ago, Google dropped the SMS chat feature that has been present in Google labs for years. it has worked great and was the main reason I switched to gmail. Discussing it with other tech folks we can only conjecture that Google has ditched it because it was one of the ways people have found to sens SMS messages from a source that the NSA can;t track. (Create throw away email through some random VPN.) Contemplating going back to my own email server again. This new beta look might just be what pushes me over the edge.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
The previous interface was quite good. The new interface has nontintuitive buttons that move around based on context.
... they could easily hang themselves with this tinkering. It may end up saving Yahoo Mail by creating a diaspora.
Vista? Edsel? my name is Legion, for we are many.
If it's anything like the new Google maps, no thanks. Its atrocious and no one can find anything that was previously accessible.
Tabbed inbox... terrible; Google drive integration.. meh; the messaging composition UI introduced a while ago.. meh
Full disclosure: I'm an old fart, not a big fan of webmailers and prefer Thunderbird to manage my multiple email accounts.
... I'm still using an old version of Thunderbird. I don't get my mailnews interface overhauled every 5 minutes and that's the way I likes it. Web apps are overrated.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Honestly, the current version is badly cluttered, and this implementation is just a bunch of porcine lipstick.
I want a nice, clean, fast-loading interface. The closer I can get to a raw text-list interface on it the better. I don't WANT shit popping out at me from any given direction.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
IMHO, they can't make it worse. I hate the Gmail interface. And even if they do somehow manage to make it less usable than it is now, I'll just continue to use a stand-alone email client via IMAP.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Aesthetics does not account for the lack of any way of contacting a Human should you come into trouble. A prettier GMAIL? Quite frankly, who gives a hoot? GMAIL is strutture in such a way as not to request "human labour", never. This makes it very, very frail and user support is, literally, non existing. If for any reason, you loose access to your account, you are basically fucked. Lessons learned: GMAIL is OK for basic throw/away don't care type of things. If you are using GMAIL professionally you are doing it wrong. First of all set the correct DNS records of a domain you own to point to a service, any service which allows you to set some name@yourdomain.tld. Should you not like the mail provider service, you can move your account where you like, and NEVER, EVER loose access to your mail account. First thing to check if you plan to use a service: is there a way to contact a human being? is there an actual phone number you can use to ask for assistance? If you can't contact them during sales phase, go someplace else.
I'm still fighting with the last set of changes, lots of features that I used to use regularly are either gone or hidden so well that I usually can't find them. The best change they could make is go back to the version that worked and then let us keep it, or at least give us the option to keep it and not keep having changes forced down our throats.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
WHAT THE HELL.
First they take my XP away with the best UI. Then take away my menus in office 2007 with ribbons. Then they cripple Youtube so I can't browse by category. Then take away the ok UI of Windows with Metro full screen and 70% of all the functionality. Then they change perfectly Gnome 2 with a half cell phone gnome 3/shell! Now office 365/office 2013 is all FREAKING WHITE IN ALL CAPS where I get a migraine looking at it. Then they change Hotmail.com to all blinding with blue. ,.. now gmail is changing too. GOOD lord. I have had enough. Stand up folks and let those elitist art professors know we will not tolerate this minimalism and reduction of features. Art majors are being brainwashed by these guys who go on to design websites and operating system GUI's who do not tolerate dissent and have never worked in real jobs before.
They were assholes to post impressionist artists too back in the day because it wasn't the *new* thing. Now anything that doesn't look like it is 2 colors and non descriptive gets flunked out.
We should not tolerate such things.
http://saveie6.com/
Haven't gone to the Gmail website for months, not since I've just setup Thunderbird.
So when is PGP coming to gmail?
what they're up to again...
The current Gmail interface was a step back in usability (for me).
- wider line spacing, less emails to see
- cannot click on emails to open in another tab
- mailboxes are not visible - have to be clicked on to expand
I always have a tab open with the "old" html version and get notified that I am missing out on something...
The only thing on the current version I find better is the autorefresh to show new messages.
One of my low priority projects is to get completely off Gmail - the NSL calamity...
I don't use any Google account services. My mail goes to an IMAP server with spam filtering. The Linux desktop, the Windows 7 desktop, and the Windows laptop all run Thunderbird. The Android smartphone, which does not have a Google account, has an IMAP client. All devices sync mail through IMAP. Works fine.
No ads. Who needs Google?
It's so goddamn awful, it will drive me away from Gmail, its uncomplicated and great search results, and make me get off my lazy ass, and set up my own cloud service that I control.
It might even make me motivated enough to limit my exposure to Google in other ways, too.
The volume of non-work email I deal with has been dropping steadily, anyway - to the point where my own solution managed in my own cloud service might be worthwhile.
I strongly suspect I am not alone.
Full speed ahead Google!
..don't panic
gonna revert back to pine. and lynx, whilst I'm at it.
This is the URL I have bookmarked https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html.
It is the only way to have Gmail usable on a slower netbook. The totally arrogant new Google designers don't understand what made Google great. It was uncluttered and faster than AltaVista search, Yahoo and Hotmail.
They messed up image search (unlimited scroll), does my old smartphone have unlimited memory???
They messed up Google maps, all the lab features are gone like measuring the direct distance.
Please Google, do no evil, leave the old interface available, preferably configurable. We don't need more eye-candy, we need functionality.
The sidebar is one of the most important features for me. I filter various emails to skip my inbox, so I like to see an unread count against the labels to know when I've got mail I might want to look at. I like to keep the inbox to the more important stuff, as that's the one I sync with my phone.
I like the way the current gmail uses space as well - not too much whitespace. Email is a tool I use constantly - I don't need it to look good, I need it to be functional and have as much information as possible available at a glance. Site designs that are OK for casual browsing are not necessarily appropriate for real work and power users.
Gmail was the first web interface that was good enough for me to replace a desktop client for PC use. I'd rather not go back, but that interface will have me switching, either back to a mail client or to outlook.com
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
The only change they've made that bothered me was when Google Hangouts was integrated. Now when I use IMAPS to pick up my email, I get mismatches between the new message count and the actual number of unread messages in the Inbox; the "missing" unread messages are the short notes someone's sent to me via their fork of Jabber XMPP, which appear in the webmail interface but not in the IMAPS (and I would assume POP3S) interfaces.
The subject of my post sums it up.
These types of changes make my 83 year old Grandmother very confused. They also make her angry. Do not make Grandma angry, because then she calls me and speaks to me in a voice I never want to hear. Does anyone have Larry Page's number?.
Quite simply, she does not want her computing experience to change. None of the changes benefit her.
And fwiw, very few changes benefit me. Recent versions of firefox are a disaster of forced changes.
Please just have a profile option that says "Don't ever change anything on the interface", ever.
If you move the blue button labeled "Compose" located in the upper left corner of the screen to the upper center of the screen, my dad won't be able to find it and he will call me and say his email is broken. If you change the color of the button, he will call me and tell me that email is broken. If you change the label from "Compose" to "New Email", he will call me and say his email is broken. If you pop up a great big dialog box on the middle of the screen that uses a bold blinking font and uses very noticeable colors, and this dialog box says "Welcome to the new mail interface, click here to learn about it.", my dad will somehow figure out how to close the dialog without reading it or the associated help and of course, he will think that email (or the Internet itself) is broken.
No, I can't just teach my dad to be more flexible. Unlike other compatibility issues as technology progresses, I can not replace or "upgrade" my dad. He is 78 years old and is not into learning new tricks. He is a smart guy and is capable off learning new things, but he is old and crotchety and complains a lot every time he has to...
Please please please remember that there is a segment of the user base that views even simple interface changes as a huge deal.
I've been trying to teach my dad how to use email on a tablet and the Android app is an exercise in frustration. It will present two different ways and dad gets confused. It's not like an interface that looks the same every time you approach it, so the less technically inclined can learn where the function buttons are located. It's a nightmare.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I always found Gmail interface confusing. It's about time they made some change. Personally, I cannot imagine it possible to be worse so I'm anxious to get started with it.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Seems to me Google just re invents stuff to be doing something. It used to be you only improved something when enough people demanded that it be changed.
Now it seems with geeks its just a normal process because they believe change is always good. For me I stopped using Gmail a while back. Nothing struck me as being totally wrong, it was more the fact Google kept mucking up a good thing for the sake of change. I know some change comes without question. But I think change should come gradually and allow users to absorb that change in increments not leaps and bounds. Its very much like WIndows 8, which is a dramatic change for PC users but only new to tablet users. It makes a difference when you make changes vs presenting something new. A learning curve is more accepting on a new product, but hardly as accepting on a existing one. That's because users are familiar with how to navigate and use it. I think many tech people are way more accepting of change over the users that use the products. That's a bad disconnect when you don't see how your changes affect your average user. I think Microsoft has paid a price for not understanding how its users react to change. As one automotive designer said once. You can improve a knob or switch and customers won't complain. But do not move the switch and expect to not get push back.
Go invent something new and quit dicking around with a basic utility.
Since I use IMAP, none of this matters to me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
let me guess, it integrates g+ in every single click. You can +1 on every single email.
Every time the ASP changes shit for changes sake, or nixes needed features altogether, any money saved initially goes right out the window. Outsourcing is not the answer, no matter what the PHBs think.
How good would your car mechanic be if his tools were changed around, removed, added, altered every night before reporting for work the next day? Not very.
Leave it the fuck alone you idiots. Less is more.
PS. "Filter error: Too much repetition." ??!! -- Fuck Beta too.
they're making it even slower and more bloated like Google Maps. The sad thing is that my college roommate works on it, and he had no idea it worked so poorly for most people because he has a brand new computer with gigabit Ethernet to their servers. He thought it worked fine. I showed how poorly it worked at an airport with a three year-old laptop, and he was genuinely surprised. Their employees just don't get it. It's great to have advanced features, but you need to have graceful automatic fallbacks for the masses. I looked through the web proxy logs here at work, and there are about three times as many hits to http://www.bing.com/maps/ as compared to http://www.google.com/maps/. Admittedly, our Internet connection sucks since it's a T1 for thirty people, but Google Maps is losing users.
The thing that bothers me most with Google (not just Gmail, Android too) is the constant change in interface. I use the average app about 2-3 times between UI redesigns. I don't care how great the new UI is if it takes me more time to learn it than the time it's going to save until the next redesign. How about you make your new designs 3x better and update 1/3 as often? Seems like it would help the vast majority here.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
If it ain't broke, fix it till it is!
No, wait, that was an idiot. An idiot said that.
Sorry, Google. I like you, and I want to respect your decisions, but I got nothing.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The bigger problem is all that the MBAs in charge do is twiddle with the tinsel, and do not address the deeper problems in semantics that people have asked for. Such as being able to break up mangled conversations. Or add notes to an important conversation to summarize it. Or to add a meaningful heading. There are several others.
GMail used to be innovative. Hard core slash dotters will know that all sent mail belongs in one place only, namely a folder called Sent Mail. GMail introduced conversations to emails, producing threads (just like Usenet...). They also introduced the idea that the same email could be put in more than one folder (label) at the same time. So it could go in Sent Mail, CustomerX, ScalingIssues, and Outsanding all at the same time. Way beyond traditional IMAP.
These things were not done as the result of some market research survey. They were done because the engineers involved thought it would be cool. It would be the way that they personally would like to use email.
But that was before the MBA and user interface experts took over. Just change the window dressing, dumb things down, target the idiot user.
I am actually looking to move to Zoho mail.
As to slash dot, how about just recognizing blank lines as paragraph breaks. That would be enough.
Google traditionally copies all user feeback to the round file. They go through the motions getting user feedback to satisfy some well meaning internal guidelines, but in the end Google decides all questions by the colors on the powerpoint slides. Redesign of the news site is a classic example, tens of thousands of negative comments in multiple forums and nearly nothing good to say about it, in the end a few cosmetic tweaks were made but user feedback was overwhelmingly ignored. It still sucks. I expect pretty much the same with gmail. How about fixing things that actually matter, like not being able to right click and open a mail in a new browser tab?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Every business transaction requires a seller and a buyer, an item and a payment. Are you paying Google for your Gmail? Thought not; neither am I. So if we're not the buyers, and we're not selling anything, and we aren't the payment, then we must be the item being sold Each of us is another pair of eyes to look at advertisements. It's such a clever business model - so much simpler than television or magazines, with no need to produce entertainment in any form; no need to expend money producing *anything*. The user base comes to the site to read the emails that the user base itself is sending each other, and all Gmail has to do is store it. And the typical email is nowhere near as expensive to store and transmit as, say, a user video on Youtube. Not to mention the useful information and metadata that the user base is happy to enter in their contact lists and status updates.
i'm no fan of google but for once i'm going to stand on their side, they're doing it right, they had an idea, they are TESTING it, and if it doesnt pan out, it'll find its way to Sto'Vo'Kor. thats how it SHOULD be.
PS. i really wish microsoft had tested the ribbon the same way.. oh well, its too late now..
And therein lies the problem, I believe.
Captcha: persist
and there's a new feature called 'reminders'
What's that do, then?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You do know that even evil gmail has a pop3 and imap access option for free, right?
You do know a lot of people find it far more convenient to use the browser, right? People with multiple devices, for instance? People who, say, travel a lot and find themselves using computers in hotels, libraries, foreign offices?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
What they're doing now is trying to justify their place within the company while making statements that "people want change, and change is good." While making simple things more difficult to accomplish and trying to justify it as even easier.
Software buyers need to start being more picky. If they say the new software is better, ask them to prove it: 'how long does it take to write a 10 page letter with your new version? how long with old version?". Ask them how much new version will increase productivity.
Ask if new version has user interface changes. Ask how much re-training is needed for an average user to reach same level of productivity with new software.
Ask for software license contract to contain bonuses based on productivity of new software. And if users are less productive, software vendor pays penalties under contract.
If new software is easy to learn and use, vendor gets bonuses in contract. If retraining takes too long and costs too much, vendor pays penalties.
Software buyers need to stop buying any crap software vendors will shovel into your computers! Demand new versions that are better, and will improve your business!
You do know a lot of people find it far more convenient to use the browser, right? People with multiple devices, for instance?
The default Android mail client supports proper IMAP, I think the iOS one does too.
People who, say, travel a lot and find themselves using computers in hotels, libraries, foreign offices?
They trust those computers enough to not bring their own laptop, or even a tablet along?
The default Android mail client supports proper IMAP, I think the iOS one does too.
So? That doesn't negate the convenience of webmail.
They trust those computers enough to not bring their own laptop, or even a tablet along?
I didn't say or imply that, either.
Astonishingly enough, there are people who have different mental weightings for convenience versus security than you.
If it was at someone else's office/home, I'd have very few qualms about logging into Gmail, etc, on one of their computers to save me the trouble of powering up my laptop and negotiating for the password to their wi-fi.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Want to redesign it get out of our email. Make a paid version 100% free of Advertising and of Your spying. And 100% inaccessible to anyone else but the Customer.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Every time google changes gmail it's not for the better in my opinion. I'm sick of having to train myself to identify which glyphs are hiding the dozen features that used to be obvious. Eventually they'll have one single button that will have to interpret the intent and emotion of your click to know whether you want to send an email or use italic font..
... must be dumbed down so that even a 3 year old or a top manager can use it!
I guess I should reserve judgment, but the last few apps Google have changed have gotten worse. Maps on the desktop is far less useable than it used to be, although the mobile version is not too bad. However, I don't understand why certain features don't exist in one version or the other instead of being in both, and other features just got hidden away by the redesigns. The Android camera is an app that got definitely worse. The UI isn't that bad, but Google forced the photo aspect ratio down to standard photo sizes, even though most people were happy with screen sized photos, and it now has more quirks and crashes more than the old app. Having your camera app crash or not respond when you want to take a photo is something that should absolutely never happen, Google shouldn't be forcing beta testing of their apps onto Android phone users. I have a Nexus 5, so it boggles the mind that even on their own flagship phone they can't make a camera app that doesn't crash.
I wish Google would stop experimenting so much with apps that are absolutely core to most users (mail, camera, map, browser) and put out a special beta version for them so people can try them out, like with Chrome on Android. Oh yeah, and actually listen to user feedback.
Outstanding. Clean, lean, and -no- clutter. Gmail is too bloaty.
Wasn't gmail already re-designed at some point since it debuted?
Maybe if Google quite wasting so much money on development they wouldn't need to sell our personal information to so many advertisers?
I'm thinking it's great opportunity to reduce the amount of evil committed.
The only change I really hate is the "Compose Message" overlay (where it loads in a Div on top of your Inbox).
It breaks on certain older browsers, and I've had it do weird things even on some newer ones.
If it ends up as "useful" as Google-maps, Yahoo will be *very* thankful.....
Last time Yahoo changed their e-mail format, it was terrible . I wonder at times who runs the likes of Yahoo, Flicker and I'm sure now Google - escapees from a mental institution :-)
from the last redesign
Just give an option to keep the old interface. If I have to retrain aging parents on gmail again I might shoot myself.
For a week and a half I have been seeing "Failed to retrieve mail" from external accountName.
But I send email to that account and it shows up immediately.
Are all the engineers working on a cool new interface and, consequently, letting the current one fall to pieces?
As luck would have it, this coincides with the weekend that this ISP replaced my 16 year old modem with a new modem/router (I assume with hardware and firmware modified by the NSA to make listening in easier and more transparent, ie, less apparent) so I wasted 45 minutes on the phone today and a similar time slice last week on their internet chat UI trying to get a CSR to help me. 45 minutes to run passwd a couple times, maybe a third of that on hold.
"Please tell me the password you want" and "Allow us to remotely control your computer to verify you are successfully using gmail to read your mail" were just 2 of the silliest requests I had to refuse the poor bastard today.
I was much nicer than I wanted to, maybe because on some level I knew that my mail was working fine? I don't know.
Someone remind me - how do we get access to the NSA file backups of our iTunes accounts, etc?