Gmail, you can be better. You should be better!
My name is Ofer Ariel, and I’m an entrepreneur, product designer (UX/UI), and many other things. Organizing my emails is a significant part of my day (like for most of you I guess…) — read, write, archive, delete…
I’ve been using emails since forever. I started with Hotmail, then moved to Gmail in 2014.
About 2 years ago I started to use “Inbox by Gmail,” another Google email service, and kind of a Gmail brother. Now, the new Gmail UI has brought me back to using Gmail again.
In this “opinion article,” I’m going to go over some missing features in the new Gmail UI (Desktop version) and additions that could make Gmail much more efficient and productive.
1. Snooze emails
2. Compose an email
3. Navigate between old emails (pages)
4. View by
5. File preview
6. Design
Where it all began
On April 1, 2004, Google “gave birth” to her new child, Gmail. It wasn’t clear if it was just an April fool’s joke or if it was the real thing!
Gmail’s new offering was a free web-mail service with not less than 1GB email storage! Today it doesn’t sound like a big thing, but back in 2004, when other web-mail services like Hotmail were giving only 10–50 MB, it was a huge thing. On the day after, people around the world, including myself, were excited that this wasn’t an April fool’s joke and tried to get an invitation to use Gmail, which was the method Google used to distribute Gmail. Quickly, it became one of the most popular email client services in the world!
Let’s start talking about Gmail UX/UI
Gmail has had only 2 big interface changes since its launch in 2004. The first one was in 2011, and the second one, which I’m sure you know about, was just a month ago on April 25th, 2018.
On October 22, 2014, Google announced “Inbox by Gmail,” another Google email service and a kind of Gmail brother. To this day it’s not entirely clear what is the exact purpose of this service. There are discussions about this subject all over the web.
“Inbox by Gmail” has brought with it many new features! Fresh design, file preview, snooze, and more… but it is far from perfect and I will elaborate on this later in this article.
Take Gmail and make it better!
At the beginning of March, I started thinking about what UX/UI (user experience/user interface) changes the Gmail product team can do in order to improve Gmail, making it more efficient and designed better.
What would I do if I got the mission to “Take Gmail and make it better!” ?
I chose some of the key features that could be better for the users and started thinking of ways to improve them.
To my surprise, during my process of improving Gmail, on April 11, 2018,
I started to read rumors that Gmail is going to launch a new Interface.
Just as a reminder, I started to work on “making Gmail better” a month before. I decided to not stop and to continue working on my mission.
I thought it would be interesting to see what changes the Gmail team would do and if my mission would stay relevant.
Spoiler alert — my changes are still relevant :)
I started with a quick sketching of my new Gmail layout while considering all the new features I wanted to add. I also thought about how to make the UI more “clean,” based on Google Material Design guidelines.
New and Improved features to increase our productivity
I’m using Gmail on a daily basis, for work and personal needs, and one of the things that is most important to me is being productive and efficient.
So let’s start talking about features that can increase our productivity and deal with the number of emails we receive every day.
1.Deal with this email later! (Snooze)
Most of you probably use or have heard about the snooze/Boomerang feature.
For those who haven’t, it’s a simple way to remove an email from your Inbox and return it whenever you want.
For many years, I’ve been using Boomerang (a third party chrome extension for Gmail) to help me delay specific emails to the right time. All that time, I have been wondering, why didn’t Gmail add this obvious and necessary feature to Gmail?
Boomerang’s way is crooked. When the time you set for the email arrives, Boomerang sends you a message within the thread to bounce it up. If you do it multiple times in the same email, you get a long, useless thread.
It’s supposed to be pretty easy for Gmail to embed this feature.
When I started using “Inbox by Gmail,” I was glad that Google heard our wishes — they added the snooze feature!
The new snooze! Yay! Let’s check it out…
When can I snooze an email? The current snooze has useless predefined sets of snooze times and a custom date picker.
Where is the cool feature that Boomerang has: “snooze it if no one replays”?
Another important feature is missing: “Send Later,” an option to send and return an email at your chosen time
Ok, Google (don’t say that out loud if you are near a Google device, as you will wake up Google Assistant 😋), it’s a good direction, but there are some improvements that need to be done.
Woo hoo! We got the new Gmail UI!
Gmail probably got feedback about the snooze feature in “Inbox by Gmail” and about its limitations. So the new Gmail must be better!
Hold on… what a shame, it’s identical to Inbox…
My Snooze solution
- Let the user decide
What is the best time to set for him? - Snooze only if no one replays
Keep track of missions you are in charge of. - Remember user selection
For each time period (by the hour/day/week/month) — users are usually using the same snooze time. - Send and snooze
Send an email and snooze it later or send an email to your future self: “Hi, it’s me from the past…”
2. Composing email (can be much more efficient)
Composing an email is one of the basic needs of an email service, and Gmail didn’t add a significant change for a long time.
If you read the latest Gmail updates, you can see that some cool features are about to come, like autocomplete, self-destruction, password protected, and more…
It’s all great improvements, but I wanted to challenge the familiar composing and search for something more suitable for 2018…
While thinking about that, I remembered “Medium” blog writing; they have a unique and great UX way to write emails.
My Compose solution
- Add components while writing
To add a file, smiley, image, bullets, etc., you will need to go to the bottom of the email every time. Instead, I added everything to be closer to you.
- Shortcuts
If you are a pro user using shortcuts, you can press Alt + [Number] and it will add the chosen component.
- Text style
Text styling is also located at the bottom of the compose window.
My solution is to load it when you highlight a text.
- Compose window
Not a feature, just a nice way the compose window opens, shrinks, and closes.
3.Pages of Pages of Pages
Searching for an older email while going between pages — can it be slower than that? It’s an old-fashioned way and does not suit our desire for quick interactions; it’s the “old internet” UX, and Gmail had to update it in the new interface.
My pages solution
Remove pages navigation; instead, use a modern way that could “lazy load.” This means when the user scrolls to the bottom of the page, it loads older emails. You can see that in use on many platforms — Facebook, Instagram, blogs, and a lot more.
4.View by…
Why does this not exist? I “converted” many Outlook users to using Gmail, took them hand in hand and helped them to know all the cool things Gmail has and the replacements for the Outlook features they were used to.
But when I encountered the question:
“How can I group by day/sender…?”
I was stuck with a little shy smile 😏 and suggested they use “search” for those things, but I knew it was not the solution they really wanted.
My “View by” solution
Add a simple and a quick way to view email by Dates/Sender/Domain/Read-Unread and remember the user’s choice, until he changes it again.
5.File preview (the icing on the cake)
And to the final feature, but one of the important features,
which is (🥁drum roll…) File preview! Many times I have wondered why I can’t know what type of file I have in a specific email.
I found a Chrome extension that shows me the file type, but just one.
When “Inbox” released, I was so excited they thought about this issue, but after working with this on a large scale of emails and attachments, I realize it’s not a perfect solution. It’s making you see fewer emails in one shot, changing the email rows height, and causing a big mess to the interface.
When I saw the new Gmail solution I was happy to see they made it better than “Inbox,” but still, it makes the email list too messy. There is an option to make the view “compact,” but then you loss the file preview.
My File preview solution
- See how many files you have.
- What are the files types?
- A quick way to preview files.
6.Design improvements
I will finish with some design improvements. You’ve already seen my designs for the improved features, but I wanted to explain a bit more about some of the stuff, if you don’t mind continuing to read a bit more. 😁
Have you ever thought, why do you have to look to the left side of the screen, to the end on the right side, and do it again and again and again for each email?
We spend too much time going over our emails. I wanted to create an easier view of the email row list from top to bottom, to see who is the sender as well as the subject.
My suggestion is
- Remove email snipped
Not helpful enough and fills the email list with too much information. - Add a profile image
It will be easier to recognize the sender
Conclusions and summary
After using the new Google UI for a while, I have to say that there has been a significant improvement from the old Gmail, but all my suggestions in this article stay the same as I planned before the release of the new Gmail:
- Snooze
Needs to be smarter with a quicker option to customization. - Compose an email
Despite all the new additions, something more efficient and innovative can be done. - Going through pages of old emails
Needs to make some transformation. - View by
Many users want this feature Gmail, you can do that! We are waiting. - File preview
It’s in a better place now, but it could be much better. - Design
The new Gmail is cleaner, but I think it needs to be even cleaner and have some fun animation added in, to bring some smiles to the user.
Something I want you to take from this article:
Never assume that the current service/product or anything else is working like it should work, and even if it’s a big company like Google, there are still many things that can be better!
If you are working in a company as a Product/UX/UI designer or in any other position that can affect the final product, make sure that people hear your voice. Your opinion matters!
Even if you are a new employee, don’t think that your opinion is less important than that of an experienced employee!
I hope you enjoyed reading this article.
Please write your thoughts in the Responses section below, about my suggestions and whether you have other things you think Gmail can improve. Who knows, maybe this article will reach the relevant people at Google. 😁
