

New Gmail un-minimalistic homepage - zhiQ
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151660509511039&set=a.445486066038.242003.60057676038&type=1

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nivla
Its not just Gmail, they started doing this with other products too. Whenever
I access Google Analytics [1], even if I am already logged in, it takes me to
a page with a huge picture of a person smiling where I am supposed to find a
tiny button that says "Access Analytics" inorder to access my account. I can
understand such marketing material for new visitors but why on earth would you
force this on existing customers???

[1] [http://analytics.google.com](http://analytics.google.com)

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_wmd
I've repeated this many times and it's never a popular idea, but here goes:
it's because they retain UI/UX designers on permanent staff, when they likely
have _actual_ new work about one month in twelve, from what I gather.

This isn't an attack on UI/UX people, it is only to suggest perhaps that
industry would be better structured if everyone worked at agencies that
recovered an employee's yearly salary in exchange for a month of their time.
No pointless work generation that hurts the masses just to hit bonus targets.

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harrybr
I couldn't disagree more. UI/UX design sits at the intersection of business
objectives and user behaviour (i.e. what the business wants / what the users
want). The idea of iterating your UI one month a year is borderline suicidal.

If you're calling it "pointless work generation that hurts the masses", there
must be something dysfunctional about your past experiences with UI/UX design
people / processes in the organisations you've worked in.

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dm8
Looks like there is a pattern -

New Google Analytics landing page -
[http://www.google.com/analytics/](http://www.google.com/analytics/)

Or Google Hangouts landing page -
[http://www.google.com/hangouts/](http://www.google.com/hangouts/)

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thejosh
Hangouts you would expect people to be smiling and happy, that's the product.

Google Analytics though, a bigass testimonial with random people smiling is
very offputting.

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diziet
I would imagine they a/b tested this quite extensively and have data that
smiling people's faces cause whatever metric they are measuring to be at a
better point than a plain login page. It'd be interesting to see how much.

~~~
djrobstep
I've noticed a quite a few landing pages going for the "large photo of generic
smiling person" (usually female) concept in recent times. This page,
healthcare.gov, basecamp.com, and many many others. Kind of amazing/sad
(though not surprising) that your average human can be persuaded with this
kind of gimmick.

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icebraining
Why is it sad ? It's a display of empathy. If anything, it's sad that some
companies abuse it, but even as far as such manipulations go, at least this
one provokes positive feelings instead of preying on people's insecurities and
fears.

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tikhonj
I always think of these things as security vulnerabilities. Right in your
brain! And getting a patch out is... tricky.

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Andrex
It's a marketing page. Would it be better to just have a login form like
before? As long as Gmail itself remains minimalistic, what difference does a
marketing page make?

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tty
>As long as Gmail itself remains minimalistic

Unless you're using the basic HTML view for Gmail, I don't see how Gmail is
minimalistic.

~~~
Andrex
Care to explain how Gmail _isn't_ minimalistic?

Compared to native email apps with excessive amounts of panes, buttons,
sorters, etc., Gmail is minimalistic nirvana.

[http://i.imgur.com/XiwAn8U.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/XiwAn8U.jpg)

[http://i.imgur.com/YSBK5us.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/YSBK5us.jpg)

[http://i.imgur.com/8Acgrn1.png](http://i.imgur.com/8Acgrn1.png)

vs

[http://i.imgur.com/RMg8UPY.png](http://i.imgur.com/RMg8UPY.png)

Hell, even compare Gmail today to how it used to look:

[http://i.imgur.com/fHQjL0n.png](http://i.imgur.com/fHQjL0n.png)

The new Gmail's focus on whitespace, hiding buttons that don't do anything yet
(until you check things of course), the new compose panel (with ultra-
minimalistic controls and send to/from fields), Google's removal of the black
bar, the auto-overflow for labels, lack of borders, lack of "containers," etc.
etc. all convince me of Gmail's minimalism.

Just about the only thing that isn't minimal about it anymore is the footer.

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dylz
What's with the blogspam?

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pycassa
After moving to outlook.com, The only thing I missed is that after I signing
out of it, it takes me to a landing page with a "sign in" button and some
advertisement with people smiling, instead of login screen.

looks like gmail is getting worse instead of outlook getting better in this
particular aspect.

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DigitalSea
For a while now Google have been aggressively pursuing a marketing first
approach to their product offerings, this is no different. The very fact
Google have sneakily implemented ads disguised as emails into Gmail is a sign
that Google are no longer a minimalistic company.

I think this is a case of someone making a big deal out of an obvious
situation. Hardly an issue here.

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tr4656
This is really similar to what Google Apps have used for a few years now.

