Official Gmail Blog
News, tips and tricks from Google's Gmail team and friends.
Introducing Gmail Tap
April 1, 2012
Posted by Reed Morse, Software Engineer
The QWERTY keyboard was invented in 1874 and yet it is still used today, largely unchanged. Today we're excited to introduce a new input method designed for the future: Gmail Tap for Android and iOS. Watch the video for an overview:
Gmail Tap takes the keyboard from 26 keys to just two. Every letter of the alphabet is represented by a simple pattern of dots and dashes, and once you know them you can type without even looking at your screen. This makes it ideal for situations where you need to discreetly send emails, such as when you're on a date or in a meeting with your boss.
We're also introducing a new mode, multi-email. Double your productivity by typing multiple emails at once:
To get started with Gmail Tap, head over to our
informational page
and
watch our video
. Then let us know what you think on
Google+
.
Learn why a message ended up in your spam folder
March 19, 2012
Posted by Ela Czajka, Software Engineer
Many of our users say the accuracy of our spam filter is one of the key reasons they love Gmail. And while we think you should never have to look in your spam folder, we know some of you may want to know why the messages there were marked as spam.
So starting today, we’ll be showing a brief explanation at the top of each of your spam messages. Simply look at any message in your spam folder and now you can find out why it was put there and learn about any potentially harmful content within the message.
We hope that this is not only interesting, but also helps you learn about scams and other harmful messages that Gmail filters out. Whether you prefer to leave your spam folder untouched or do some educational digging, the information will be there for you. And if you're interested in learning more, check out our
new series of spam articles
in the Gmail help center.
Star and label messages before you send them
March 14, 2012
Posted by Craig Prince, Software Engineer
Have you ever sent an important email that you wanted to follow up on, but a couple days later realized you hadn’t? Starting today, you can organize your messages before sending them by starring them or adding a label, making it easy to keep track of your sent messages.
When composing a new message, you can assign labels or star it by using the labels drop-down menu. As you’d expect, recipients of messages organized this way won’t see your labels or stars.
The Gmail Forum’s new look and first 100k poster
March 13, 2012
Posted by Sarah Price, Gmail Community Manager
The
Gmail Forum
is a place where you can discuss Gmail, get advice, and help each other out. Recently, we've celebrated two major events.
First forum poster to hit 100,000 answers
Everyone needs a little help occasionally, and many of us get a warm, fuzzy feeling when we’re able to provide assistance to someone in need. Brett, or “bkc56” on the forum, has helped so many people he must be on fire! The Gmail team is thrilled to congratulate Brett on becoming the first person to post 100,000 answers in any of our forums.
To celebrate, we invited Brett to come by the Google offices in Mountain View for lunch and a day with the team. While he was here, Brett shared his insights on Gmail, the forum, and the Gmail community; those he met with described his observations as “brilliant” and “invaluable.” He met with Googlers in many different roles, from support specialists and engineers to vice presidents. We learned a lot from speaking with Brett and we are all very grateful that he shared his time with us.
Lunch with the team: Emmanuel, VP; Alex, Product Manager; Mark, Director;
Brett, Top Contributor; Dave, VP; Sarah, Community Manager
Brett is one of our
Top Contributors
, the forum volunteers who are especially knowledgeable and helpful. Remember to say “thanks” if you see them around the forum. Want to lend a hand yourself? Brett suggests “Find a question where you know the answer and post it. Everyone starts with just one helpful post. Perhaps you'll enjoy it and do another, and another, and...”
Launch of the new forum interface
Right on the heels of Brett’s achievement, we launched a
new interface
for the
Gmail Forum
, powered by Google Groups. The update brings new features, including “me too” voting, rich text posts and editing, and easy sharing on Google+. Stop by and check it out, whether you have a question or just want to chat.
Open email links directly in Gmail using Chrome
February 27, 2012
Posted by Michael Davidson, Software Engineer
I used to avoid clicking on email links on the web because an application on my computer that I never used would pop up and interrupt me. Instead, I would copy the email address, switch to Gmail, click compose and paste it in.
Starting today, thanks to the
magic of HTML5
things are getting simpler. Now, when you go to Gmail in Chrome, you will be asked if you want Gmail to open all email links. Say yes, and clicking on email links in any application on your computer will open a fresh Gmail compose window.
You can set Gmail as your default mail client in
Firefox
and
Internet Explorer
, too.
Landing another blow against email phishing
January 29, 2012
Posted by Adam Dawes, Product Manager
Email phishing, in which someone tries to trick you into revealing personal information by sending fake emails that look legitimate, remains one of the biggest online threats. One of the most popular methods that scammers employ is something called
domain spoofing
. With this technique, someone sends a message that seems legitimate when you look at the “From” line even though it’s actually a fake. Email phishing is costing regular people and companies millions of dollars each year, if not more, and in response, Google and other companies have been talking about how we can move beyond the solutions we’ve developed individually over the years to make a real difference for the whole email industry.
Industry groups come and go, and it’s not always easy to tell at the beginning which ones are actually going to generate good solutions. When the right contributors come together to solve real problems, though, real things happen. That’s why we’re particularly optimistic about
today’s announcement
of DMARC.org, a passionate collection of companies focused on significantly cutting down on email phishing and other malicious mail.
Building upon the work of previous mail authentication standards like
SPF
and
DKIM
, DMARC is responding to domain spoofing and other phishing methods by creating a standard protocol by which we’ll be able to measure and enforce the authenticity of emails. With DMARC, large email senders can ensure that the email they send is being recognized by mail providers like Gmail as legitimate, as well as set policies so that mail providers can reject messages that try to spoof the senders’ addresses.
We’ve been active in the leadership of the DMARC group for almost two years, and now that Gmail and several other large mail senders and providers — namely Facebook, LinkedIn, and PayPal — are actively using the DMARC specification, the road is paved for more members of the email ecosystem to start getting a handle on phishing. Our recent data indicates that roughly 15% of non-spam messages in Gmail are already coming from domains protected by DMARC, which means Gmail users like you don’t need to worry about spoofed messages from these senders. The phishing potential plummets when the system just works, and that’s what DMARC provides.
If you’re a large email sender and you want to try out the DMARC specification, you can learn more at the
DMARC website
. Even if you’re not ready to take on the challenge of authenticating all your outbound mail just yet, there’s no reason to not sign up to start receiving reports of mail that fraudulently claims to originate from your address. With further adoption of DMARC, we can all look forward to a more trustworthy overall experience with email.
Improvements to the Gmail offline Chrome app
January 12, 2012
Posted by Dave Stewart, Senior Software Engineer
When we
first announced
Gmail offline last August, we told you that it was only the beginning of our HTML5-powered offline journey. Since then, we’ve been listening to your feedback and today, we want to let you know about some of the key updates we’ve made to the Chrome Web Store app.
The first update - and a personal favorite of the team- is the addition of a settings page (look for the new settings icon
). You can now choose whether you want to synchronize 7, 14 or 31 days worth of mail. So the next time you get on an airplane, you can sit back and tackle up to 31 days of mail all while offline.
We’ve also made a number of other updates to Gmail offline:
Improved attachments
: All attachments are now downloaded and available for offline use
Keyboard shortcuts support
: If you have keyboard shortcuts enabled in Gmail, your setting will transfer over to the Gmail offline app. If you're not sure what you can do with keyboard shortcuts, try pressing ‘?’ next time you’re using Gmail or Gmail offline.
Numerous performance enhancements
: Messages and attachments now download at a faster rate and some bugs have been fixed.
If you haven’t tried it already, you can
install the Gmail offline app
from the Chrome Web Store. If you’re already using Gmail offline, you'll see these improvements the next time you open the app. To get the best experience using Gmail offline, please make sure you are using the latest version of Chrome as some features may not work on older versions.
One more present under the tree—custom
video messages
from Santa
December 20, 2011
Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager
Last Friday
Santa opened up the Ho Ho Hotline and teamed up with Gmail to send
personalized holiday phone calls
to anyone you know who has been nice (or naughty, for that matter) in the U.S. or Canada. In just a few days Santa has made hundreds of thousands of calls to your friends, family and loved ones, and received many a message from you at his Google Voice number (
855-34-SANTA
).
Santa has one more surprise in store. Starting today, anyone in the world can
create and send
a personalized cartoon video message (in English only) from Santa to anyone you know, anywhere in the world, and share them through email and Google+. Watch our sample video below and create your own at
SendaCallFromSanta.com
.
The Gmail team wishes you a happy holiday!
Scribbles for Gmail for mobile - a creative way to email
December 19, 2011
Posted by Donna Dupuis, Software Engineer
From prehistoric humans etching in caves to the modern-day thinker sketching a stroke of genius on a napkin, scribbling is a natural form of human expression. Not constrained by formatting or font styles, scribbling is a versatile outlet for expressing individuality and creativity. Not to mention it's a lot of fun.
Now you can quickly convey that eureka moment to a colleague, or simply brighten a loved one's day with a personal scribble in
Gmail for the mobile web browser
and the
Gmail app for iOS
. In the compose view, click on the scribble button to open up the drawing window. A lightweight interface makes it easy to get your idea down.
Need a bit of inspiration to get started? With the holidays just around the corner, it's a great time to send a handmade, festive greeting:
Or, perhaps your wit is better-expressed pictorially than textually. Use scribbles to send original comics to your friends, or generate a new meme:
Simple requests are that much more appealing from someone who puts in a bit of effort:
It’s also great for simply emoting beyond the limitations of plain text:
At the end of the day, it's a blank canvas. What do you want to share? To get started, head to
mail.google.com
on your iOS 4+, Android 3.1+ or Playbook device, or download the Gmail app for iOS from the
App Store
today.
We want to see what you can do! Send your scribbles to
gmailscribbles@google.com
and then share them with the world using #GmailScribbles.*
Brought to you by the Gmail team. Happy Holidays!
*By emailing your scribble to gmailscribbles@google.com, you give us your permission to upload, share or reproduce your scribble both digitally and physically. Unfortunately, we will not be able to showcase all submitted scribbles, and will have to pick and choose amongst the ones that we receive. Remember: have fun and be cool about it - nothing offensive and nothing that violates the law. Thanks!
Ho-ho-hold the phone: Santa’s on the line
December 16, 2011
Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager
Last year,
Santa got his very own Google Voice number
, and people around the U.S. received a special personalized holiday phone call from Santa Claus.
This year, Santa wants you to reach out to him (after all, reindeer are only so-so conversationalists). If you or your family members have a special request for Santa, you can
call him right from Gmail
* and leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Santa won't be able to return messages himself—it’s a busy time of year for him—but he's promised to keep us up to date on happenings in the North Pole day by day.
You also can
create and send a unique, customized phone call
from Santa to anyone you know, from your nieces and nephews to old college friends, over the phone (to U.S. numbers only).
Listen to a sample phone call
, and send a message of your own from
SendaCallFromSanta.com
.
Of course, Santa is never one to fall behind the technological times (word on the street is that Rudolph’s nose was recently upgraded to an energy-efficient LED). So while the red suit may never go out of style, this year Santa has come up with an extra special way to spread the holiday cheer. But you’ll have to wait until it’s closer to Christmas to find out what it is. So no peeking—but keep checking
the site
!
Happy Holidays from your friends at Gmail.
*Calls from Gmail are free for U.S. and Canadian users, but will cost people outside those areas $.01/minute (plus any applicable VATs).
Cross-posted on the
Official Google Blog
Updates to the Gmail app for iOS
December 14, 2011
Posted by Ingrid Fielker, Software Engineer
When we
launched
the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, we said we were just getting started and would continue to release updates regularly. Today we updated
the app
with some new features and interface improvements.
We've added the ability to set a custom signature for your mobile messages and a vacation responder, both available through the gear icon at the top of the menu view. We've also improved labels with support for nested labels:
Additionally, if you are using iOS 5, we've changed the notification sound so that it’s easier to distinguish when you've received an email.
We’ve also got another fun feature to make your language even more colorful (in a good way!). In the Gmail app and Gmail for mobile you can now open up a canvas and scribble a message that will be attached to your email. It's perfect for sending a quick sketch that is hard to express in words or adding a fun graphic to make your email more personal.
Scribbles support different colors, brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paint. This example was created in the Gmail app on an iPad:
Behind the scenes, we're continuing to work on highly requested features like banner notifications, multiple login support and the ability to send-as from any account already configured in Gmail. We want to make sure these are done right as we continue to improve the Gmail app.
The update is available in the
App Store
and works on all devices running iOS 4+.
Free calling within the US and Canada through 2012
December 13, 2011
Posted by Vincent Paquet, Group Product Manager
As the holiday season approaches, we're happy to announce that we've extended free domestic calls within the US and Canada for 2012.
This is our way of helping you connect with friends and family across the country. And you can still call the rest of the world
from Gmail
at our
insanely low rates
.
Gmail and Contacts get better with Google+
December 8, 2011
Posted by Mark Striebeck, Engineering Director
We want to bring you a great experience across all Google products which, for Gmail and Contacts, means understanding what you care about and delivering it instantly. With that in mind, we’re introducing some new integrations with Google+ that we think will make Gmail and Contacts even better. If you use Google+, you can now grow your circles, filter emails and contacts by circles, keep all your contact information up-to-date automatically and share photos to Google+, all right from Gmail and Contacts.
Grow your circles from your email
Now when you open an email from someone on Google+, you can see the most recent post they’ve shared with you on the right-hand side of the conversation. If they’re not in your circles yet, it’s easy to add them straight from Gmail.
Find information from the people you care about most
Looking for the info on an upcoming family holiday gathering but can't remember who sent it? If you've spent time building your Google+ circles, you can now quickly use them to filter your mail, saving yourself from having to sift through that pile of daily deal emails and newsletters. You can see messages from all of your circles at once or from each individual circle. And if you want, you can show circle names on emails in your inbox. Contacts can also be filtered by circles, making it easier to view your social connections.
Keep your contact information up-to-date automatically
Manually entering contact information can be a huge time drain—so let your circles do it for you. If your contacts have a Google profile, their contact entry in Gmail will be updated with the profile information they’ve shared with you, including phone numbers, email addresses and more. If they change it in the future, you’ll get those updates automatically. You can also make sure the people you care about have your most up-to-date contact information by updating your own Google profile and sharing it.
Share effortlessly without leaving your inbox
Lots of great images are sent through email, but sharing those photos with friends on Google+ used to require downloading the image from Gmail and re-uploading to your profile. Not anymore: Now you can share photo attachments with one quick click. The image(s) will be uploaded to your Google+ photos and be viewable only to the circles that you choose to share with.
We’ll be rolling out all of these changes out over the next few days to Gmail, Gmail Contacts and the “standalone” version of Google Contacts at
contacts.google.com
. Please note that Google Apps users won’t see the Contacts updates quite yet, but we’re actively working to make them available.
All of these features (and the more to come) are the result of the
great discussion
that we had on Google+ with users in July. If you want to join in discussions like these, add the
Gmail Google+ page
to your circles. And if you haven't signed up for Google+ and would like to try these new features, visit
this page
to get started.
Testing Gmail’s new look
December 7, 2011
Posted by Mark Striebeck, Engineering Director
Editor's note: This post, like
yesterday's
, is more technical than most posts here, but we thought some of you might find it interesting to look inside how Gmail works.
Yesterday, we talked about how we make changes like the new look to Gmail. The new look is not just visual, but involves completely different code in the interface. Testing a large user interface (UI) change like we launched for Gmail is foremost a permutation problem. Because all the Gmail features we wrote while we developed the new UI had to work both there and in the old existing UI, we basically needed to double our testing. Plus, the new UI has to work in many browsers, in all languages Gmail is available in, which means even more testing -- and by testing, we mean functional testing, latency testing, usability testing... you get the idea! The only way to handle all of these moving parts is through a) test automation, and b) using the new look.
We use automated tests as much as possible: we test if code changes lead to functional regressions, how they affect speed and our servers, if the UI breaks in many browsers and more. The scalable build and test infrastructure at Google allows us to run these tests automatically after every single(!) code change. However, a major UI change like this requires that our automated tests are very stable. If a test relies too much on the structure of the UI, then the test starts failing - not because the functionality is broken, but because it fails to work with the new UI. Luckily, we learned this lesson many years back and most of our tests did not have this problem.
But even the best automated tests can’t guarantee that everything is working well and that the visuals are pleasing. The only way to find out is to actually use the new look. For Gmail, we have special environment that gets updated every night with the latest stable code. Almost all Gmail engineers and a handful of other Googlers are using this environment for their real Gmail usage. But it turned out even daily updates were too slow for the rate of code change with the new look. So, we created an environment that updates every hour with the latest stable code. This version of Gmail was used by all engineers who worked on the redesign. It allowed us to test code changes very quickly on the real system. We were able to find many functional and usability issues here. And because we used this system and no engineer likes their email to be broken, issues were fixed very quickly. We can only do this because we have a very good coverage by our automated tests. When all these tests pass, we can be sure that most of the Gmail functionality is working. However, there could still be usability, color, layout or other challenges that tests can't catch.
Gmail’s new look also put a lot of additional load on our testing team. They had to keep up with a high rate of change, test critical functionality quickly and triage a lot of reported issues. Plus, they had to test new features in both the old publicly-available UI as well as the new unlaunched UI. The dedication of our testing team helped us catch bugs early so we could fix them in preparation for launch.
Once we felt that the new look was good enough to be used by others, we turned it on for all Googlers. At Google, we "eat our own dogfood," meaning we use new products and features ourselves before releasing them to the public. Often, this is a very humbling experience. The shiny, new features, that we just developed and are so proud of are now used by people, including sales teams, managers and other non-engineers, who just want to get their job done. And believe me, Googlers are not shy when it comes to feedback! But for a project like this one, this step is absolutely critical. Our different teams at Google tested Gmail in all kinds of use cases and the feedback that we received from this phase was invaluable. It helped us to put the final touches on the new look and get ready for usability tests that were previously discussed.
We hope you've enjoyed a look into the Gmail's design, development and testing of the new look.
Developing Gmail’s new look
December 6, 2011
Posted by Mark Striebeck, Engineering Director
Editor's note: This post is more technical than most posts here, but we thought some of you might find it interesting to look inside how development on the Gmail team works.
Developing the new look for Gmail was like the proverbial “changing tires on a moving car” - only that the car is carrying hundreds of millions of users and is under constant construction and development. The two main technologies that we use for these types of projects in Gmail are “conditional features” and “Javascript mods” (other Google products use very similar systems). Both technologies were particularly important for testing the new look.
Let’s start with the first one: conditional features. This is our ability to make changes to the Gmail code that get deployed, but not executed. You can think of it as a lot of if-statements around the new code that get enabled when the conditional feature is on. The conditional feature flag itself is set outside of the deployed code. These flags can be set in various ways: as a percentage of overall users (if we want to rollout a feature slowly), for Googlers only (if we want to use a new feature internally), for individuals (if we want to give users early access to a features) and in many other ways. In short, conditional features allow us to update our production systems separately from releasing new features. This way, Gmail developers can make changes, but don’t have to worry about their unfinished changes being released before they are ready.
The other technology is “Javascript mods”. We use this technology to create modifications for a new feature in Javascript across many files. The main challenge with Javascript is that we want to keep the amount of Javascript code that the browser has to download as small as possible - the more code the browser has to download, the longer it takes to load Gmail. So, we don’t want to include the code from all possible mods, but only the code that’s relevant to your browser. Let’s use our Gmail mobile app as an example: it comes in various forms, including the smartphone user interface (UI), the tablet UI, and the offline UI. All these UIs are slightly different. We don’t want to download the Javascript code for all different UIs to the browser. Instead, our server inspects which browser or device you are using and creates the exact Javascript that you need. The selection of mods can be triggered by browsers, devices and even “conditional features”.
Using these technologies, we can make sweeping changes in Gmail without those changes going “live” before they are ready. Plus, since we can turn pieces of code on or off, we can enable new features in specific environments, such as Google, or for specific users, like the Gmail team, without changing the code itself.
Designing Gmail’s new left navigation
December 5, 2011
Posted by Jason Cornwell, User Experience Designer
One of our goals for
Gmail's new look
was to make Gmail feel more like a native application with independently scrolling panels rather than a website that scrolls as a single page. This design approach brings with it many advantages: the search box and primary navigation are always in the same place, your inbox unread count is always visible, etc. As with any design decision there were challenges with making this change. People with lots of labels might have their chat contacts pushed entirely off the screen and those with gadgets, like the Google Docs or Calendar gadgets, might have to scroll the left panel past both the labels and the chat contacts in order to see them.
We went through a number of different design revisions to try and address these issues as elegantly as possible. We experimented with several accordion designs, which stack sections on top of each other but only allow one or two to be open at a time.
We also experimented with designs that involved only one scrolling region, but showed fewer entries per section.
The final design combines aspects of both approaches. It is a ducking accordion design with only two sections. The bottom section has two tabs, one for chat and one for gadgets, with room to add more tabs in the future. The upper section, which contains labels, expands to show all of the visible labels when you mouse over it. This allows you to see chat contacts but still give quick access to the labels. Best of all, you can easily adjust the balance between labels and chat to fit your own personal preference by dragging the divider between the sections up and down.
This design went through a number of iterations as well. We carefully adjusted the timing and triggering behavior of the expanding labels section to minimize accidental triggering. We noticed in usability testing that having the labels section expand when you are mousing over the Inbox label delete didn't work for everyone. We tweaked the system only to expand if you moved your mouse below the inbox label and keep it there for a moment. We also tried to ensure that if you are moving your mouse to click on a particular label or chat contact, that label or chat contact will never move out from under you.
The end result is a system that is more flexible, more responsive, and always keeps your chat contacts and unread count visible without adding a lot of complexity or requiring too much clicking around.
Hide morning and night hours in Calendar
November 28, 2011
Posted by Oleksandr Kyreiev, Software Engineer
How often do you have something scheduled at 3am? What about 10pm? If the answer is almost never, you might want to try out the
Hide morning and night
lab in Google Calendar.
With a simple drag of a slider you can fold all those empty hours into a single row to set the time range you want to hide. The folded rows still show all your events, just in more compact form.
We're launching this in Calendar Labs (
Settings > Labs
) to gather feedback on how people end up using this feature. So don’t forget to
tell us what you think
about this latest addition.
Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)
November 16, 2011
Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager
Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We’ve fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store. For an overview of what’s available in the
Gmail app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch
, check out this
blog post
.
In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like
improved notifications
and mobile specific signatures.
We’re just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more. Based on your comments we have already improved our handling of image HTML messages - they are now sized to fit to the screen and you can pinch to zoom in.
To try out the Gmail app today, install it from
App Store
on any iOS 4+ device. Those who already have the Gmail app released Nov 2 must uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.
How real users helped us develop Gmail’s new look
November 10, 2011
Posted by David Choi, User Experience Researcher
When building Gmail’s new look, our goal was to make the most engaging, accessible, and most of all, easy to use email experience possible. To accomplish that, we had many real Gmail users try out changes to the look and provide feedback during its development.
One of the most important ways we obtained feedback was through usability studies. In these types of studies we observe people trying out our products in a controlled environment. We invited Gmail users from all walks of life to participate in usability studies and used the results to find problems and identify improvements before we launched.
For Gmail’s new look, we started very early. Long before any Googler began using or even building the new look, our designers created an early prototype. We then had Gmail users participate in a usability study either by coming to one of our offices or remotely connecting from their homes.
An example of one of our usability labs. People in usability studies use our products on the pictured computer while they are being observed through a one way mirror and video cameras from the room next door.
The study participants evaluated the early prototype by doing many of their everyday Gmail tasks, such as reading, sending, and replying to emails. We then looked at how easy or difficult it was to complete those tasks, and made changes based on this feedback. For example, one of the things we found with our prototype was that we had put too much emphasis on conversation level actions at the expense of per-message actions. As a result, our study participants had difficulty finding the reply button on each message. In response, we changed its appearance, size, and location to make the reply button easier to see.
As we continued to develop the new look, we evaluated our progress through additional usability studies with even more people. Much of what we captured from these studies was users’ first reactions to the new look. But Gmail is something people use repeatedly, not just once. So in addition to first impressions, we were also interested in seeing how people adjusted to the new look as they used it repeatedly in their daily lives. To find that out, we conducted a different kind of study called a longitudinal study. Longitudinal studies are used to observe the longer term effects our products have on people’s usage.
The longitudinal study consisted of turning on the new look for a group of Gmail users. We captured their initial reactions after their first experience. Then we let them use the new look in Gmail as they normally would as part of their everyday lives. As the days and weeks passed by, we periodically checked with them to see how they were adjusting to all the changes. Like with anything new, there were some changes that our participants initially needed time to adjust to, but later came to prefer as they used the new look more. On the other hand, problems that were not seen during the first couple times of use later emerged after more prolonged use. For example, many of the changes we made to the new left navigation were the result of people reporting their repeated experiences using labels and the chat area over time.
These studies have been absolutely critical in helping us build Gmail’s new look. Much of how it looks and behaves is a result of people participating in these studies and giving us their feedback. If you are interested in becoming a participant in a research study about Gmail or any of Google’s products, you can sign up at
google.com/usability
.
Improving themes in Gmail’s new look
November 9, 2011
Posted by Jason Cornwell, User Experience Designer
One of the most visible improvements in last week’s Gmail update is the entirely new theme system and the new high definition themes that it supports. This refresh to themes both simplifies them and makes them more immersive. You can browse what some of the new themes look like below:
Themes are now implemented as semitransparent layers on top of a large background image. Each theme uses either a dark or light variant of most UI elements to balance legibility and visibility of the background image, allowing the background image to peek through and provide color and personality. Background imagery can also change based on date, time, or weather. Bringing all these changes together really makes the new themes shine:
Old
New
Old
New
In addition, these changes also reduce the technical complexity of the theme system, which will enable us to create more beautiful and unique themes in the future.
Like the new themes? You can switch to the new look today by clicking on
Switch to the new look
in the bottom-right of
Gmail
.
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