
Why The New Gmail Sucks - ashalabi
http://startupq8.com/2013/09/23/why-the-new-gmail-sucks/
======
PakG1
I look at UI changes in a totally different way now. My saw me come online on
Skype, so she called me. There's an ocean between us currently. She said she
called me because she was writing an email to me, but couldn't find the Send
button, so didn't know how to send it. Either it made her feel stupid or
frustrated, or she felt so sad that she couldn't send an email to me that she
had spent some time writing, or whatever, but she started crying. She was
crying because she couldn't find the Send button in gmail. She's approaching
60 and isn't as technically adept as some of us, so that is admittedly a
factor.

Seeing her cry about this made me change the way I think about what some users
go through when they experience unexpected UI changes. I remember hearing
people say they got confused by Windows 8 tiles, and didn't think it was such
a big deal. After seeing my mom cry over a UI change, I think there are better
ways to implement UI changes than simply shoving them down people's throat.
Sure, if it must be done, it must be done (UI change), but don't shove it down
people's throats unexpectedly and with no hand-holding at all.

~~~
Osmium
On a similar but different note, there were stories of children getting upset
at the new look of iOS 7. When I saw the headline I thought it odd, because I
doubt the designers of iOS 7 ever thought they'd actually make someone _cry_
with the new design.

But what can be done about it? Good design is important, but sometimes things
have to be changed, and ultimately a lot people just don't like change. Even
if it's the best design in the world, somebody, somewhere will struggle with
it being different. I think some "hand holding" as you suggest would be a good
idea, but I'm not sure how that could be done in practice.

~~~
pdonis
_sometimes things have to be changed_

Why? If a UI works for people, why does it _have_ to be changed? That seems to
me to be at least part of the problem: software designers think things _have_
to be changed, when it's really just that they _want_ to change them, for
whatever reason, and don't stop to think about the impact.

 _a lot people just don 't like change_

A lot of people have things that work perfectly well for them and don't like
having to re-learn their workflow whenever some software designer has a bright
idea. I'm one of them: I still run a KDE 3 desktop on Linux because it works
for me and I don't like having my UI messed with just because somebody
designed some new eye candy.

~~~
twistedpair
Because it's a web application. In the old days, you could use that old
version of said software until your motherboard gave out 15 years later.
However, today there is only ONE version of Gmail. Everyone has to use that
version. Hence one person's "New Feature" will be another person's reason to
cry. The cost of keeping X versions of Gmail in production is just too
prohibitive.

~~~
pdonis
If this is true, then to me it's a reason not to use web applications. (And I
don't, for the most part; I still run KDE 3 on Linux, and use KMail to read
email. The only web applications I use routinely are for things like paying
bills, where I have no choice but to use the web UI for the bank or credit
card company or whatever. And every so often those change and I have to re-
learn things for no good reason.)

------
nakedrobot2
This redesign of Gmail, like most of the Great Google Redesign happening in
the last couple years, demonstrates to me that Google is constantly breaking
one of the most basic rules about UI design: "Good Design" is _not_ about
making it pretty. "Good Design" is about making it easy to use; If you can do
both, great. If you can only do the latter, then it will just have to be less
pretty.

The Old Google was the latter (very usable, not beautiful).

The New Google is the former (looks visually pleasing, very unintuitive to
use).

I curse every time I compose an email now in Gmail. Why have they hidden all
the controls? Why is EVERYTHING one click away? Is ANYTHING gained AT ALL by
HIDING all those buttons that are there to be used?

Heck, I still can't tell you how to make a hyperlink. I think you have to
mouse over the hidden buttons. Or do you click on the hidden buttons? I think
if you click on the hidden buttons then you end up clicking a button that's
_next to_ the "hyperlink* button, by mistake.

Come on, Google.

~~~
ryanSrich
>"Good Design" is not about making it pretty. "Good Design" is about making it
easy to use; If you can do both, great.

You're right but this is an anomaly to me. How is it that Google hires PHDs in
HCI to design this stuff and they're still getting it wrong?

Perhaps I have misconceptions about the organizational structure of large
companies but they do hire these people for a reason no?

~~~
pdonis
_How is it that Google hires PHDs in HCI to design this stuff and they 're
still getting it wrong?_

I don't think they're getting it wrong; I think they're just judging success
by a different metric than you are. As other comments upthread have suggested,
their success metric appears to be how many users they can keep within their
walled garden. So the HCI experts aren't figuring out how to make Google's
apps easier to use; they're figuring out how to make them harder to escape.

Case in point: a bunch of people in this thread have pointed out various
things wrong with GMail's web UI, but nobody, as far as I can tell, has said
"Screw this, I'm using a different email client." [Edit: I have now spotted
one such person, but that's still effectively none in a thread with this many
posters.] (For the record, I use KMail on Linux, the KDE 3 version, and I
don't use GMail anyway, for reasons which go way beyond its UI.) To Google's
HCI experts, that's success.

------
seferphier
[http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672250/how-a-tiny-new-
compose-w...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672250/how-a-tiny-new-compose-
window-could-reinvent-gmail)

Reasons for redesign:

> "Google’s actively trying to make email less fussy and formal--or, in other
> words, to make it a little more like instant messaging."

> "email is just too much work"

> "Jason Cornwell, Gmail’s lead designer, explains, one of the ways to do that
> is simply to "give you permission to write shorter messages."

Why is gmail trying to compete against iMessage or Whatsapp or fb chat? Email
IS for work and should be optimized for it. Email is a useful medium because
you are allowed to write long messages and permitted to respond later during
the week. A friend would not read your text if it was 500 words long.

~~~
jcc80
Also recall reading a justification that less formatting should be used in
emails and that was part of the UI decision. Don't recall whether that was
from Gmail team or a writer editorializing but fact is I use formatting to
make my emails more clear to people. This whole new idea of having quick
conversations through email feels like trying to shove a square peg in a round
hole to me.

~~~
seferphier
I agree that formatting is important.

For users that like to use the pop out layout for compose, hiding the
formatting may be needed to save space.

For users that opted for a full screen layout for compose, the full formatting
options should be available as a default given that space is not a limitation.

------
dkhenry
I like the new interface. I find it easy to use and streamlined. Since we are
all talking about our old parents, FWIW my mother (60) found it easier to use
the new interface then the old interface.

There is really nothing objective that is pointed to as to why it "sucks". I
get it you don't like it. I imagine most people do, here is an XKCD comic
about the situation your in [http://xkcd.com/1172/](http://xkcd.com/1172/)

~~~
dmlorenzetti
_There is really nothing objective that is pointed to as to why it "sucks"._

The post repeatedly mentions functionality that used to be one click away, but
is now multiple clicks away. That is about as objective as measures come. You
may not mind it, but you can't say it's just subjective.

The post also points out how UI controls shift relative positions based on the
view being presented. One could define a metric that assesses the effect, and
anybody calculating the metric would get the same result. Again, you may not
mind controls jumping about as you work, but you can't say it's not objective.

~~~
patrickaljord
It's not about control jumping. Google makes decisions based on data so they
know these changes require more clicking. Why did they hide them? Probably
because their data shows that most people do not use them (which I've noticed
in most non-tech people), so not showing those buttons is actually less
confusing for most people and thus offers a better UI to them. Objectively.

------
ck2
Google has moved all their UI towards "don't worry your pretty little head
about it" mode.

It's incredibly insulting. But it is aimed at people who don't know they are
being insulted so it works out perfectly for them.

What I do not understand is why it would be so hard to give us options.

Just give us the option of having the old compose box back, with all the
controls visible, all the form fields visible, for the other 50% of people who
know what they are doing.

~~~
icebraining
Because it would mean a lot more work testing and fixing regressions whenever
something changes, and nobody likes doing that kind of work.

~~~
ck2
Well they seem to maintain the old compose for IE8, perhaps until Windows XP
expires next year.

And most of the rest of google works for me with javascript disabled, which is
not a trivial thing to maintain.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
Damn. You just made me wish I had IE8 installed.

~~~
yuhong
IE9 and IE10 can switch browser mode to IE8 and even IE11 can set a IE8 user
agent.

------
Pxtl
I imagine a big part of this is Android.

99% of emails don't include formatting. 99% of users never set anything but
"TO" instead of the anachronistic BCC and CC thingies (how many emailers even
know what a "Carbon Copy" even is?)

On a handheld where real-estate is at a premium? Those features are tucked
away semi-hidden. And for the sake of consistency, that UI is mirrored onto
the web form.

Also, changing the subject of a reply is hidden for _very_ good reasons - many
applications use the subject of a reply for threading. Changing that subject
line is going to break the user's expectations of how threading works. Even if
Gmail handles the threading with grace, the e-mail client at the other end may
not, and that can causes a mess of broken expectations. Better to leave this
seldom-used feature (changing the subject of a _reply_ ) hidden to avoid the
trouble.

The inability to fullscreen and the tiny composition window are, imho,
unacceptable though.

~~~
icoder
Good points.

Also I do not see why even after deliberately setting a (B)CC this is
collapsed back into a single TO-line (only visually - when you click CC again
you see how it's actually configured to be sent under the hood, but this has
confused me a few times already).

~~~
Pxtl
I think the idea is to conceal the confusing CC feature from those who don't
understand it, since everyone involved in the email chain must see the box and
not just the clever originator who threw the CCs in there. That is, Adam sends
out an email with all the bells and whistles, but Barry has no idea what all
those random abbreviations mean and they frighten him. Adam and Barry _both_
mostly just want to know who's going to receive this thing, so Gmail hides the
CCs but shows the name. I think there's the unspoken belief that CC/BCC is a
complete misfeature and Google wants it to die silently for the sake of clean
UI.

It might not be the right approach, but I see why they did it.

~~~
jasoncornwell
The situation is actually a bit worse than that. As soon as Barry replies,
Adam becomes the only person on the to line and everybody else is moved to cc
despite all of Adam's hard work to distinguish recipient types up front. To vs
CC is basically broken in threaded conversations. Moreover, unless you turn on
some hidden options there is no visual indicator telling you who was on the to
line vs the cc line in the Gmail inbox anyway. The distinction has become
meaningless for the vast majority of cases.

------
ozh
Nothing new in this article, but I will endlessly upvote anything that says
loud and clear that the new Gmail sucks till they fix it.

~~~
hobs
That's my feeling. The new gmail is a piece of garbage and no matter what
justifications are thrown at me all I can think is "Fix it."

The new interface is so poor that a legit suggestion now is to use a dedicated
mail client so that you dont have to use an interface that was once useful.
Terrible!

------
k-mcgrady
I actually really like the new Gmail design and it's helped improve my
workflow. However I have a relative who uses computers only for work and
rarely. I took the time to teach her Gmail and she finally got the hang of it.
One day she called to ask me for help attaching something. It took me a few
minutes to realise I couldn't help because she was still on the old UI and I
couldn't walk her through it over the phone as I was on the new design. I
mistakenly got her to update to the new UI (so I could more easily support
her) and now she has constant issues trying to understand basic interactions.
If she has an email open in the background + the compose window does she press
send on the compose window or background email? Sounds simple but you'd be
amazed and how complicated this is for some people and how stupid it makes
them feel.

The problem seems to be communicating changes. Rather than the basic
instructions given when a new design is introduced companies like Google
should be producing detailed 30 minute walkthroughs of the new design and
giving users the option to watch that.

~~~
kaoD
> detailed 30 minute walkthroughs of the new design and giving users the
> option to watch that.

That's the lazy way.

I even doubt that's a solution; the average user won't read one-liner
warning/error boxes.

~~~
k-mcgrady
The types of users who have real problems with designs changes to the point
they can't send an email would watch that video.

------
scg
I love the new Gmail and I think it makes a lot of sense if you embrace the
idea of conversations/threads, and if you don't insist on having a 10 line
signature. (Also, keyboard shortcuts help a lot though I agree not everyone
has time to learn to use them.)

The new design makes email more lightweight and fluid; replying to a thread or
composing a new message feels less like work and less ceremonious.

I agree the formatting options are a pain to use though...

~~~
chris_wot
When I write emails, they are _often_ lengthy. It's totally ridiculous to
change the size of the reply box to such a small area.

~~~
dasil003
Me too. But I write 10 short emails for every long email. Why? Because writing
short emails is faster so I get more of them done!

I think Google is definitely on the right track here. I love to be able to
compose emails while still clicking around for context in the background. I am
perfectly fine shift-clicking to open a new compose window because that is the
exception not the common case. Similarly, I don't often change the subject or
use formatting in emails, so I don't mind clicking an extra icon to open up
those options.

This whole movement about how unequivocally Terrible the new Gmail UI is is
the biggest tsunami of nerdrage I've seen in quite some time. But here's the
thing: there is a reason and justification for it, and it does work for some
people, and there's no going back; so it's time to either adapt or move to
some other client with a traditional UI.

~~~
chris_wot
With the whole privacy matter, it might not be so hard for me to switch :-)

------
Jacqued
I used to love Gmail because I thought it was fast, reliable, secure and had a
great UI. Now I kinda hate the UI, it's not quite as fast as it once was, and
I don't feel like it is a good place to store my email.

However, what all the posts about Gmail fail to do is point to a substitute. I
need a web-based mail client which can provide mailboxes with my own domain,
fetch mail from outside boxes and send through them, and filter and order my
mail according to a set of rules I define. Also, it should not be hosted in
the US or by a US based company, and should have at least a decent UI.

I would love to pay for such an alternative but, alas, I doesn't seem to exist
today

~~~
markdown
I believe that other than the "hosted in the US or by a US company"
requirement, Outlook.com fits the bill.

It's much cleaner and snappier than gmail and yahoo.

------
stiff
For me, GMail reached an optimum in terms of user experience some three or
four years ago. Then it was a mixture of changes that were nice but of minor
significance (the look of the main interface is prettier now than those few
years ago) and of "reverse improvements" of usability like very confusing and
ugly icons, hiding core functionalities, all the "social" crap etc. I guess
this might partially be the result of UI people coming and going to the GMail
team, new people arriving always want to prove they can do better and do
things their own way, and if things are already good, they can only get worse
this way.

------
Lonik
Hardly any valid points IMO.

1\. No Space to write

What? The text box expands as you type to fit the content. I would be very
frustrated if it took up most of the screen space for no reason at all and I
couldn't see the email I'm replying to.

2\. Edit subject (when replying)

When you reply and edit the subject you're starting a new conversation. It's
what the big "compose" button is for, except now your conversation starting
email contains junk from other emails. I'm happy if this UI change discourages
people from doing this.

3\. Formatting (when replying)

First valid point, hiding this under a button makes no sense to those who use
formatting. I'm just glad if I receive less HTML emails because of this
change.

4\. Adding cc and bcc (when replying)

Second somewhat valid point. Although I think it's still intuitive while
keeping the UI uncluttered.

5\. New email (compose)

You have several options to make the area larger. I love that I can look up
other emails while composing a new one without the need to open a new window.
In fact, I would like to see this while replying. The "feel there is no more
space to write anything" is a ridiculous argument to hinder a useful feature.

edit: I would even make the point that if your emails are most often so long
that they take up most of the screen you're doing _communication_ wrong.

------
honzzz
It's just my opinion but I would say that many Google products really suck
from usability standpoint. I use computer all the time and I would say that I
am pretty advanced user... and yet I think that sometimes it is really
difficult to quickly find something in Google Analytics and I think it's UI is
counterintuitive and user unfriendly as hell. And I have to admit that I hate
Google Groups - when I am searching for a solution to some problem and I see
something promising in Google search results I just continue searching when I
notice that the result goes to some thread in Google Groups and I don't bother
checking that out - if I were looking for the example how NOT to do this I
would use Google Groups.

~~~
VLM
I've been working on a theory that they produce awful UIs as a disinformation
campaign. Consider a scenario where an unmedicated paranoid dude thinks GOOG
is sniffing his wireless, recording whereever he goes on the internet, and
sharing it all to the NSA, CIA, DHS, and his local HOA zoning committee.
Unfortunately this is all true, except for the HOA thing, but the dude is
crazy so the point isn't if he's accidentally correct or not. Lets say he
tries to spread the paranoid meme to an angry gmail user. The gmail user is
going to respond "heck no, these guys can't operate some incredible elaborate
spying program, they can't even write a simple email UI after email UIs have
been in continuous development for about four decades". Thus the public
impression of the "don't be evil" is maintained.

I think if the Mighty GOOG ever divorces itself from .gov / .mil then we'll
see them release sane UIs.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how my theoretical model applies to .com with UI
issues like APPL. Perhaps they're a mere manifestation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Or something else... it would hardly be the first time that totally different
root causes leads to similar appearing results.

~~~
danbee
I struggle to take anybody seriously when they refer to companies by their
stock market codes. Also, it's AAPL.

------
andrewhillman
You can solve this by going back to old gmail via chrome ext

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fix-compose-for-
gm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fix-compose-for-gmail%C2%AE-
to/hpoidnelefpoofhdioielagfklahfcjg)

I love it.

~~~
zx2c4
How does this work? Why did they obfusicate their JS? Do I want to trust them?

~~~
SchizoDuckie
chrome["webRequest"]["onBeforeSendHeaders"]["addListener"](function (a) { var
b = a["requestHeaders"]; b[forEach](function (c, d) { if
(c["name"]["toLowerCase"]() =="user-agent") { c["value"] = "Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)",; }; }); return { requestHeaders:
_0xb56fx2 }; }, { urls:
["[http://mail.google.com/*"](http://mail.google.com/*"),
"[https://mail.google.com/*"](https://mail.google.com/*"), types:
["main_frame", "sub_frame"] }, ["blocking", requestHeaders);

It actually really just swaps the user-agent for the ie8 header.

------
mbesto
I will literally pay $100/year for an email service that was gmail pre-recent
redesign. I cannot stand it and can't find a substitute.

~~~
greyman
Did you try fastmail.fm? It's very close to that.

~~~
mbesto
I've looked at it. No mobile = no go.

~~~
FedRegister
It supports POP3 and IMAP, which is supported by iOS, Android, Windows Phone,
and pretty much any other smartphone OS out there. What else do you need?

~~~
mbesto
Sorry, no push/exchange is what I meant.

------
blakesterz
I totally agree with exactly those points. What's going to make me finally
leave Gmail and migrate everything to... where is it I can migrate my stuff
to?... well, I'll leave when they take away "Chat" and replace it with
"Hangouts" like they did on Android where "Hangouts Replaces Chat". The LAST
thing I want is Hangouts, chat is meant to be quick, private, light weight and
how Hangouts "replaces" that I'll never understand. I'm unreasonably bitter
over this, I know.

------
hellweaver666
I think what you fail to understand is that Google are building a tool for the
masses and I would bet that they have analysed what features people _actually_
use and most of the time the majority of people don't change the subject or
modify the recipients or format the email.

In short - they're catering for the typical user, and the typical user doesn't
use all the features that the OP thinks they need.

~~~
throwaway2048
Ever wonder how bland, feature barren, largely useless lowest common
denominator shit that nobody really seems to like, or identify with can come
to dominate design of software products?

My theory is that the assumption there is some kind of meaningful "Average
user" which a product is then built for ultimately destroys utility in
software.

If you have 50 features that on average 1% of people use, you can easily reach
the false conclusion nobody cares about these features, when on aggregate 90%
might use at least one of those features. Thus in aiming for the average, you
haven't designed for anyone at all.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy)

~~~
honzzz
I think this is what Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his TED talk about the
best spaghetti sauce -
[http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce...](http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html)

------
martin-adams
My biggest gripe is trying to extract the email address of other people on the
To or CC list of an email. It's excruciatingly hard.

------
AmVess
To be fair to Google, Gmail has always sucked...but it sucked many millions of
times less than Hotmail or Yahoo mail, and still sucks many millions of times
less than them even with the new revamp.

~~~
NoPiece
I use Yahoo and Gmail. Which is better is subjective depending on how you like
to use email. I prefer Yahoo, mainly for the same reason the OP mentions about
the size of compose. Yahoo compose gives you almost the full screen, in its
own tab. It gives you space to think, copy and paste, vomit draft.

Also, objectively, from the time I hit the bookmark, to the time I see my
inbox, Yahoo is faster than Gmail. Where Yahoo loses is the terrible ugly
display ads that loaded in.

ps: you know what other site has an annoyingly small compose space? HN! :)

~~~
chris_wot
You can change the size of this :-)

------
laichzeit0
Maybe it's just me, but I feel there is a trend that it is absolutely
necessary to "fuck with" something that already works for the sake of [insert
rationalization here]. It's like changing the semantics of how Unix pipes
work. Don't do it. Go build something new. Leave the shit that already works
Good Enough (tm) alone.

------
newman314
I hate that Gmail took away Exchange support.

~~~
corobo
I spent almost 20 minutes trying to work out why a new Gmail account didn't
work on my phone when an older one worked without issue. My mistake really,
should have just assumed Google had cancelled a popular service.

~~~
newman314
I was furious to discover that a replacement iPad stopped working when it got
replaced under warranty.

This was to an account that I have had for years. All that changed was a new
device.

I would have paid $5 a month for an ad free experience and exchange support.

------
sfjailbird
Hiding the subject field is a massive pain in the ass.

------
jmmcd
My personal gmail hate is that I can't select more than a screenful of text by
dragging. If there is lots of text and I want to delete it, I click and drag
to the bottom of the screen. But it's not able to scroll itself while I'm
dragging, so I can only delete a screenful at a time.

~~~
kalleboo
Cant you place the cursor at the top of the screen, scroll to the bottom,
press shift and click at the bottom to select the whole chunk? This works in
Mac OS at least.

------
linux_devil
I like the new Gmail. It's more organized and I waste no time to read
important mails. I think e-mail marketers won't like it.

------
Xcelerate
I've been programming and using computers for (too many) hours a day since I
was 12 (11 years ago). When Windows 8 came out, I literally spent like 10
minutes looking for the shut down command. I guess it wasn't intuitive that
you had to mouse down to the bottom right corner of the screen, click the icon
usually reserved for "settings" and then click shut down?? Maybe I had an
early release candidate or something weird, but I decided to give OS X a try
at that point...

~~~
coldpie
Yeah, you're not supposed to shut computers down anymore. You close the lid
and it goes into hibernate. Or for a desktop, you walk away and it eventually
goes into hibernate by itself. It's part of the commoditization of computing.
You don't need to know how it works, you just use it to do what you want and
it does everything else behind the scenes.

Drives me nuts.

------
bcoates
It's the revenge of the weird taxonomic western culture.

If you hate your users and don't know anything, you think systems should be
designed logically. Logical, to you, will mean that similar things are put
together. Likewise, similar will be defined by occupying the same spot in some
weird taxonomy of all things in your head [1]. This will result in putting
change the font size, boldface, and indention in a little tray of "things that
happen to text". This is either because you are crazy or think your users love
playing the $25,000 pyramid. You will then compound your madness by labeling
this tray with the not-an-icon of an italicized, underlined, bold letter A.

If you do not wish to be one of these bad people that turn their UI into some
sort of Lovecraftian chest of drawers where the contents of each drawer is
another chest of drawers, please investigate "task driven user interfaces".
They are better. Things that use task driven UIs are illogical and messy and
unbalanced and much, much, more pleasant for the people who have to use them.

[1]: This is culturally determined and possibly different for every
individual. Nobody else will understand your taxonomy. There is no way to fix
this. Sorry.

------
nickfox
I wish google would change their motto from "don't be evil" to "don't be
assholes". I bet they would get a lot more mileage out of the second one.

Really, when has google ever cared about customer service? Heck, the BORG have
better customer service than google. And no, I'm not still mad about google
getting rid of my beloved Reader... Why do you ask?

------
arikrak
I think the basic new compose window is an advantage since I often want to
reference previous emails while writing one email, and it lets me do that
without creating a new gmail tab. (I always though Google should add this
feature: [http://www.zappable.com/2011/07/things-gmail-should-
fix/](http://www.zappable.com/2011/07/things-gmail-should-fix/) )

There is a separate issue that Gmail hid many options. I personally find this
annoying since I don't want to click through things to change things like
formatting. However, maybe the average Google user rarely uses the formatting.
Also, keyboard shortcuts are faster than any clicking anyways. I assume Google
has access to more data about this issue and decided it was worth it. I don't
know why they don't provide more configuration options though.

------
fauigerzigerk
What I hate most about the new UI is the "Show trimmed content" feature. I
have to click those three little dots every single time I reply to an email
and they are awfully close to the send button. Gmail has tons of settings for
everything, but I can't find a way to turn this completely useless and
annoying feature off.

I think the broader trend behind this kind of stubbornness is a move toward
opinionated software. The problem with opinionated software is that even in
the best case it is more specialized for the needs of one particular group of
users. It is not flexible enough to cater to different workflows.

I guess what this means is that consumer software and software for
professionals is going to diverge again after converging for many years.

~~~
desas
There's a labs feature which introduces a delay to sending emails, you have
several seconds to press "undo" and stop it sending.

------
wyclif
As far as the small new compose window goes, just Shift-click and pop out the
window. Problem solved.

~~~
nakedrobot2
OH GREAT! Because it's so obvious that you should ctrl-click to pop out an
email.

I had to GOOGLE the solution for how to pop out an email. The irony is not
lost on me :(

What on earth was wrong with the "pop out your email" button anyway?

~~~
wyclif
Shift-click, not Ctrl-click.

~~~
nakedrobot2
hahaha! See what I mean?!?!?!?!

------
pessimizer
If you have a problem with the new Gmail, you can use the ancient gmail at
[https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html&zy=h](https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html&zy=h)
and set it as default. I honestly didn't even know that there was a new Gmail.

If you look at that basic html version and cry about all of the features
you're missing, IMO you're really just being a backseat driver. You're not
going to like every improvement that they make, but if you like enough of them
to render how we used email in the very near past completely unusable, then
they're doing a good job.

------
Mikeb85
While I get the resistance to change, a small UI change in software is
something people should be able to deal with. Our world is ever changing, new
roads and neighborhoods are constructed, stores come and go, and we need to be
able to adapt.

And as far as frustrating changes go, recently they changed the layout of the
grocery store across the street. What should have been a 5 minute shopping
trip turned into a 30 minute long ordeal. So I don't have much sympathy for
those who can't deal with buttons in new places on a computer screen.

------
klausjensen
It took me a couple of days to get used to the new interface. Not really an
improvement for me, but not annoying or terrible either.

I filed it under "meh" and moved on.

------
NiceOneBrah
What I can't stand is that they completely broke search for chats. Previously
you could prepend your query with "is:chat" and get individual conversations
returned as you would expect. These days you're given your entire "hangout"
histories with various people and when you click them you have to frantically
scroll to locate the relevant portion that matches your query.

------
joshuaheard
No mention of the fact that they are invading your privacy by reading your
personal emails and selling that information to advertisers?

~~~
jiggy2011
Haven't they done this since forever?

~~~
joshuaheard
Yes, not limited to the "new" Gmail, though they only admitted to it recently.

~~~
Zak
Scanning email for content to target ads was a public controversy when gmail
was introduced to the public in 2004.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2004/apr/08/onlinesupp...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2004/apr/08/onlinesupplement.google)

[http://epic.org/privacy/gmail/faq.html](http://epic.org/privacy/gmail/faq.html)

------
drorweiss
I think the intension was to focus on the 80% of functionality that people use
the most and consider the remaining 20$ as not-useful, which is generally ok
by me. I think it's still better than the feature rich outlook. For me, the
main annoyance is cc and bcc which I use quite often. Really, how often do you
edit the subject?? more than once a week?

------
methodin
These negative posts are so cliché. If people who were blogging wrote more in
a positive light than whining or bashing on something that is purely their own
opinion, I think reading top articles around here would be much more
enjoyable.

For anyone else out there thinking of doing anything in Word then copying and
pasting... you can break soooo many things on the web.

------
lnanek2
Agreed. The new interface just doesn't work for me. Really need to find a new
mail client. Kind of dislike GMail anyway since it searches ZIP files I attach
and won't even let me send EXE builds to people I am working with in a ZIP. So
I do all these stupid rename things and have to send the person instructions
to rename the files.

------
berkut
It's pretty atrocious, especially for a power-user.

The new "mini" compose windows are just insane. It's email, not IM chat.

~~~
icebraining
Click on middle-button on top-right corner for full screen, use menu on the
bottom to set as default.

------
mydpy
I'm most frustrated by the Android application. There are alphabetic icons
left of each mail item, and I don't understand why. They have the first
initial of the sender... ???. I also don't like the way mail loads, and it
seems to take longer. And I can't get notifications to work properly, all on a
Nexus 4.

------
alt_f4
I used the Gmail web UI exclusively for about 7 years. Overall, it was great -
simple, yet functional.

After this redesign, I have been pushed away. Despite my efforts, I failed to
make any sense of it. So now I'm just using the Mac Mail app - certainly not
as powerful, but much less frustrating.

------
aet
You can always use a desktop client. I've never seen the attraction of
"webmail"

~~~
bluedino
I've never seen the attracting of having a fat mail client chug through 20GB
of email.

~~~
aet
I've been using Mac Mail for years. I don't think I've ever even deleted a
message. Still seems to work fine -- but I see your point.

------
Mikeb85
I like the new Gmail. It organizes my various categories of email nicely, and
has a nice UI.

~~~
ozh
Nice try, Gmail UI team guy.

------
znowi
I'd like to remind of an alternative:
[http://www.mailpile.is/](http://www.mailpile.is/)

Apart from a clean UI, it doesn't milk you for data and is not in
collaboration with NSA :)

------
josteink
The new Gmail was the final straw for me over an already constrained
relationship with how Google apps was evolving.

I jumped ship, and took all my data with me. It felt extremely liberating and
honestly, just damn good.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Where did you jump ship to? I've wanted to do the same (and I have for
personal email) but the ease of using my own domain with Google apps is
unmatched anywhere I know of.

~~~
josteink
As lot of other people, I moved my email to fastmail. It just feels so much
lighter and cleaner and _better_.

I moved my contacts and calendering to a owncloud-based setup, which literally
takes 5 minutes to set up. That way this data is available to all things which
can work with the CardDAV and CalDAV standards.

This can easily be done on any webhost, and getting it "under your domain" a
no-brainer. As a bonus, you now have your own private Dropbox-like setup as
well, with clients across most major platforms.

For Google Drive/Docs, I've yet to see any replacement worth jumping on to, so
I've kept that around. I've seen a few candidates mentioned, but they aren't
ready/released or mature enough yet.

------
mwarkentin
Saw this Chrome extension mentioned on Twitter yesterday:
[http://oldcompose.com](http://oldcompose.com)

I haven't tried it myself, but apparently it works well.

~~~
SchizoDuckie
I just tried to get it. All alarmbells going off here.

First it wants your email address to install, then you have to 'pay with a
tweet' or 'pay with a facebook post'

Thankfully it's shoddy programming, you can dismiss the facebook post page
without publishing and click the download link:

[http://1.upld.to/Gd9](http://1.upld.to/Gd9)

Will verify this first though, could be something scary...

~~~
SchizoDuckie
Update: It's safe. It just swaps the user-agent header on all web requests for
the Internet Explorer 8.0 one.

My quick de-obfuscation effort:

chrome["webRequest"]["onBeforeSendHeaders"]["addListener"](function (a) { var
b = a["requestHeaders"]; b[forEach](function (c, d) { if
(c["name"]["toLowerCase"]() =="user-agent") { c["value"] = "Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)",; }; }); return { requestHeaders: b };
}, { urls: ["[http://mail.google.com/*"](http://mail.google.com/*"),
"[https://mail.google.com/*"](https://mail.google.com/*"), types:
["main_frame", "sub_frame"] }, ["blocking", requestHeaders]);

Installed it, performs as advertised.

------
xmpir
another reason to use Gmail only via IMAP in my Thunderbird...

~~~
pjmlp
Me too.

The web version is just when I am not at home or without my laptop.

This is a nice advantage of native applications. I get to control when I
upgrade.

------
jasonlotito
Just as an FYI: For those that prefer a full screen experience when composing
messages can hit 'd' instead of 'c' when using keyboard commands.

------
crististm
Google is making baby steps toward irrelevance. Eventually, it will start
running.

Just wait until the number of people that "hate it" will drop.

------
itsbits
As much as i hate this Gmail design, the reason I see for these changes are to
make UX friendly in mobile devices mainly tablets

~~~
desas
Don't they have an app for that?

------
gnoway
I wonder if it's easier for them to analyze and mine data from ten small
emails vs. one large one.

~~~
T-hawk
They certainly get more ad inventory to deliver when folks are zipping around
ten small emails and clicking to read them.

I'm surprised people haven't figured this out. As we always say, if you're not
paying, you're the product and not the customer. So of course Google wants to
encourage lots of short emails. Google's incentive in designing the Gmail UI
is to create lots of clicks and ad impressions. User satisfaction is secondary
and held up mostly by "don't be evil". Google's only incentive is to keep it
just tolerable enough that jumping ship isn't worthwhile.

I'm sure Google does have many designers legitimately dedicated to improving
the service. But also sure that they're closely monitoring the business
moneymaking end as well.

------
dpcan
I've gone back to Thunderbird and IMAP because of this.

Hide text formatting buttons???

Teeny-tiny reply windows?

I'm not sure what assumptions they were making, but it feels like they want me
to use Gmail like it's Twitter.

What's next, a "make this conversation public" button? And it will show on my
G+ profile?

------
Dj_Anthony2013
I don't like it also. But we will get use to it.

------
rorrr2
I agree with many points, except the smaller compose window.

1) It's done so you can search your email _while_ typing a reply, maybe find
some info and copy/paste it. It's extremely useful.

2) You don't tons of horizontal space to write an email (except for embedded
photos). Vertical space scrolls.

3) I'd actually argue that short emails are better than long ones. Learn how
to write succinctly, to the point, and there are more chances it will be read.

4) Get a high res display if you need more screen space. 1080p displays are
dirt cheap.

~~~
josefresco
I have to agree with point #1. I hated the small compose window until I
realized I can minimize it, browse/search my Gmail and then return to finish.

I can't say I agree with your other points. Sometimes, you need to write a
long email and there's no way around it. an email provider should not be
trying to re-invent how people use email, they should embrace how people use
email and make it better.

~~~
icebraining
When you need to write a long email, you can just press the "full screen"
button, or even shift-click to open a new window.

Doesn't seem that problematic to me.

------
greenlander
If you use the URL
[https://mail.google.com/mail/h/](https://mail.google.com/mail/h/) you can use
the old interface.

~~~
aninhumer
The HTML interface is more similar to the old interface than the new one, but
it's also a lot worse in other respects.

------
dxm
Google is able to test changes thousands of times every second, and since
Larry Page became CEO the changes have all been done to create a consistent
feel across Google's services, and have all been tested and refined. What are
your credentials? Saying "I’m writing this post hoping that it will reach
someone that works in Google and they are going to do something about it." is
ambitious, the opinion of one person does not reflect the amount of data they
have that likely implies that this change is an advantage.

~~~
Zak
_What are your credentials?_

Downvote for this. Questioning or criticizing the author's credentials is a
poor substitute for questioning or criticizing his thesis.

~~~
nailer
I agree, 'what are your credentials?' is the wrong question - 'where is your
data?' would be better. But I too question the author.

The author is posting a list of his personal gmail bugbears. We all understand
the author doesn't care that you can see the email in the reply window, he'd
rather a much bigger space to write.

I think we can safely say that Google test UX changes with actual users.
Asking the parent for some data to back up that _most users_ don't like the
change is reasonable.

Also making the compose full screen would result in a very wide compose area,
which is widely though to slow down reading (eg, of what the gmail users has
just written).

I've actually flagged the submission: evaluating UX based on opinionated users
without data is simply poor.

