I like the cleanliness of the new design and the use of whitespace to separate things. There are two general problems I have. One is the fact that the UI contr

I like the cleanliness of the new design and the use of whitespace to separate things. There are two general problems I have. One is the fact that the UI controls tend to blend in with the rest of the page, and the fact they're just icons isn't much help either. The other is inconsistency or otherwise controverting user expectation. The first problem means to mark something as spam I have to first remember where to look for the button that doesn't stand out. I then have to hover over it until the tooltip shows to make sure I've got the right one. The second one manifests itself in the behaviour of the toolbar, some of the UI element positions, and what I would call some rather basic principles: On the actual mail screen, the toolbar has a fixed position, so it always sticks to the top of the page when you scroll. On the inbox, it doesn't. Why not? The star icon is on the left on the inbox page. Why is it on the right when you view the email? (This has persisted from the old design, to be fair.) Why have they taken an Android design cue and put the form submission elements at the top of the page? When you fill in any form, you expect the submit/cancel buttons to be below the form you're filling in, not above. I have been caught out several times trying to scroll the compose page (that no longer scrolls at all), only to realise the button I'm looking for is actually at the opposite end. While Google may be getting a better eye for aesthetic design and simplicity, I think they're still quite a way from mastering intuition.