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.
If it's anything like the new Google maps, no thanks. Its atrocious and no one can find anything that was previously accessible.
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.
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.