Google+ is Killing My Beloved Gmail | Hacker News Reader

Google+ is Killing My Beloved Gmail

avocadopress.com

10 pointspuranjay6 comments

The fundamental misunderstanding in the article is that these redesigns are all for Google+. They aren't. Google is establishing a brand identity across all it's products- Google+ falls within that, but it isn't the cause of anything.

To be honest, I don't see anything in the article other than "I don't like change". They replaced the blues with reds? Yes, they did. It shouldn't have a dramatic effect on your productivity, should it? And the whitespace issue will go on forever, I suspect. Personally, I love the whitespace. Others do not.

They replaced a working product with a broken design.

Remember how tactile the old layout felt? Clicking on a new email link felt like clicking on an new email link

Now, it feels far too much like Amazon.

It's like working on a crappy Nokia phone with a bad touchscreen.

And here's my point: in trying to race Facebook, Google is breaking products that work (worked) perfectly well for 99% of users. That's simply put, Google getting confused.

But you've ignored my point- their redesign has nothing to do with competing against Facebook. They are standardising their design across all their sites, that's all.

I don't understand in what way it feels like Amazon, or how it is less tactile than the old design. Seems exactly the same to me.

Again, the standardization was required to keep up with the Google+ design - a direct Facebook competitor. Larry Page even went out to declare that all of Google will now revolve around 'social' - and we are beginning to see that already. The social features in Google reader are broken and crappy. While the same social features are absent from Gmail for now, the design persists, only because Google+ demands it.

> And you know what hurts? > You won’t let me keep that old design permanently.

I'd wager that's because they don't want to have two Gmail teams for all perpetuity, making sure that changes work in both designs.

Um remove whitespaces by choosing compact setting. Problem solved.

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