
Leaked Gmail redesign looks a lot like Facebook’s Message inbox - tlogan
http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/20/gmail-redesign-looks-like-facebook-message/
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mrchess
Ugh, I hate these "X looks like Y" articles.

What it comes down to is they are both trying to display the same data
(picture, username, message, etc), and honestly, there are only a few ways to
logically present this information. Eventually the web will migrate to a
standard for displaying this kind of information.

It's like saying The New York Times looks like The Boston Globe (which looks
like The Washington Post (which looks like The Wall Street Journal)).

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knowtheory
I'd go further. I'd go so far as to call this article disingenuous.

Aside from a _very_ superficial reading, the actual functionality of the page
components for each app behave quite differently, and have different purposes
in mind. To call these apps similar, disregards the fact that they are
messaging systems in two distinctly different ecosystems.

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imrehg
First reaction: "Do Not Want ><"

It does look a lot more like G+, latest G-Doc and so on, so it feels like a
natural evolution of it, but I don't like that suddenly everything became so
big and sparse. I want to manage my emails and last time I checked I had a
buttload of them, don't need something that makes me scroll x3 more than I
already have now... Sure it looks prettier but is it more usable? I wouldn't
bet on that.

Though I guess it's going to be the same as any redesign people don't like -
lots of complaints and everyone will forget about it sooner rather than
later.....

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TruthElixirX
Yeah, the huge sparse white space is killing me. I don't have a lot of money
so I am rocking a 22" screen at 1680 x 1050. I try to squeeze every last bit
of screen real estate out of it.

Hopefully someone will make a Firefox plugin to make it look like the old
style.

~~~
eco
There is a drop down to control the information density.

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tikhonj
To me, the new look doesn't seem that much like Facebook's ui; rather, it
seems to just be a Google Plussification of Gmail---a natural progression.

Unless I'm missing something, basically all of the major UI elements in the
new Gmail are in exactly the same place they as in the "old" Gmail.

If you squint enough, I imagine any messaging web app with a white background
and three columns would look similar to either of the inboxes.

~~~
deadcyclo
Hmm... To me it seems like the similarity is simply that both use a typical 3
column layout. Mountains of molehills?

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rprime
"dangerously similar to Facebook’s" with the only difference being "Unlike
Facebook, the inbox doesn’t have a fixed width and users can choose one of
four display density types". I cannot imagine what innovations are to be made
in this field, but still, I like what Google did and it really looks nice,
outsmarting the Facebook gloomy system.

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toddh
Isn't message center just an email inbox in any case? We used to just send
email to a client and the inbox would be your "message center." With html you
could even make highly application specific presentations and interactions. I
guess the innovation is then embedding that inside another frame to make it
part of a larger application.

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Joakal
It's pretty good UI to give more sparse so as to appeal to more general less
technical population. Facebook was one of the early implementers. Look at kid
books for an example of how long sparseness and largeness has been going on
for.

Does Gmail offer an option to classic as a way to retain power/early users?

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sahaj
I feel that Facebook is starting to look more like an email client than Gmail
looking more like Facebook.

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rhizome
I like Yahoo Mail's new interface better out of all three of them.

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lloeki
This looks like Facebook just as much as the next message list in a three
column layout with a bar at the top.

