Same thing happened with Google maps a couple of years ago. They changed the UI to one a lot less functional, gave users an option to use the old UI for a while, then took it away. Now we're stuck with gmaps that are much worse than they used to be.<p>Product managers at Google (and everywhere else) don't get promoted for leaving good products alone.
The UI is horrible and it has already been discussed in many places, but to me the slowness is the no.1 problem. I thought it was just a hiccup when they had it on optional mode, but now it's plain slow. I've tried on different connections and different browsers and they all seem to generate the same result. Super slow loading times of the interface and the emails.
I still remember when gmail was the fastest kid on the block or when they've optimized chrome for a faster gmail. But now I'm really looking into alternatives.
Last week I've switched from chrome to firefox because of the synced login thing, and gmail will be a bit more complex to change instantly but I'll surely find a way.
If you've got a reasonably fast connection and machine, the "load basic HTML (for slow connections)" link at bottom right disappears almost instantly when loading the Gmail web interface.<p>You can use this direct link to the basic HTML version:<p><a href="http://mail.google.com/mail/h/" rel="nofollow">http://mail.google.com/mail/h/</a><p>but Google's not quite done with you yet, presenting this message along with two buttons:<p><i>Do you really want to use HTML Gmail?</i><p><i>You’re about to use a version of Gmail designed for slower connections and legacy browsers. To get all of Gmail’s features, including inbox categories, images, and quick actions, please use the latest version of Gmail (recommended).</i><p><i>Take me to latest Gmail | I'd like to use HTML Gmail</i><p>Selecting the latter button allows you to enjoy an interface from a simpler time.
Speaking personally (I happen to work at Google, but not on mail):<p>The combinatorics of supporting multiple versions of a product get expensive very quickly. It's the same reason that web platform changes now affect evergreen browsers directly (even with the occasional breaking change), rather than introducing more modes like quirks and strict.<p>Every variant you introduce grows the surface area for bugs and security issues, and adds at least one more case to consider when implementing new functionality. Even if you froze the featureset in the old UI, you'd still need to maintain compatibility with it as the backend evolves. It's not as simple as just leaving the old codebase running on a server somewhere.<p>If Google wanted to invest in multiple mail products, it wouldn't have end-of-lifed Inbox.
Interesting. I switched to the new Gmail, and I actually can't remember what the old one looked like already. I'm sure Google will do just fine ignoring all these requests and their billion+ users will adapt.
Seen this type of comment thread before countless times on the Google support forum. They'll placate the complainers by saying they're listening to feedback and then only pay heed to the positive comments and not change a thing. De rigeur for businesses. The general type of dishonesty is quite amazing. Yes, people are maybe excessively resistant to change, but when everyone is telling you something sucks, your customers, who do you listen to, them or your marketing department, oh wait, don't answer that.
It just force-updated for me. I had clicked the "wait two weeks" (or however many weeks) prompts, delaying the inevitable, but had thought I would at least still be able to click the "revert" button as soon as the change occurred. There was no button this time.<p>So I clicked through to the "simple HTML" version as soon as the link presented itself at the bottom of the fancy new splash screen and have been a little less unhappy ever since.<p>Now I just need to quit talking about it and finally finish my move out of Google's house. Everything else is out except for the email. The damn email.
I don’t understand why gmail ties their functionality to skins so much in gmail. This is the third time they’ve forced a UI change for no functional reason, just that they wanted easier maintenance.<p>I really got bugged in 2011 when they got rid of their terminal theme [0].<p>I don’t think this is a UI issue, I think it’s just poor design where a skin would somehow not perform well. It seems pretty easy to maintain different simple skins or to provide an API.<p>[0] <a href="https://productforums.google.com/forum/?noredirect=true#!topic/gmail/k8IpCevPTpI" rel="nofollow">https://productforums.google.com/forum/?noredirect=true#!top...</a>
This is one of those things where I'm baffled by how strongly people feel about the re-design. In fact it doesn't even feel like a 're-design' to me since the layout is more or less identical to the previous version. I've had zero issues with using the updated look and I actually enjoy that it looks more modern now. If you don't like it, why not just switch to an actual email client and forget about the web interface?
It's funny, I absolutely love Inbox, but that's going away in favor of the "improved" Gmail which supposedly incorporated many things from Inbox - but I can't stand the new Gmail either.
Scrolling the list of emails is very choppy on Safari, and works on Chrome and Firefox. How annoying. We're entering a new browser monoculture where something only has to work on Chrome :/<p>I think it's a good time to test out a few self-hosted email clients, perhaps storing emails on a mail server that retrieves incoming mail from gmail, and sends out via gmail as well to avoid the authentication/blacklisting/spam filtering hassles.<p>RainLoop looks pretty good for a web client. Any suggestions on clients or mail servers (only to fetch mail from gmail or outlook)?
My biggest problem with the new UI is the font. Roboto, or whatever font they are using, is terrible to read a lot of small text. I wish the font could be set to Helvetica or disable web fonts for Gmail.
Not sure how many people have noticed, but there are 3 Gmail UIs that I've been seeing in the past few weeks. One is the entirely-new UI, one is the classic UI, and one is a subtly-modified version of the classic UI. It's hard to distinguish between the last two, but one way to tell is if you see "Sent" instead of the usual "Sent Mail". For some reason I seem to be switched back-and-forth between the two occasionally. I'm confused why they even improved that UI though, since it seems they want to shift everyone to the new UI.<p>And of course I hate the new UI. The information density is low and the graphics are (e.g. the Important and Star markers) visibly blurry under non-96 DPI.
I don't mind the UI so much, besides the speed. My issue is that sometimes it just doesn't work. I click on an email to open it and nothing happens, even if I wait a while. I end up having to reload the page. It's somewhat frustrating.
I'm a big fun of the latest GMail and of the modern Google Map. I think, their changes are usually based on thorough UX research. It is normal, there are a strong minority, who cannot get used to new user interfaces and cannot accept changes... Luckily there are alternative services, so they can use something else. ;)
The symbolic language they've added was the last straw for me. Gmail is the last Google product I'm using and I'm now working on getting away from it. I really can't tell what each button does now without a label, and I've lost a few mails due to it.
I prefer email clients to web-mail. I have multiple email addresses so I use email clients to manage my accounts; contacts, calendar, meeting schedule lookups, view multiple mail accounts, reply from multiple mail accounts, less passwords to remember etc.<p>Even though I'm using something else, Eudora still rocks by the way. <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/" rel="nofollow">http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/the-eudora-email-client...</a>
I don’t consider there to be anything technically interesting here, neither with regard to design. Flag and move on.<p>As others have mentioned: a vocal minority always dislike UI changes, but in six months it will be the new normal.<p>One thing I will say though, it’s starting to look like we’ve run out of <i>good</i> UI changes and what we’re served up now is the refried beans / day old reheated leftovers of UI design.<p>Anyway, the elephant in the room is: move away from Gmail / free email services. Email, for me, is way too important to have no paid support.
For me it's not about look but speed: Gmail simply can't put text in the compose box as fast as I can type it.<p>Gmail is the slowest web app I use.<p>From what I've read Google, for whatever reason, don't care about Gmail perf and use slow deprecated APIs in Firefox and Edge even when faster ones are available. The DOM looks like garbage with massive amounts of unnecessary elements.<p>It's basically the opposite pf everything every Chrome Developer Advocate says about web performance.
I still have the option to use old gmail thankfully.<p>They did the same thing to YouTube, however there is a nice Chrome extension to force the old version.
The main gmail.com now forces me to use the horrible new design. However, I manage a for-pay Google apps domain (@sagemath.com) for my company, and it still lets me use the classic look. Does anybody know if I will also be forced to switch to the new horrible design for my for-pay Google apps domain? The new Gmail design actually gives me a pretty intense sense of <i>motion sickness</i> -- I feel I have a genuine accessibility issue with it and really hate it, and will have to consider migrating off of gmail if they don't provide their classic UI.
- It's <i>slow</i><p>- It's <i>ugly</i><p>- It's a <i>bad UX</i><p>I am so disappointed that this one is the first complaint about a software I'm writing after Windows ME. So, a "welcome" to GMail ME. Please, Google correct it or give us back the previous version.
I can't stand the new gmail. It's ridiculously slow and doesn't do anything new. The trick I've been using to get around having to use the new interface is using the mobile interface instead. Here's the link:<p><a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp" rel="nofollow">https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp</a><p>You might have to log out completely. It works consistently when I open it in a private window on Firefox 62. Also you'll probably get a prompt to install the mobile app, just click the "not interested" link at the bottom of the page. Your mileage may vary.
I call it Death by Redesign - <a href="https://www.alexkras.com/death-by-redesign/" rel="nofollow">https://www.alexkras.com/death-by-redesign/</a>
In 2012 I switched back to running my own e-mail. I realize there are reliability issues sending stuff out to Google/Microsoft (and yes, I have the correct DKIM, SPF and DMARC records), but I'm still happier running my own.<p>I use Thunderbird and Roundcube, but I could also use Evolution if I wanted to or Microsoft Mail on my Windows machine or even fire up Squirlmail in a docker container.
If this makes even one user switch away from gmail, that'll be a win in my book. I hope Google continues treating their users and products like garbage, until none are left.
Why not use a desktop/mobile mail client of your choice to access gmail over open protocols? Then they can clown up the web UI all they want and it won't matter to you.
Am I blind or what? I have not noticed a single change to my account, not at least in the last 2 weeks. Is there a screenshot of said changes I can check?
“Everything is round”<p>The only way to settle this one, is to wait for one of the following groups of people to go extinct:<p>- those who like round things
- those who like rectangles
The average user doesn't even know what SSL is, yet we are discussing round boxes in Gmail and 2+ second delay. Literally, no one cares, google knows this too.<p>Yet another meaningless google discussion.
The thing is that someone saying "I don't like the new UI" doesn't say anything. Always when you change something that more than 10 people use at least one person will be unhappy with a change.<p>What they hopefully do is check the metrics, e.g. of how many people switch to desktop mail clients and basic html view.<p>And honestly the new UI doesn't disrupt my workflow that much. You can like or not like the roundedness or that it got slower, but the workflow can stay almost the same. Therefore I'd say the current change is at least better then when they switched to teh Google-plus-everything mode a few years ago and fucked up all processes and all static links.