4 ms·

I chuckled when I read: > First, the small window by default encourages short emails which is always good. "Sorry mom, I intended to write you a longer messag

I chuckled when I read: > First, the small window by default encourages short emails which is always good. "Sorry mom, I intended to write you a longer message but gmail encourages me to keep it short." > Putting them behind one extra click is really not the huge usability nightmare people make out. Folks at Microsoft are nodding their heads and furiously tweeting this sentence.

dasil003 13y ago
Nice pith, but how about adding some meat to that rebuttal. > "Sorry mom, I intended to write you a longer message but gmail encourages me to keep it short." The topic at hand is power emailing. Not people who write a message to their family once a week as the majority of their email. > Folks at Microsoft are nodding their heads and furiously tweeting this sentence. I don't even know where you get this. Having a minimal interface with the most used features present and others grouped under menus of some sort is an age-old proven UI convention. This is the exact opposite of what I think of when I think of Microsoft software or other bloated programs with toolbars and ribbons bursting at the seams. Citing Microsoft is just a way for you to justify your emotional reaction to my comment without adding any substance.
- amirmc 13y ago
  > "The topic at hand is power emailing. Not people who write a message to their family once a week as the majority of their email." That use-case is completely valid. Unless you're going to argue that GMail is meant to be a'power emailing' tool, which I'd disagree with. Optimising for something that doesn't suit the majority of users is usually a mistake.
  - dasil003 13y ago
    I'm sorry, your message makes no sense to me. There's nothing about Gmail that prevents that use case. I just responded because it's a stupid example. > Unless you're going to argue that GMail is meant to be a'power emailing' tool, which I'd disagree with. Okay, so first of all, yes Google was in fact invented to be a power email tool because it was built by engineers for engineers. But that's neither here nor there because obviously they are trying to improve it for the most common case which is the source of the much-reviled changes. It's not normal people that are complaining about these changes. It's entrenched power emailers who had their workflow thrown off by change and whose muscle memory is leading them to believe that this redesign is a disaster. New users won't have any worse experience than they did before, I guarantee you that.
    - amirmc 13y ago
      > "I'm sorry, your message makes no sense to me..." I'm trying to point out that the topic is wider than power emailing as these feature changes affect everyone. You don't get to choose which ones to adopt. > "Okay, so first of all, yes Google was in fact invented to be a power email tool because it was built by engineers for engineers. ... obviously they are trying to improve it for the most common case" It doesn't follow that Gmail was 'invented to be a power email tool'. Also, there's an assumption in there they're genuinely trying to improve for the common case. It could also be a range of internal pressures forcing changes that are actually detrimental for users. Companies fuck up like this all the time, so let's not pretend that Google is somehow exempt from that class of big-company-mistake.
      - dasil003 13y ago
        > I'm trying to point out that the topic is wider than power emailing as these feature changes affect everyone. You don't get to choose which ones to adopt. And I'm arguing that Gmail's design decisions are made with a solid basis in the widest common use case despite all the self-righteous nerdrage piled upon the tired mantra that Google is horrible at design. > It doesn't follow that Gmail was 'invented to be a power email tool'. What do you mean it "doesn't follow"? I'm not justifying this as a logical argument, I'm repeating statements I've read from Gmail's creators in interviews over the years.
- GVIrish 13y ago
  What exactly does "power emailing" mean to you? Is it the ability to send a lot of short emails quickly? Is it the ability to email while seeing emails come in? From my perspective the new compose modal window removes power from the user. Instead of having all of the formatting tools and options open and ready to go, you've got to expand the window the see them. You've got less screen real estate to work with and even on the reply window you have to click on the formatting icon to get the formatting tools even though there is plenty of room to just show the tools in the first place. Making users click more to complete a task is not bad if there is a good reason to do so. Forcing users to click more because you hid important functionality to save room that is not used for something else doesn't make sense. You've added load to the task for virtually no gain. I guess if short, rapid fire emails are the primary mode of usage for a user the new compose UI works great. I'd imagine the vast majority of gmail users do not send a high volume of emails per day, and the old compose UI worked fine while surfacing all of the functionality they needed.

dasil003 13y ago

Nice pith, but how about adding some meat to that rebuttal. > "Sorry mom, I intended to write you a longer message but gmail encourages me to keep it short." The topic at hand is power emailing. Not people who write a message to their family once a week as the majority of their email. > Folks at Microsoft are nodding their heads and furiously tweeting this sentence. I don't even know where you get this. Having a minimal interface with the most used features present and others grouped under menus of some sort is an age-old proven UI convention. This is the exact opposite of what I think of when I think of Microsoft software or other bloated programs with toolbars and ribbons bursting at the seams. Citing Microsoft is just a way for you to justify your emotional reaction to my comment without adding any substance.

amirmc 13y ago
> "The topic at hand is power emailing. Not people who write a message to their family once a week as the majority of their email." That use-case is completely valid. Unless you're going to argue that GMail is meant to be a'power emailing' tool, which I'd disagree with. Optimising for something that doesn't suit the majority of users is usually a mistake.
- dasil003 13y ago
  I'm sorry, your message makes no sense to me. There's nothing about Gmail that prevents that use case. I just responded because it's a stupid example. > Unless you're going to argue that GMail is meant to be a'power emailing' tool, which I'd disagree with. Okay, so first of all, yes Google was in fact invented to be a power email tool because it was built by engineers for engineers. But that's neither here nor there because obviously they are trying to improve it for the most common case which is the source of the much-reviled changes. It's not normal people that are complaining about these changes. It's entrenched power emailers who had their workflow thrown off by change and whose muscle memory is leading them to believe that this redesign is a disaster. New users won't have any worse experience than they did before, I guarantee you that.
  - amirmc 13y ago
    > "I'm sorry, your message makes no sense to me..." I'm trying to point out that the topic is wider than power emailing as these feature changes affect everyone. You don't get to choose which ones to adopt. > "Okay, so first of all, yes Google was in fact invented to be a power email tool because it was built by engineers for engineers. ... obviously they are trying to improve it for the most common case" It doesn't follow that Gmail was 'invented to be a power email tool'. Also, there's an assumption in there they're genuinely trying to improve for the common case. It could also be a range of internal pressures forcing changes that are actually detrimental for users. Companies fuck up like this all the time, so let's not pretend that Google is somehow exempt from that class of big-company-mistake.
    - dasil003 13y ago
      > I'm trying to point out that the topic is wider than power emailing as these feature changes affect everyone. You don't get to choose which ones to adopt. And I'm arguing that Gmail's design decisions are made with a solid basis in the widest common use case despite all the self-righteous nerdrage piled upon the tired mantra that Google is horrible at design. > It doesn't follow that Gmail was 'invented to be a power email tool'. What do you mean it "doesn't follow"? I'm not justifying this as a logical argument, I'm repeating statements I've read from Gmail's creators in interviews over the years.
GVIrish 13y ago
What exactly does "power emailing" mean to you? Is it the ability to send a lot of short emails quickly? Is it the ability to email while seeing emails come in? From my perspective the new compose modal window removes power from the user. Instead of having all of the formatting tools and options open and ready to go, you've got to expand the window the see them. You've got less screen real estate to work with and even on the reply window you have to click on the formatting icon to get the formatting tools even though there is plenty of room to just show the tools in the first place. Making users click more to complete a task is not bad if there is a good reason to do so. Forcing users to click more because you hid important functionality to save room that is not used for something else doesn't make sense. You've added load to the task for virtually no gain. I guess if short, rapid fire emails are the primary mode of usage for a user the new compose UI works great. I'd imagine the vast majority of gmail users do not send a high volume of emails per day, and the old compose UI worked fine while surfacing all of the functionality they needed.