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Is Google losing design edge?
by Gil Rosen

Tuesday April 25th 2006, 3:06 pm
Filed under: web 2.0

I’ve been using Gmail for a while – I love it and enjoy its overall user experience. What I’ve noticed over sometime now is the continuous erosion of white space as the amount of new features increases. This is a classic dilemma of any product. Interface planning takes place with a known set of ‘launch features’. Some “better planning” companies actually think one or two features ahead, but that’s pretty much as far as it goes. It’s what happens during the real life product cycle that I find interesting. It’s easy to be “classy and minimalistic” when you begin, but what do you end up looking like down the road?

Obviously there is no text book answer but as a user I can definitely legitimize an opinion of what seems reasonable and what’s not. Gmail is an interesting case study as Google take pride in their approach to simplicity. This doesn’t grant them, however, an automatic applause for interface planning As much as I like Gmail, it’s interface is crowding up on me. There is a special ‘settings’ rule that can eliminate (some) of the new ‘conquered’ white space …but hey…why count on settings? Especially when I think of “settings” as a way to add, not subtract.

What has tipped the scale for me as far as Google’s skills at handling this are concerned is the new calendar. I don’t call myself a GUI expert, but I do know a thing or two about design.. Anyway…its seems they have an obsession with cramping the Gmail logo (see screen shots below). Of all places – why there? The one place I don’t expect to see promotion is there **maybe that’s the reason** perhaps, I don’t like it. It’s not esthetic. If you are the kind of company that cranks out new features all the time then allocate some space for “NEW” and this is where I will look. Alternatively, you can place them in your final ‘resting place’ – like what Google did with the Gtalk bubble logo and actual IM interface. Sticking the links above the logo for me just doesn’t work and smells of design opportunism.

This is just the beginning. Gmail is a year or so old - how will it look like in 5 years? Will it become another “Las Vegas” version like Hotmail? At this rate we should be looking for Gmail’s interface rehaul ‘spy screenshots’ at Techcrunch pretty soon.

Gil Rosen

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11 Comments so far
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A Comment by web 2?!

Google never had design edge!

Google designers are just as confused as Google product manager:
Where/What the hell are we?
And where are we going?

Never mind, lets just watch the ticker go up.

04.25.06 @ 8:45 pm

A Comment by Gil Rosen

You make a good point. As the master plan grows wider the havoc becomes apparent everywhere

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