The new-look Gmail debacle. An un-usability case study

April 18, 2013 • Glenn Murray

Well, the new-look Gmail sux. 🙁

In fact, in all my years, I’ve never seen such a big step backwards in usability when ‘upgrading’ to a new version of a product.

Sadly, I’m sure I’ll find plenty more examples over the coming days/weeks/months/years, but here’s a list of the things that jumped out and bit me on the nose from the get-go…

1) Can’t see signature without clicking

Google’s been ‘trimming’ content (i.e. signatures) from received emails for a long while. That was bad enough! But now they’re trimming it from emails WHILE YOU’RE REPLYING too. That may sound like a good idea, but in practice, it’s a nightmare. What if my signature hasn’t been added correctly? What if it’s the wrong signature? What if it hasn’t been added at all? Without clicking the ‘Show trimmed content’ button, you simply can’t tell…

You have to click this…

… to see this!

And once you’ve displayed your trimmed content, you can’t hide it again (which leads to the next problem)…

2) I added an attachment. Where did it go?

This is the worst issue I’ve noticed so far. When you add an attachment it now goes to the bottom of the email instead of appearing in message header section. This is fine for a new message, but in a long thread, WHERE YOU’VE CLICKED TO SHOW TRIMMED CONTENT, it’s a nightmare! You have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll, just to see if it was added correctly. And who doesn’t have long threads!?

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3) Extra click to format your email

“Want to format your email? That’s great! We’ve made it harder for you!” Instead of simply clicking the relevant tool in the header/toolbar section of the email, you now have to click the ‘Formatting options’ button first, to reveal them.

You have to click this…

… to reveal these

4) Extra click to see the sender account

This is a problem if you send from multiple email accounts. When you’re composing a reply, and you want to see or change the account you’re sending it from, you have to click the recipient’s name. The RECIPIENT’S name! Then the sender details are revealed.

You have to click this…

… to reveal this

5) Extra click to reply-all

When you’re composing a reply and you decide it should be a reply-all, you have to click ‘Type of response’ to reveal the Reply-all option. (This used to be a one-click operation.)

You have to click this…

… to reveal this

6) Extra click to add a canned response

When you’re composing an email and you want to add a canned response, it’s now a 2-click operation…

You have to click this…

… to reveal this

Where’s the usability testing?

I can’t believe any of this was put through serious usability testing! Not with serious users, anyway.

Have you seen any other usability issues with the new-look Gmail?

If you’ve seen any more usability issues with it, please comment below. I’m sure there are plenty! Have at it!