

Re: Gmail's new look: Do Not Want - Maro
http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/gmail/managing-settings-and-mail/uibBsFy2-ig

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stevenp
Dealing with nasty user feedback like this is one of the most painful parts of
running a product. It still amazes me how many people refuse to consider the
fact that there are humans on the other end of the computer. Instead, a lot of
these arguments turn into accusatory conspiracy theory threads, as though
things changing is a sign of some "secret plan". Is it that hard to believe
that a product team is just trying their darndest to create the best product
they can? Sometimes they'll get it right, and sometimes they won't, but
constructive feedback always goes further than angry fist shaking. There's
something about feedback for products on the internet that brings out extreme
paranoia in people, and I don't get why that is.

~~~
MaysonL
Some of the people trying to foist changes like this off on their users should
"consider the fact that there are humans on the other end of the computer."

~~~
stevenp
You seriously think they don't? I refuse to believe that design decisions like
this are made with absolutely zero feedback or human input. Google is an
incredibly data-driven company. They always have been. Design changes can
serve a multitude of purposes for a company. They can be trying to make a
dated interface look better, make it easier to use for "average" users, or a
combination of both. The thread was very informative in terms of explaining
the rationale behind the design changes, and the fact that Google was so open
about this leads me to believe that they _do_ consider the human factor. With
all due respect, your comment makes you sound exactly like the people I'm
describing.

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Lazare
The CYA response from Google at that link mostly focused on how many people
hadn't switched back to the old look.

I loved the response someone gave: "Failure of someone to make it out of a
burning building shouldn't be interpreted as them enjoying the heat."

~~~
tomkarlo
It's a self-serving simplification to make that criticism. There are lots of
ways for a team to assess if users want to switch back to an old look beyond
simply counting how many find that setting. In-house usability testing, user
panels, customer feedback, etc. And they're all more objective than a forum
thread.

Any product with millions of heavy users is going to have a subset that are
upset by any change, no matter how positive it is. And if you make no changes,
people complain that the product isn't being updated.

It's easy to be snarky and whiny. Sometimes it's hard to remember that not
everyone may see the world the way you do.

~~~
Lazare
Oh, no doubt; the plural of anecdote is not "data", and that's all a forum
thread of complaints is.

And yet...while Google can fairly easily find out how people really view their
changes, this does require them to _want_ to assess that. And it's always been
a little unclear why their app rewrite required a new UI. You'd think it might
be easier to do that in two seperate passes...

A suspicious person might suspect that the app rewrite and the UI revamp were
purposefully tied together in order to ward off poor customer feedback. But as
you say, it's easy to be snarky and whiny. :)

~~~
tomkarlo
Given how much of the app is tied into the UI, a full rewrite would seem to be
_exactly_ when you'd want to make any major UI changes. I've been in that spot
a few times myself and the _last_ thing you want to do is re-create the old UX
on a new codebase before implementing the UX you'd "like to have".

In a perfect world you might even want to do the UX change _first_ then
rewrite the back end, but in reality if you did that you'd probably worry
about losing support for the rewrite of the underlying plumbing once the new
look has been deployed, since management often thinks of front-end refreshes
as "delivery" of a new system.

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Maro
Kind of ironic that the Google Groups interface has also been G+-ified, this
page actually brings up the "Stop script?" dialog on Firefox for me.

~~~
technomancy
Yeah, I don't mind the Gmail change at all, but the new Groups UI is really
awful. Will have to start re-training my fingers to use Gmane.

~~~
gruseom
Does anybody know how to opt out of the new Groups UI?

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MitziMoto
I just want to stick up for the new Gmail interface here. I find it to be both
more aesthetically pleasing and more functional.

~~~
piggity
Some people I have spoken to didn't realise you could switch to compact mode.

I for one would prefer they retired the old UI and made the new UI more
awesome.

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pensiveye
I know there are a lot of arguments for why the user owns a completely free
interface that revolutionized electronic communication. I know that many of
them will be stated below. I acknowledge that these arguments have weight and
validity.

However...

This is a business decision. MaysonL stated that '...people trying to foist
changes like this...should consider the fact that there are humans on the
other end of the computer.'" Why exactly should they consider this? Has there
been a vast migration? Are the people using the service paying them?

Has anyone noticed that Google is moving to enterprise platforms. More
importantly, has anyone noticed that Google has an active branch pursuing RFPs
an IDIQs in the federal space?

Google is looking for paying customers. This is how it goes. This is Hacker
News for pete's sake. If you don't like GMail, make a product that works
better and post it here. You'll probably get a lot of customers. (By which I
mean freeloaders to whom you will have to provide massive memory and
bandwidth)

Edit: fixed quotes

~~~
selectnull
>> Google is looking for paying customers. This is how it goes.

That's the way it should go. I am very glad to pay 50 bucks a year for my
google apps.

I want to pay for it because I want the company that is storing and backing up
my data to be profitable. I want them to have the mindset of having paying
customers so they have to take care of their's customers data. I want them to
focus on the product being good, ever evolving, and profitable. And gmail is
exactly that.[1]

[1] Ok, I don't know if Gmail as product is profitable, but I do hope they go
in that direction

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Maro
<http://vimeo.com/29965463>

At 18:00 it's revealed that Larry Page initiated the complete redesign the day
he became CEO.

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appcolumn
All these design changes are done to increase revenue. When they talk about
streamlining the experience, it's about giving ads a more prominent position
across all their products and not just search.

~~~
jchung
Proof?

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keymone
hardcore lovers of old interface vs reduced complexity and increased
maintainability of codebase

sorry but you guys are never important. you are not even 1% of user base and
you will be abandoned and that is good

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J_Darnley
Thank god for the "basic" interface.

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funkah
There will always be people who hate redesigns. People hate change. At my
company, every time we've made something that we know is better than what came
before it, there are people who bitch. After a while you learn to ignore that,
which can be dangerous in itself. If everyone listened to these people we'd
all be using Windows 95 still.

