11 ms·
A preview of Gmail’s new look
- brianwillis 15y agoI just can't get past the black bar. After years of it being white, black just feels imposing.
- hollerith 15y agoAlso, if you use large text, the text "Gmail Calendar Documents," etc, overruns the bottom of the black bar. I know there is a way to make a bar that does not have that problem because the orange bar on HN does not have that problem. Sometimes I like to browse without putting on my eyeglasses, by making the text large.
- kellishaver 15y agoThis is my main concern. The vast majority of the time, I'm browsing with text enlarged (without scaling up the rest of the site/images/css). I just hope it doesn't end up being a horrible case of DIVs overlapping, making things unreadable.
- hugh3 15y agoSpeaking of which... am I crazy or is there a new black bar at the top of HN too? (edit: removed second sentence after finding out actual reason)
- radq 15y agoI think it is because Robert Morris passed away recently. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469
- hugh3 15y agoOh. :(
- habitatforus 15y agoThanks for mentioning this. I thought it was a Google joke.
- joejohnson 15y agoOh, I did too. Now I feel insensitive :(
- golgo13 15y agoI thought the same thing. Now I feel a bit bad. :(
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- gmartres 15y agoChrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/feoeglchiaabaccccnfiminjmcppicio?ct=author https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/feoeglchiaabaccccn... Firefox (with the Stylish extension): http://userstyles.org/styles/49963/google-toolbar-whitener http://userstyles.org/styles/49963/google-toolbar-whitener
- barake 15y agoThat new "dense" GMail theme has the bar's opacity set to ~40% and is much less jarring. I think the black bar wouldn't be an issue if the rest of the pages weren't so low contrast now.
- SandB0x 15y agoJust a few tweaks and a general tidy up. We'll barely notice it after a week or so of use.
- lachlanj 15y agoI really like the new apps and search interface, but the use of red is really bugging me. Surely this is basic UI that urgent things are made red like alerts etc. I fail to see why the 'compose mail' and 'create' calendar event buttons need to be a glaring red?
- latch 15y agoI'm a pretty huge fan of all the new Google designs. Plus, gmail, the top bar, fonts.... They've kept things minimalistic while making things just feel cleaner and crisper. Whoever is leading this redesign is doing a fantastic job.
- joebadmo 15y agoAgreed. And according to Steven Levy[1]'s Wired article[2], it's Andy Hertzfeld, who was on the original Apple Macintosh team. [1] Who wrote In the Plex. [2] http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/inside-google-plus-social/all/1 http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/inside-google-plus-so...
- lachlanj 15y agobeat me to the link by a few seconds :)
- murz 15y agoThat's not exactly correct. According to the article Hertzfeld was the key interface designer behind the Circles UI in Google+. The Google-wide visual redesign is the result of a lot of people's work.
- nostrademons 15y agoAndy Hertzfeld did the Circles editor in Google+. The site-wide redesign is done by Google Creative Labs, which I think is behind the Search On advertisement series and the Parisian Love Superbowl ad. It's also had significant input and direction from the individual teams, eg. most of the Search UX team was involved in the websearch portion of the redesign.
- joebadmo 15y agoYou're right, I apologize for the inaccuracy. Here's Hertzfeld himself on the subject: https://plus.google.com/117840649766034848455/posts/FddaP6jeCqp?tab=mX https://plus.google.com/117840649766034848455/posts/FddaP6je...
- orofino 15y agoReally liking the work. I'm really looking forward to what they have in store for Reader.
- maverick2 15y agoI think Reader need a complete re-design, tweaks on line of Gmail won't help. I have some 1400+ items in my subscription list. And it is not comfortable to read all that stuff in google reader's current avatar. So for now feedly has rescued me. Google reader should offer a feedly type opt-in view. Or it can have a two layouts one for power users and another for people with two digit subscriptions.
- sorbus 15y agoIf you use folders to keep things separate and take advantage of the compressed view (accessed by pressing "2"), I find that Reader is extremely usable for dealing with large numbers of feeds - I'm at 116 subscriptions right now. Admittedly, that isn't anywhere near the 1400+ subscriptions you claim (how do you have time to deal with all of them?), but I feel that Reader would scale well if I did increase to that number. I probably wouldn't be able to deal with it, though.
- dahawi 15y agoanyone else has the top bar in white even with the new theme ?
- dchest 15y agoAfter reloading the page it became dark-grey.
- spicyj 15y agoYeah, strange that it isn't pure black.
- alexmr 15y agoOn my Gmail, it's a dark grey which I like, but in Calendar it's pure black. I think the pure black is pretty jarring but the grey nicely transitions from the browser bar.
- stock_toaster 15y agoIt is also pure black in greader.
- dahawi 15y agoyeah, I guess eventually it'll be the same pure black as in g+ everywhere. Also they should have it as a built-in in Chrome !
- dmm 15y agoThe article describes the new look as "modern". I hear that all the time. What the hell does it actually mean?
- Lammy 15y agoFashion changed since the introduction of gmail, and the new look is more like something I'd expect to see in 2011.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- mbrubeck 15y agoIts use here may connect to the Modern movement in design and architecture, strongest in the mid-twentieth century, which emphasized simple shapes, lack of ornamentation, and clean lines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture (Aside: Why does the Gmail preview use almost the same header style as the new Google Calendar/Search/Maps/etc. theme, but with the colors and sizes slightly altered? It's a minor difference, but distracting when switching tabs between Gmail and any other Google site.)
- cdcarter 15y agoI find it hard to believe they are saying it is a more modernist design. Modernism was a very specific aesthetic, I believe they mean contemporary.
- mbrubeck 15y agoI agree -- the designer here is maybe not consciously referring to Modernists like Frank Lloyd Wright. He might just means that it "look more contemporary." But twentieth-century modernism had a huge influence on why our culture thinks some designs look more "modern" than others, and also helped make "modern" one of the values on which we judge aesthetics in the first place.
- srdjanjovcic 15y ago
- scottkrager 15y agoHoly ad batman. The new themes move the small text ad to the bottom of the page....but then it floats as you scroll. That's one way to increase clicks. I'd try the new theme if it wasn't for that...it's very distracting when scrolling down.
- esryl 15y agoanother dick bar :(
- chrishenn 15y agoI didn't notice due to adblock, but Gmail has provided such a fantastic service for free over the years and really improved the quality of the webmail experience. I don't think I could complain much even if they put more adclick spots in Gmail — it still beats all the alternatives in my book.
- joejohnson 15y agoWhich adblock are you using? AdBlock Plus (on Chrome) still shows the yellow bar and the non-link text.
- nollidge 15y agoI'm not the OP, but: AdBlock on Chrome and subscribed to Adblock Custom and EasyList lists.
- georgefox 15y agoEven with Adblock Plus, the faint yellow bar remains. It's definitely obnoxious, but I otherwise prefer the new theme too much to go back.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoHave you considered using dotjs or something similar to remove it?
- davidedicillo 15y agoI love the new design theme. Clean, minimal, elegant. Well done Google.
- ck2 15y agoIt's just spaced out more, I don't see anything removed. I hope I can change the vertical line density back.
- noibl 15y agoThere is a 'Preview (Dense)' variant of the theme which does exactly this. It's still not as dense as before but I'm finding that to be a good thing. I like this one a lot better than the classic which had way too much intrusive background colour.
- floppydisk 15y agoLooks like they took some of the design ideas from their mobile version and migrated them into the main one. Square(er) buttons being one example.
- krashidov 15y agoIt looks like Google has somewhat abandoned the Google Colors for a black blue and maroon(?) color scheme. They really want people to notice these changes, it creates more publicity for Google+.
- lachlanj 15y agoReally disliking the red, it stands out way too much and implies urgency. Seems like a really bad UX choice to me?
- orofino 15y agoI'm inclined to disagree. They're using the color sparingly to call attention to the most important parts of the interface. Coloring compose with the standard gray for the other buttons would mean it is lost in the interface and difficult to see. I like it quite a bit.
- keyle 15y agoI totally agree. My thought was "does my ass look big in that compose button?" I don't mind the modern hot-orange. It's a great colour for feature highlights etc. But as a button background it just screams "ERROR".
- nikcub 15y agoso they added padding to everything?
- ashamedlion 15y agoThey have a "dense" theme, too that's more like regular Gmail.
- bremac 15y agoIt's closer, but it still increases the screen real-estate used by some elements significantly - for example, the line item for each email displayed in the inbox has grown from 23px tall to 29px tall in the redesign. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I prefer higher information density.
- nikcub 15y agothanks for pointing that out - I prefer the old dense design because of how much more can fit on the screen when using my laptop. I even zoom it in twice. I find myself setting the zoom level on a lot of these new 'modern' designs. I like to keep browser windows narrow so I re-claim some of that real estate by shrinking the page down. Some of these sites, like Twitter, look weird on normal zoom levels and feel too spaced out It might be because I grew up using applications that only had 800 or so pixels to work with, so everything was dense. anything that is spaced out I associate with accesible versions of software made for old people, the vision impaired or babies - weird that it is what is considered 'modern' design now
- pacomerh 15y agoIt doesn't matter if they moved 1 pixel, if the result works then it works. The definition of remodeling doesn't need to be 'long and laborious'. Same happens on art like paintings, I've heard people say "Bah, that's just a line with dots, I can do that".
- 5l 15y agoInteresting that they're adding additional details of the person you're conversing with to the right above the ads. I wonder what that means for Rapportive.
- joebadmo 15y agoThat's called the people widget, and they added that a while ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2589119 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2589119 Rapportive responded quite well: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2613101 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2613101
- bdonlan 15y agoThere's a lot more white space in the new design - enough vertical space is lost for about seven conversation entries. Not sure I like this change for that reason...
- mbrubeck 15y agoDid you see that there's a separate "Dense" version of the new theme, which reduces the white space back to around its previous level?
- mrjbq7 15y agoWell, reduces it to about 25% more than previous level...
- pvarangot 15y agoGoogle's blog post actually mentions that they are both a preview for the actual new/yet unreleased theme, that will expand and contract dynamically according to screen real estate.
- bdonlan 15y agoYes, the non-dense one is even worse :)
- nl 15y agoTry shift-refresh(!), especially after switching Standard->Preview->Preview(Dense) I had assumed Gmail wouldn't need this, but it made a big difference. Looks like they have a slight caching problem.
- watty 15y agoWow, definitely keeping as my new theme. I had to disable the "Right-sided chat" lab feature but works great other than that.
- DanI-S 15y agoI'm happy to see Google taking as much care and pride in the visual engineering that goes into their products as they do the back-end.
- yesimahuman 15y agoSomething I'm surprised about is that after all the testing google was doing this spring, this seems completely out of the blue. I wonder if they did test this on a larger scale and I just missed it, or they are winging it? If so, kudos to them for taking a huge risk. As an aside, I just realized that the new design reminds me heavily of Ubuntu with the dark gray and orange highlights.
- tnorthcutt 15y agoDoes anyone with an Apps account have the ability to preview the theme(s)? I don't, in my apps account. Yet another example of Google treating apps customers as 2nd class citizens. See also: account/login issues and lack of profiles (which means no Places, no Google+, and other products). Google is effectively ignoring what are often their best/most enthusiastic customers in by doing things like this. Very puzzling.
- ditojim 15y agoI have the theme turned on in my google apps account.
- JordyB 15y agoI completely agree about apps customers being treated like 2nd class citizens. I was not impressed when I found out I couldn't create a Google+ account due to lack of profiles, this will probably result in many of those people creating new Google accounts just to test those products out.
- stanleydrew 15y agoTheme is on for both mail and calendar in my apps account.
- tnorthcutt 15y agoThanks for the reply. Odd that themes are available for some accounts but not others. I did find this help thread that originated in 2008(!) where others describe having the problem also: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?tid=57924f37281864bb&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?t...
- srdjanjovcic 15y agoIn domain management, there is an option to turn on themes for e-mail users.
- 15y ago
- kmfrk 15y agoWhen I first saw Google+, I felt that it looked a lot like [Helvetireader](http://helvetireader.com/ http://helvetireader.com/) to the point where I thought that they may have been (heavily) inspired. With the new Gmail interface, this can't be a coincidence. Credit where credit is due? Hell, are we talking about a blatant rip-off?
- RexRollman 15y agoI just wish they would get rid of the invite widget. It served a purpose when Gmail was invite only but now it just wastes space.
- MikeCapone 15y agoI agree, but I wonder if they keep it because it still gets lot of action for some reason (less computer savvy users see it and think 'great, I'll invite Bob!'?).
- nikcub 15y agoI still use it all the time to convert people to gmail. In the past month alone I have converted 10+ people, mostly non-tech (ie. parents, brothers, godparents etc.) Google are very analytics driven in product design, if it wasn't being used and wasn't serving a purpose, I believe they would have removed it already or freed up that real estate for something else
- smokinn 15y agoIf Google was that analytics driven they would get rid of it for people that don't use it. I haven't used it since gmail was in beta, I definitely haven't used it for at least 5+ years. And yet it's still there.
- Andrenid 15y agoIf you "Invite" people they don't need to do the captcha or verification, Gmail "trusts" them to be human because they got referred by an existing user.
- RexRollman 15y agoI didn't know that. Thanks for your response.
- skarayan 15y agoLooks like they got rid of Buzz?
- hesselink 15y agoIn the blog post it's gone, in the preview theme it's still there. I think it means very little, since you could always turn it off in the settings. It would make sense for them to discontinue Buzz though, since they now have Google+.
- marcamillion 15y agoWow...Google is on FIRE! That shake-up at the top, seems to be bearing fruit. This is exciting.
- blntechie 15y agoHate the new back button. Loved the simple hyperlink back to Inbox.
- albertsun 15y agoI really hope they preserve the Classic view. I can't stand how spaced out everything is. I went from being able to see 10 or so contacts in Gchat without scrolling down to just 4. Edit: That's with the "Dense" view. Regular is even worse.
- timmaah 15y agoWay too spaced out for my liking. I go from seeing 34 messages per page to 24. And about 20 letters of the message summary are dropped.
- zachrose 15y agoMaybe they want you to search.
- mh- 15y agoironically, they need to improve the quality of the gmail search feature for that to be a viable direction in which to push users; the responsiveness and the lack of wildcards immediately comes to mind.
- nirvdrum 15y agoThe lack of stemming is pretty bad, too. If I have a message with the word "dog" but I search for "dogs," I won't get any results. A search for "dog" will return the message, however.
- pacomerh 15y agoIn my case I just use the labels to filter, that way I never need to see long lists of emails to search for anything.
- ernestipark 15y agoAgreed. Everything has too much whitespace. Also there needs to be more borders and accents within reason. Everything kind of just blends together as white to my eyes right now. This goes for gcal too. Glad this is an optional theme for now though.
- u48998 15y agoYawn! I'm on TB, so don't care.
- pg_bot 15y agoHmm two issues that google needs to resolve with this. The new ad bar at the bottom is constantly obstructed by waiting for mail.google.com ajax request, so it is effectively useless. The color of the compose mail button needs to be changed asap.
- ww520 15y agoI actually don't kind much how it looks but speed is important. UI performance is an important UX. Hopefully the new GMail UI is faster than before.
- ianterrell 15y agoIn the old Gmail interface, my eye goes straight to my inbox. In this new interface, it goes straight to the bold blue "Search Mail" in the header—which is proportionally much larger than necessary. The new look for Google is a huge step up overall, but that's a huge usability violation to me.
- dpcan 15y agoFor me, the giant red "compose" button is all I can see.
- sunchild 15y agoSeems consistent with "search not sort".
- ianterrell 15y agoSure, but not "search not read your emails."
- sunchild 15y agoVery true!
- acak 15y agoThis interface would be much more suited to tablet-sized screens. Apart from information-density (which should be more forgiving on the tablet form factor when compared to PCs), the spacing also makes this a touch-friendly alternative to the Ajax-laden tablet interface. For a PC screen, however, I'd say 'power users' quite like the higher information density on the current UI. It's much more efficient if you think about how far the eyes need to move and how much one needs to scroll to get to an element on the page. Navigation is not much of a problem currently with a precise device like the mouse and with keyboard shortcuts.
- crizCraig 15y agoWhile the extra white space requires more scrolling, it makes it easier to read, for me at least. It also makes it easier to click a message. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_space_(visual_arts) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_space_(visual_arts): White space should not be considered merely 'blank' space — it is an important element of design which enables the objects in it to exist at all, the balance between positive (or non-white) and the use of negative spaces is key to aesthetic composition. Most people actually seem to be liking it which is suprising to me since it's such a dramatic change: http://www.wepolls.com/r/1012846/Gmails-new-look http://www.wepolls.com/r/1012846/Gmails-new-look
- dchest 15y ago"Most people" as in 11?
- chrisvallejos 15y agoI remember for all the big Facebook updates the backlash was intense, but now most embrace those changes as an improvement (700 million users testifies to that). Google's changes seem to be embraced by many, I don't sense the extreme backlash. I for one love the changes.
- dchest 15y agoMe too, but I was referring to the link to his own website with the poll, based on which the parent comment claimed that "most people" love the changes, but it was a sample of only 11 people.
- ianterrell 15y agoBut why is the top bar charcoal gray instead of the black seen on all the other sites?
- shortformblog 15y agoPerhaps it's because I'm used to using the darker "Shiny" theme, which I've had on for many years, but the colors of the Preview theme are way too bright for my taste. I think they should come up with a more subdued version of it that doesn't feel quite so loud. Functionally, though, it's great.
- martingordon 15y agoI like it a lot. It reminds of Whistler and Windows Mobile (yes, that's a good thing). The only thing I would change would be to tighten up the outside margins by about 50%. My instant reaction to the lower visual density was negative, but after using it for a little while, I think it's dense enough to be usable but sparse enough to be calming. It's amazing what the removable of a few borders and shaded areas does to the feeling of apprehension about email.
- jeffreyrusso 15y agoMy biggest complaint about the way Gmail currently looks is that it lacks structure - different features and components run right into each other. It's messy and feels cluttered even though it isn't over-designed. (That's a complaint that holds true for most Google products.) This new design looks like a real step in the right direction. It looks much cleaner and more structured. Big +1 from me.
- chrisvallejos 15y agoGoogle's UI upgrades have me really excited. What I really like about Google and all their products is how utilitarian they are. Their products are not about looking pretty, but about giving me the most useful features I need. What I like about the new UI look is that they are thinking about the aesthetics of design more. Gmail used to look like a bland data grid from excel, and it was very dense with information. Now there are more pixels in between rows and columns in the new Gmail, giving the layout visual space. The color changes also make the UI more interesting to look at and quicker to navigate. But the best part is the dark navigation bar at the top. Love that.
- yhlasx 15y agoThat big red button is distracting, the rest is awesome. same with calendar
- thethimble 15y agoAfter using it for a couple weeks, the bright red Compose Mail button is really annoying. I hope they change that.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- davezatch 15y agoThings are a little too spread out perhaps, but I already love that the top action bar (archive, spam, delete, etc) follows you down the page. As someone who's never quite mastered gmail keyboard shortcuts, I was constantly checking items then scrolling to the top or bottom to manage them. Nice little timesaver.
- uast23 15y agoIt almost looks like the "html only" view of gmail which is originally meant for slow connections. Nevertheless, lighter is better and it is definitely soothing.
- scrrr 15y agoI prefer a stronger contrast between read and unread messages. While the new look looks great for search, maps etc. I find it less useful in GMail.
- tintin 15y agoThere are other contrast problems in this design. Colorblind people have a hard time seeing what's selected.
- kennyma 15y agoLooks great! So glad Google finally has some design talent instead of just smart engineers.
- steilpass 15y agoAm I the only one who was instantly reminded on http://calvetica.com http://calvetica.com ?
- erikb 15y agoHm. I'm actually quite happy with the design Gmail has right now. A customer in a situation like this wonders, if any change to the interface doesn't just mean more costs for me as the user (like the change of "open in new tab/open in new window" between FF3 and FF4).
- lasonrisa 15y agoIt does look good and yet the only think I can think off is "cover fire", from one of Spolsky's classic. Google+ looks like a real improvement though.
- meow 15y agoThe new theme looks good but the boundaries between the elements doesn't seem well defined, giving a floating appearance to them. Also the background is kind of glary.
- Newky 15y agoAlthough I appreciate the clean design, I find it blinding, I'm going to use it for a few days and see how I get on but for now, the plethora of white space seems to hurt my eyes!
- phreeza 15y agoWhat happened to the Priority Inbox? I still see the add or remove priority buttons, but there doesn't seem to be a proirity inbox?
- zyph 15y agoBasic White is still the best gmail theme.
- apgwoz 15y agoI'm going to complain about the amount of padding in the messages list per message, but praise the rest. The redesign of most of Google is a welcome change.
- duomo 15y agoGmail now gives YOU the benefit of the doubt, dropping that pesky 'Report' and putting 'Spam' right up there with all the other important verbs of our time.
- joejohnson 15y agoI like that Google's new UI designs are using more buttons instead on text links. This is easier to see at a quick glance.
- mahrain 15y agoThis may actually have me switch to using a site-specific browser for gmail instead of mail.app!
- Splines 15y agoI'm going to be honest here and say that I think it looks horrible. The ALL-CAPS on buttons looks amateurish, and I want my separators and selected-mail-box background highlighting back. The non-dense theme also is too sparse. I suppose this is just because I'm used to how it looks, but hopefully they'll keep the old themes around.
- ajarmoniuk 15y agoI, for one, don't welcome the new look. The old overal Google look given an air of unrefined, raw 'geekness'. I liked the feeling that I was using something designed and made by scientists rather than enterpreneurs. This is, saldy, finally going and Google is becoming one of many. Of course look is not all, the quality of service they provide is uncompared. I'm still a fan, but I really prefered the old days.