New Gmail buttons: usability issues?
Written by Verne on February 4th, 2009This morning I got into the office and checked my Gmail as I normally do. To my surprise, I found out that Gmail had pushed out an update overnight that redesigned the web app’s buttons. While they definitely look sleeker, I’m wondering whether they look more or less like buttons now. Are there usability implications?
The buttons pre-redesign were actually unstyled (similar to Google’s search buttons, pictured left) – they took the default look of buttons in your OS (grey rounded-corner rectangles for Windows users, grey/glossy pill-like shapes for Mac users). From a usability standpoint, these buttons made the most sense and were most natural and recognizeable to the user (after all, they’re used to seeing them in most of their desktop applications and prompts). You knew by looking at it that it was a button. Plain and simple.
The buttons post-redesign are now a bit sleeker (pictured right) – flattened down with a solid grey border, slightly rounded corners (~1 pixel radius), and a subtle gradient to mimic the button’s convex surface.
For a web-savvy user, the redesign has little effect. If anything, web-savvy users would probably enjoy the new look more. But for more casual users, are the newly-redesigned buttons still obviously buttons? Would less web-savvy users confuse the buttons for tabs?
There are definitely subtleties between buttons, tabs, and text links. Each sort of have their own implied conventions and purpose. Does the redesign blur these differences in any way?
Thoughts?
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 11:53 am and is filed under creative briefings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Stacia
February 4th, 2009 at 12:13 pmI think another usability issue is that the drop-downs and buttons look exactly alike, apart from the black triangle on the drop-downs. I do like the search at the top of the drop-downs, though.
I always thought the Gmail buttons were ugly because they were unstyled, but then again I don’t think Google’s designs are ever very attractive, and styled form controls usually suck. Yahoo Mail’s buttons and drop-downs don’t have this problem, even though they are stylized. Maybe the icons make Yahoo’s nicer?
Verne
February 4th, 2009 at 1:21 pmYou make a really good point about the dropdowns looking exactly like the rest of the buttons – I totally overlooked that!
I agree that Gmail (or any Google app) buttons are somewhat ugly, but their principle of simplicity always justified the basic look. I think this is one of the few times I’ve seen Google try to style buttons on one of their apps.
As for Yahoo Mail – I just tried it out for the first time after reading your comment. It definitely offers a richer UI in terms of visual cues and icons/graphics. However, the buttons are formless until you mouseover them – not sure what the implications of that are.
I consider myself web savvy, so either button convention (Gmail’s or Yahoo’s) makes sense to me. I’d be interested in seeing a side by side comparison of a non-web-savvy user’s response to them though.
PS – Yahoo Mail’s tab feature is kickass. First time I’ve seen something like that in a web-based mail application.
Stacia
February 4th, 2009 at 1:29 pmYes – I’ve felt that Yahoo’s UI has consistently been better than Google’s in both form and function. Possibly losing that was one of the scariest parts of the attempted MS takeover.
I think another interesting thing about Gmail’s buttons is that now people think that Gmail supports folders. There’s still no folders, it’s still the old labels. But because you can now “move to” a label, it feels more like a folder. At least, I assume that’s why I have a gchat friend with her status set to “glad gmail finally has folders”.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/gmail-adds-folders-by-improving-label.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10155688-2.html
Rob
February 4th, 2009 at 10:30 pmMaybe they are working toward their Chrome Theme.
Marcin Petruszka
February 5th, 2009 at 12:55 pmHi,
I have to admit that for me Gmail is getting visually better lately. First they introduced the Themes (I hated the original Gmail look so I switched to Shiny instantly :) Now the buttons.
I do agree that it’s pretty easy to mistake the buttons for dropdowns and vice versa. But i do not find it a bad thing. In my opinion those buttons get Gmail closer to a desktop app, and they are more distinct. I clearlu recognize buttons for buttons (and AFAIR those were plain links before the change). It’s much bettr this way. The dropdowns of Labels and Move to could be differentiated somehow, but it’s a minor thing for my personaly.
The thing that drives me nuts is the use of those triangles though! if you look at the whole Gmail UI they have at leats four different sizes and shapes! This makes no sense. They do not scale with the text size and sometimes they aree bigger than the labet they are stuck to (like with the more link on the very top of the page) sometimes they are smaller (Like with the Reply dropdown/button :) and on those new buttons the triangles are quite small but plain black which makes them visually more important than the name of the button. Ugly.
That say you?
February UX Roundup | UX Booth
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:33 am[...] New Gmail buttons: usability issues? [...]
UX Digest - User Experience Blog - Creattica Daily
March 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 am[...] Also of interest is his recent post on the usability implications of the new Gmail buttons. [...]
Dmitry
March 4th, 2009 at 4:33 pmI’m a web savvy user and I dislike the update. It has good intentions, but the execution is poor. Now, they all look too similar; you have a row of buttons packed right next to each other which all look identical. Getting rid of differentiation doesn’t lead to a better user experience as you now have to think more about the buttony you’re pressing — you don’t want to hit the Delete by accident. Not only that, the drop downs look the same as well, making the problem even worse. I’m all for making Gmail look prettier, but the graphical elements should introduce differentiation between buttons, with color, shapes, and whitespace — not make all controls look the same.
Jeff
March 9th, 2009 at 10:46 amTotally agree with Dimitry. I feel like there is a needed change, but the execution is definitely lacking. I love Gmail and its functionality, but I think the interface could use some refining on the design side to improve the user interaction.
dave
February 9th, 2010 at 9:23 pmI am a usability expert from Australia. Clearly, you’ve too much time on your hands. Good luck!