This is a very refreshing look. They've really simplified and glossed over a lot of the details of email going on underneath. I wonder if they were able to do this in a way that still has all the features of the original, or else what didn't make the cut.
It looks good. But the one thing I do notice is that the screenshots they've provided in the blog don't have a strip of ads running down the right hand side of the page. I'll be interested to see what it looks like with those in.
The compact view looks much much nicer than the dense version of the preview theme they have now. Hopefully they'll add a few darker lines here and there too.
I'm very impressed. They really solved a lot of the issues I had with preview, such as multiple views for different screen sizes/resolutions.
Overall, the highly visual approach allows some hidden but useful features to emerge for the average user. However, I'm still on the fence about the excessive padding on the individual email items.
No, I'm commenting from experience on the preview that GMail had.
I'll watch the video when I get home, but Google is having a love affair with white space on this new layout, I'm doubtful about the padding on the email list.
I absolutely love the fact that you can control the density of the emails. This was a huge deal-breaker for me with the new theme and made me go back to the old theme. I'd be more than happy to try this new look out.
Me too. I understand that the new design is visually more appealing and creates a better mood and sense of elegance for the user, but Gmail was designed for large volume email users, and it continues to be the best client for that use case, beating out every native app (at least that I've ever tried). For this type of user, packing more information on the screen is a huge usability boost. That might mean that Andy Rutledge will declare it crap and make a redux version that doesn't jab his monkey brain with a sharp stick, but it certainly doesn't mean that proportion and whitespace can't be used effectively on a more compact level.
Seems like they addressed a lot of the initial gripes people had with the new UI preview. I'm hopeful that similar evolution will be coming to Google Reader.
Google is in the midst of the largest redesign in its history. There may be more to come. Here is a cool talk about this by Jon Wiley, Lead Designer for Google Search: http://vimeo.com/29965463 He talks about GMail around 11min10s
Are other Google products using the same layout engine or are they just copying the visual appearance? I'd like to have the same layout controls available in Docs, Calendar, Reader etc.
The new search dropdown is what I am excited about. I know that the operators were always there and advanced search was a click away, but what can I say, I am lazy.
I'm lazy too, and that's why I prefer to type in keywords rather than having to tab-tab-tab-tab-tab until I get to the relevant field or worse, having to grab my mouse to select the kind of search I want to do. It seems it will still be possible to type directly keywords in the field so it's okay. I hope they also let all the key-binding (for instance, '/' to focus the searchbox).
Now, let's hope that the next step is not to make Gmail just a Google+ app, like they did with Google Reader.
Hopefully they'll leave in the ability to just type in your boolean search. I prefer that method as well and send myself a lot of email so I'm often searching for stuff like [from:me has:attachment]
Which is the best way to learn those operators. The shortcut "/" to get to the search box is probably what I use the most, and writing "from:john to:mailing-list" is such a great time saver, if you compare to other mail clients.
What I use the most is [j]/[k] to move between email from the inbox while using [x] to select some messages which i [shift]+[i] to mark them as read and the [e] to archive. I think I easily do that with half of my emails for which reading the subject (and sometimes also the little preview) is enough to know that I don't have to read them.
I totally agree, except that I tend to use [y] to archive, since it also does the "right thing" from views other than the Inbox (e.g. removing label "Todo" from selected emails when viewing all emails with label "Todo").
I also use [ and ] a lot. From message view, they archive the current message and immediately move to the previous/next message in the current list.
I use J/K to browse so much that I sometimes forget it's not built into all websites. "What do you mean I can't hit the letter "O" to open that link??"
One thing I dislike in the new Google styling is the general lack of contrast. It makes navigation a bit slower due to delayed object recognization for power users.
Everything just takes milliseconds longer to sink in.
This is my biggest complaint as well. The new features of the UI are great, but it still looks pretty bad. There's a lot of white space and very little contrast between elements are groups of elements. The "Compose Mail" but just sort of hangs there awkwardly. The top row of action buttons are aligned to the left, so at higher resolutions there's just a chunk of whitespace to their right, even though the inbox itself fills the entire width of the container.
At the same time, I find it to be a lot easier on the eyes. As a "power user" spending a lot of my day staring at my inbox, I like this a lot better. Pretty soon all of the buttons will be second-nature anyway.
On a related note, I find it very difficult to distinguish between the white background of unread message rows from the very-slightly gray background of read rows. (Probably worth noting that I'm mildly colorblind though.)
The bold subject on unread messages helps, but it isn't enough for my eyes.
1) using the page space for fixed "app-like" UI instead of just presenting the page. UI on top of UI really doesn't make using their pages better for me. The scroll bars get smaller, the effective vertical space of my screen usable for content goes away exactly at time the screens on notebooks get always less vertical pixels. Things go horribly wrong recently. Compare 1973:
I don't understand using red to mean something other than "stop" or "cancel" either.
It reminds me of the first time I tried to use a cell phone: I didn't own one and had borrowed one for a trip. I could not figure out how to turn it on. I kept pressing the green "TALK" button and nothing happened. I assumed the battery had died. Turns out I was supposed to press the red button labeled "END" which is the last button I would think to press.
I use a netbook for my gmail. This new UI is, once again, a big negative from me because of all the wasted "white space".
I hate this love affair we have at the moment with white space. To me, it's wasted space. I guess I just hate scrolling or maybe I should just move to Asia.
Took me ten minutes to realize that there are now 2 gear icons on the page. Was continually clicking the one in the "global header", but there is second one on the page where the Display Density options are located. How's that for bad UI design?
Inevitably when you develop web technology at scale you end up asking the question of whether you should degrade the experience of the common case to make it ~comfortable for, e.g., netbooks.
Usually the answer, at least for a service like GMail, is to just ignore the netbooks. I actually think that's the right answer almost always, but I would absolutely love to hear the opposing view, as this is a position that I feel I don't fully understand.
It's basically just a styling issue though. Couldn't they just provide a "netbook style"? Consider that tablets are about the same size and tablets are probably going to be the "common case". Unless of course they are providing a specific "tablet style".
Another poster indicated that the theme automatically resized based on window dimensions. I'm not seeing the new theme (merely the "Preview" theme in the list - there's a "Preview (Dense)" in the theme list as well).
How did we lose sight of the fact that this is the entire purpose of stylesheets? To separate the display of information for various devices/platforms/needs. So yea, they should provide a "netbook style", and any other. That's really the point of it all.
> I'm not seeing the new theme
When it rolls out to your account, you'll see a little black notification bar/box in the bottom-right asking you if you want to try the new theme.
"How did we lose sight of the fact that this is the entire purpose of stylesheets? To separate the display of information for various devices/platforms/needs. So yea, they should provide a "netbook style", and any other. That's really the point of it all."
Seems to me, "a couple of years ago". That's when any real innovation in CSS seemed to cease.*
* I can hear people arguing already. By "innovation in CSS", I don't mean "cool, awesome tricks" like "being able to render strange bullets in pure CSS by bastardizing four divs, a span, and a dozen lines of stylesheet", or "a bargraph library that outputs pure CSS".
Those are cool, awesome tricks, to be sure, hacks, but the very definition of "solving the wrong problem".
The theme does automatically resize. At the smallest size it's about as compact as the old theme. Another nice space saving measure is that you can minimize chat and widgets to little buttons in the bottom left.
You can also force the theme to use the smallest size via an option in the menu.
The new theme won't show up as a simple entry in the theme menu as it replaces all the old themes. Some have been remade or ported, but they're clearly running on the new theme engine. Alas, the Android theme no longer changes the Gmail UI font to Android Sans.
I don't know what the stats are, but netbooks (and tablets) are becoming increasingly popular. I don't think you can just default to ignoring them anymore.
I'm also glad to see the 'mobile first' idea gaining traction, with css/html5 frameworks coming out based on that. There are more and more use cases where a mobile site that gracefully expands to desktop size works out better than the inverse.
Netbook sales have stagnated and have been passed by tablets. They are expected to continue to decline.
As for tables, most users use dedicated apps so this design change won't affect them. Google usually does a custom web interface for tablets/mobile anyway to make it more touch friendly.
I had similar problems on my small screen with Google Voice. I found a Greasemonkey script which solves most of them. Once Google starts forcing me to use the new Gmail interface, I'll probably make something similar for Gmail.
We know that you use Gmail from a variety of screen sizes and devices, so now the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using.
Looks like it will re-size elements automatically based on screensize.
In your domain admin panel, make sure that you opt into the quick release cycle as opposed to the scheduled one. Since they added that option, apps really doesn't lag any more feature-wise
I hope they have tested this new design with some of the old "Gmail Labs" modules. I've been using the "Right-Side Chat" Labs module for a long time, and so far, using the Preview Theme, resizing my browser window sometimes causes me to lose my chat box.
I love the use of white space and the clean looks of Gmail, but it pains me to see when "UI designers" build an interface where 20% of the screen is taken up by useless objects.
I understand Google wants me to search and to use G+, but for user's sake, could you shove all that into 1 button and make it expand on click, so I could actually use my gmail screen for something like... answering emails.
Is this too much to ask?
Google, the new Yahoo!?
p.s. No, the "compact" view doesn't really solve the problem. The objects get smaller and narrower, but the top banner still takes up all the premium space.
I love the new UI. The conversation view and the way the content flows together. It's just brilliant.
Only one complaint, I want to have a more loose display than the current one, I want 'Cozy' rather than 'Compact' regardless of my screen size. I should be able to change that somewhere.
I get the point that designers want to design and fiddle with everything like little children, constantly, regardless of how other people have actual work to do regardless of their playtime.
However constantly changing any user interface is a fantastic way to make customers furious when they can no longer find things and have to stop to adapt, over and over.
Why not allow the old look to function for years instead of weeks or months. There is no way you are going to convince me google doesn't have the resources to do that, it's not a massive internal change, it's a visual layer.
I really need to make a point to switch to Thunderbird and imap in 2012 - google is getting on my last nerve on every product they offer.
For every old user that hates the change, there are a million people who have never used gmail before and will like it when they switch. Why should progress be held back because you can't adapt?
(I don't really like Google's new style either, but it doesn't really upset me or damage my experience in any way.)
Unlikely. People don't use gmail because of the user interface, they use it because they are locked in with their email address. New users will pick what they have heard off, or what their friends use.
Tons of people started using gmail exactly because of the user interface.
For your second point, if you really mean "locked in" (as in "my company has outsourced their email to gmail") you can always use an IMAP client.
But I guess this is just a small typo and you mean "logged in" - in which case I'm not sure I can follow? Is your point that people don't like the user interface but use it anyway because their friends use it?! Not sure I buy. If no-one forces you to use gmail, don't use it. Or, again, use an IMAP client.
I don't think I fully understand what you mean by locked in either. I'm assuming one meaning here:
There are a number of ways you can switch email addresses. You can set up a forwarder from the gmail address to wherever you want--over time this should rectify itself and in the case it doesn't, you're not really losing out on anything. Receive via Gmail, respond via your new email.
I used to use Gmail for the interface. When I received my invite, I'd never experienced anything like that in the browser. It was refreshing, cool and it worked extremely well. I'm not 'locked' into those addresses in any sense of the word and never have been.
No, I meant locked in. Hey, I enjoy the gmail UI as well, but most of my non-tech friends do not care. This is all I was saying.
And yes, I mean locked in, because if everybody knows you at tim@yahoo.com, or reg@hotmail.com, you can just move to gmail easily. Sure, you can setup forwarders, email everyone, but this is a non trivial step for most people. I am confused why people here can not see this.
I'm pretty certain the UI does matter to more than you make out. I just don't think they know how to express it. From what I've seen, getting the UI right is half the battle--look at MySpace vs Facebook.
Though I am certainly seeing where you're coming from with second part. It is a hassle that I don't think most would embark upon. I don't know but it seems switching emails could be a problem that needs solving. There certainly are ways I can think of that would make this easier.
> However constantly changing any user interface is a fantastic way to make customers furious when they can no longer find things and have to stop to adapt, over and over.
Can you explain what you mean by "constantly changing"? It's clear that Google is going through a big visual refresh and rolling all of it's products over to one new unified design, but that's something that hasn't been done in a long time, it's not a constant state of significant change.
> Why not allow the old look to function for years instead of weeks or months. There is no way you are going to convince me google doesn't have the resources to do that, it's not a massive internal change, it's a visual layer.
Years is a long time for Google to have to hold onto old code and support both versions (as well as the mechanisms to allow the both to exist). And as you say, it's "just" a visual change, for most users it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt to. And I'm sure that if you had specific complaints about its usability, the team at Google working on this would be happy to hear from you.
Based on what I've seen from this blog post, my initial impression is that I don't think I'm going to like the new Gmail UI (I haven't been able to use it, so this is based on the preview). But I'll be perfectly happy when they arrive.
One of the many reasons I switched to GMail was the fact that they didn't charge to access mail from a POP3 (and now IMAP). Neither protocol is perfect (or perhaps it's the implementation in the variety of mail apps that support it), but the bottom line is that there are limitless numbers of clients that support those protocols, which allows me to abandon the web platform if I choose to.
When my bride complains about the next Facebook UI overhaul, I always think of this. To clarify, I'm always stuck thinking of Facebook in terms of old-school online service like AOL with features that fit better in the 21st century...I get that it's not e-mail+ or e-mail-. And I appreciate that it has a powerful API, the usage of which allows me to avoid the UI overhauls for the limited feature-set that I enjoy. But for e-mail, I still prefer the provider with the most options.
Count me in as perfectly fine with the new UI changes because I don't have to care if I don't like them.
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadOverall, the highly visual approach allows some hidden but useful features to emerge for the average user. However, I'm still on the fence about the excessive padding on the individual email items.
When he selects "compact", it looks like the classic padding to me.
I'll watch the video when I get home, but Google is having a love affair with white space on this new layout, I'm doubtful about the padding on the email list.
I just switched to the new look and (after changing the density to "Compact") I could not notice a difference on the padding.
It was a nice surprise.
Are you working on anything related to this design?
I find it a huge improvement.
It seems like gmail has previously changed at a glacial speed (for better/worse).
I hope they continue to improve the UX of gmail on a continuous basis.
http://code.google.com/p/closure-library/
Now, let's hope that the next step is not to make Gmail just a Google+ app, like they did with Google Reader.
This is what makes Gmail very powerful for me.
I also use [ and ] a lot. From message view, they archive the current message and immediately move to the previous/next message in the current list.
Everything just takes milliseconds longer to sink in.
The bold subject on unread messages helps, but it isn't enough for my eyes.
1) using the page space for fixed "app-like" UI instead of just presenting the page. UI on top of UI really doesn't make using their pages better for me. The scroll bars get smaller, the effective vertical space of my screen usable for content goes away exactly at time the screens on notebooks get always less vertical pixels. Things go horribly wrong recently. Compare 1973:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
therefore:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3184798
2) using the BIG RED BUTTON for creating a post! Really? RED like "stop sign" red? Like a "SELF DESTRUCT" red? Aww.
It reminds me of the first time I tried to use a cell phone: I didn't own one and had borrowed one for a trip. I could not figure out how to turn it on. I kept pressing the green "TALK" button and nothing happened. I assumed the battery had died. Turns out I was supposed to press the red button labeled "END" which is the last button I would think to press.
I hate this love affair we have at the moment with white space. To me, it's wasted space. I guess I just hate scrolling or maybe I should just move to Asia.
Usually the answer, at least for a service like GMail, is to just ignore the netbooks. I actually think that's the right answer almost always, but I would absolutely love to hear the opposing view, as this is a position that I feel I don't fully understand.
Another poster indicated that the theme automatically resized based on window dimensions. I'm not seeing the new theme (merely the "Preview" theme in the list - there's a "Preview (Dense)" in the theme list as well).
How did we lose sight of the fact that this is the entire purpose of stylesheets? To separate the display of information for various devices/platforms/needs. So yea, they should provide a "netbook style", and any other. That's really the point of it all.
> I'm not seeing the new theme
When it rolls out to your account, you'll see a little black notification bar/box in the bottom-right asking you if you want to try the new theme.
Seems to me, "a couple of years ago". That's when any real innovation in CSS seemed to cease.*
* I can hear people arguing already. By "innovation in CSS", I don't mean "cool, awesome tricks" like "being able to render strange bullets in pure CSS by bastardizing four divs, a span, and a dozen lines of stylesheet", or "a bargraph library that outputs pure CSS".
Those are cool, awesome tricks, to be sure, hacks, but the very definition of "solving the wrong problem".
You can also force the theme to use the smallest size via an option in the menu.
The new theme won't show up as a simple entry in the theme menu as it replaces all the old themes. Some have been remade or ported, but they're clearly running on the new theme engine. Alas, the Android theme no longer changes the Gmail UI font to Android Sans.
I'm also glad to see the 'mobile first' idea gaining traction, with css/html5 frameworks coming out based on that. There are more and more use cases where a mobile site that gracefully expands to desktop size works out better than the inverse.
As for tables, most users use dedicated apps so this design change won't affect them. Google usually does a custom web interface for tablets/mobile anyway to make it more touch friendly.
Luckily the new Gmail interface has three settings for display density.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/114048
Looks like it will re-size elements automatically based on screensize.
I activated it on a new domain yesterday: http://i.imgur.com/PoQ2F.png
In your domain admin panel, make sure that you opt into the quick release cycle as opposed to the scheduled one. Since they added that option, apps really doesn't lag any more feature-wise
I understand Google wants me to search and to use G+, but for user's sake, could you shove all that into 1 button and make it expand on click, so I could actually use my gmail screen for something like... answering emails.
Is this too much to ask? Google, the new Yahoo!?
p.s. No, the "compact" view doesn't really solve the problem. The objects get smaller and narrower, but the top banner still takes up all the premium space.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3184606
The problem are non-scrollable regions. What's next, status bar on the page and even more menus?
Once this is forced on us, I will withdraw to a native client.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3184798
(PS: I know whether this is real; I'm just phrasing it this way for ironic impact.)
Only one complaint, I want to have a more loose display than the current one, I want 'Cozy' rather than 'Compact' regardless of my screen size. I should be able to change that somewhere.
However constantly changing any user interface is a fantastic way to make customers furious when they can no longer find things and have to stop to adapt, over and over.
Why not allow the old look to function for years instead of weeks or months. There is no way you are going to convince me google doesn't have the resources to do that, it's not a massive internal change, it's a visual layer.
I really need to make a point to switch to Thunderbird and imap in 2012 - google is getting on my last nerve on every product they offer.
(I don't really like Google's new style either, but it doesn't really upset me or damage my experience in any way.)
For your second point, if you really mean "locked in" (as in "my company has outsourced their email to gmail") you can always use an IMAP client.
But I guess this is just a small typo and you mean "logged in" - in which case I'm not sure I can follow? Is your point that people don't like the user interface but use it anyway because their friends use it?! Not sure I buy. If no-one forces you to use gmail, don't use it. Or, again, use an IMAP client.
There are a number of ways you can switch email addresses. You can set up a forwarder from the gmail address to wherever you want--over time this should rectify itself and in the case it doesn't, you're not really losing out on anything. Receive via Gmail, respond via your new email.
I used to use Gmail for the interface. When I received my invite, I'd never experienced anything like that in the browser. It was refreshing, cool and it worked extremely well. I'm not 'locked' into those addresses in any sense of the word and never have been.
And yes, I mean locked in, because if everybody knows you at tim@yahoo.com, or reg@hotmail.com, you can just move to gmail easily. Sure, you can setup forwarders, email everyone, but this is a non trivial step for most people. I am confused why people here can not see this.
Though I am certainly seeing where you're coming from with second part. It is a hassle that I don't think most would embark upon. I don't know but it seems switching emails could be a problem that needs solving. There certainly are ways I can think of that would make this easier.
We don't know when someone is aging from day to day, but if we see them year to year then we can see the change.
Can you explain what you mean by "constantly changing"? It's clear that Google is going through a big visual refresh and rolling all of it's products over to one new unified design, but that's something that hasn't been done in a long time, it's not a constant state of significant change.
> Why not allow the old look to function for years instead of weeks or months. There is no way you are going to convince me google doesn't have the resources to do that, it's not a massive internal change, it's a visual layer.
Years is a long time for Google to have to hold onto old code and support both versions (as well as the mechanisms to allow the both to exist). And as you say, it's "just" a visual change, for most users it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt to. And I'm sure that if you had specific complaints about its usability, the team at Google working on this would be happy to hear from you.
One of the many reasons I switched to GMail was the fact that they didn't charge to access mail from a POP3 (and now IMAP). Neither protocol is perfect (or perhaps it's the implementation in the variety of mail apps that support it), but the bottom line is that there are limitless numbers of clients that support those protocols, which allows me to abandon the web platform if I choose to.
When my bride complains about the next Facebook UI overhaul, I always think of this. To clarify, I'm always stuck thinking of Facebook in terms of old-school online service like AOL with features that fit better in the 21st century...I get that it's not e-mail+ or e-mail-. And I appreciate that it has a powerful API, the usage of which allows me to avoid the UI overhauls for the limited feature-set that I enjoy. But for e-mail, I still prefer the provider with the most options.
Count me in as perfectly fine with the new UI changes because I don't have to care if I don't like them.
I use Gmail's backend but I can't use something that won't find “client” in “mynewclient”.
Amazing that a company known for search can't provide this simple and essential feature.