/mail/community?hl=en
/mail/community?hl=en
1/4/12
Original Poster
Sarah

General feedback on Gmail's new look

Hi everyone, this thread is for sharing feedback on Gmail's new look. It is a continuation of a previous discussion, linked below.

The team and I are very interested in your thoughts on how the new look can be improved (I know you have them!). If you have specific concerns or pieces of feedback, I encourage you to find or start a thread. You can find a list of existing feedback threads below. If you start a new one, post it in this thread and I'll add it to the list.

If you have general feedback, you can share it in a reply here. Keep in mind that we will be retiring the old look, so the best feedback describes specific things you like or dislike or want to change. For any particular issue, I can't promise that we'll agree; but we are paying close attention and working on making Gmail better.

You can temporarily revert to the old look by clicking the lower gear menu next to < >. However, we will be retiring the old look soon; we will not be keeping the old look indefinitely. From the old look, you can return to the new look by clicking the link at the bottom right corner of your inbox (if you don't see it, close Tasks and chat windows).

Important note -- please make sure you are really using Gmail's new look. If you see overlapping boxes, you are experiencing a problem with Internet Explorer compatibility mode. If you see a blue "Compose Mail" link and blue linked messages, you are likely on an unsupported browser and have been redirected to our Basic HTML version of Gmail. A number of other problems can be corrected by disabling browser extensions or adjusting your settings, so please read this post first:

Also, some features have changed slightly. For example, Oldest/Newest is now accessed by clicking on 1-50 of N next to the < > buttons. If you can't find something from the old look, be sure to check this guide to the changes:

***Specific feedback threads***

Text vs. icon buttons

Profile pictures/avatars

Terminal theme
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All Replies (999)
1/4/12
Original Poster
Sarah
This thread is a continuation of the attached discussion.
Floydian
1/4/12
Floydian
It can be improved by either
A) Not forcing its acceptance amongst users who clearly have no interest in your ultimate goal, but rather wish to read their emails and GET ON WITH THEIR LIVES
B) Adding the old look as a theme, so that the users who actually like the new look can merrily use it, while the ones that don't like it can continue on with the old look.

or
C) Alienate half your customers, cause a large percentage to leave, reduce your advertising revenue, encourage boycotts like what happened with GoDaddy.... But hey you did what the oblivious boss man said to do, right?
leo1969
1/4/12
leo1969
What?  This is BS!  It is done solely to not let this thread to grow larger!
Floydian
1/4/12
Floydian
Since you'll ignore that first post (like a good male honeybee), here are suggestions to improve the new look

1) Put english in the buttons. If I can't speak English, I'll change my language. We're not driving down the highway at 100 km/h, so we don't need universal symbols
2) Less abrupt lines and better colour themes


Ah who am I kidding... The new looks just sucks. There is nothing good about it, at all. Nothing you do to it would convince me that it is in any way, shape, or form an improvement of the old look.

1/4/12
Original Poster
Sarah
Hi FokkersTwinx2, sorry if the change snuck up on you. We announced it in our blog in June and released a preview theme at that time, started giving users the option to switch in November, and also added a banner notification to make sure you knew it was coming. You are right that we did move you to the new version by default; we want to make sure everyone sees it and can switch back and forth before we retire the older version.

We won't be keeping the old version, but we are working on improvements to the new version based on all the feedback we've seen here and through our feedback forms.
1/4/12
Original Poster
Sarah
Hey Floydian, thanks for sharing those details. There's a thread about the buttons, which I linked from the post at the top. For lines and themes, if you find or start a thread about that issue, I'd be happy to add it to the list above.

Best,
Sarah
Floydian
1/4/12
Floydian
WHY won't you be keeping the old version?
WHY won't you be keeping the old version?
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There... I hope that you actually see the question this time. You've ignored it long enough Sarah.
hubeand
1/4/12
hubeand
Why the hell did you guys with this authistic nerd change what I did not want to be changed.
I hate these unasked for changes that are of NO held in making it better,
arrogant behavior
bebyrd
1/4/12
bebyrd
I have an issue with the menus Scrolling is super slow. There's also a significant delay between what I hover over with the the mouse in menus and the reaction of the menu. Get it right. Get it tight. Especially if you're going to stick me with it please.
cltguy81
1/4/12
cltguy81
Why does the new look use more than 15MB more RAM when loaded in Chrome than the old gmail?   Anyone else notice this? I loaded in Chrome.  

https://plus.google.com/u/0/107006336701161630848/posts

Overall the new gmail is fine, except that it is a mess to look at, the contrast is terrible, the readability is pathetic, themes do not fix the imperishably placed toolbar, the placement, size, and color of the Important Bullet/Arrow is a huge distraction and eyesore, the load time is slower, but more importantly the benefit of the new look vs the old look is non-existent.  I want to see email, not google+.  Google+ sucks, I tried it, I don't get it, the only thing I've used it for thus far is the above message.  Circles?  That's what the new look is doing to gmail - it's driving me in circles looking for a new email client.
988 MORE
Somnath.
1/29/12
Somnath.
ECOTech,

Magnificent post, my friend!!! Google's recent fall from favor seems sudden, rapid and spectacular; coinciding with the anointment of Mr. Page as CEO. 

The essence of power lies in its abuse. While Google' recent redesigning has caused repercussions among its long standing committed user-base, its obnoxious attitude has led to fragmentation and migration; and I believe the implementation of their new user policy would do no favors in stemming this exodus. Personally, when I perform a search, I expect true and fair results and the ability to pick and decide among them for myself, not Google's version of what I deem relevant. Much like GMail, the scope of user customization in GSearch is drastically reduced over time and seem to affect our perception of Google as a provider of accurate services.

Hope this stops being the nightmare it seems currently. I would hate to see Google be the Titanic a hundred years on!

With my best wishes, 


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