Reason#1 The illusion starts with the way Google marketed Gmail’s new look, claiming it to be cleaner and more modern. Seems like their designers took these words more than ‘literally’ and delivered such a clean look that one cannot differentiate between read and unread mails. The contrast is just not good enough and both read as well as unread mails blend together. This makes the new Gmail look horrible and there are significant number of people who hate the new look Gmail as it has lost its soul. And if you’re trying to suggest to use those HD themes, then you’ll be disappointed to know that those themes don’t work any better and majority of color themes are too girly to use. Someday, this ‘clean look’ will surely let you miss your important mails, resulting in something detrimental to your business prospects.
Reason#2 Consider this – You have absolutely limited seconds prior to a meeting to either move your important business conversation to your priority inbox or label it. And there you go; Google has thrown in icon-only design, which really is quite cryptic and takes lot of time to get on terms with it. How can spam button be denoted by an octagon with an exclamation inside it? The icon-only design is much suited for tablets and netbooks. To be precise, it’s apt for devices with smaller screen that will create less clutter, but how can Google designers consider that icons are better off for every screen. Needless to say, if you find it difficult to memorize symbols for their actions, your business will be on course to doom.
Reason#3 They’ve tried to merge it all into one. Can you find any dividing lines between your left menu plus chats and your mail content? Or can you find any differentiating aspect between your mail copy and the ads on right side of your screen? It’s just like a kid’s notebook, no starting point or no ending one; just nonstop contents running all around. A messy mailbox all around with similar contrast throughout the screen. Why is Google trying so hard to create pain in our eyes? The buttons to mark mails as important/unimportant have been removed and are now merged into the drop down of ‘More’ button. Even the calendar and quicklinks features now appear at the bottom. These may appear small changes to many, but for businesses who have used Gmail since years are hard-hit by these ‘once upon a time’ easy to use features.
Reason#4 Set the display density of your mailbox to comfortable and voila, half the labels disappear. To make them appear back again, you have to scroll your mouse pointer over the labels and the rest of them appear, but again the chat list ‘just about’ disappears. Now, to see your entire chat list and all labels at a time, you are required to change the display density to either Cozy or Compact, which will open up labels and chat list but these options make the mailbox look cluttered. So, if you want to check your past chats with your client and at the same time see which of your clients are online, then you Just Cannot do that.
Reason#5 The video which explains the new look Gmail ends with a statement – “Hope you love the new design as much as we do”. A trademark Apple and Steve Jobs statement copied by Google. But sorry to say Google, no one out there loves the new Gmail, as an improved user interface means doing more in less clicks and not vice versa which is exactly what the new version offers. And in this lightening fast world, no one wants to lag behind and figure out the hideous design provided by you.
It’s extremely baffling to decipher why Google is messing up with their interface when they’ve been considered as the masters of UI. Maybe, they’re too tired of technology now and they want us to move back centuries and consider sending our messages via pigeons.
