Give me back my text labels, GMail!

The new GMail interface includes icons in action buttons instead of old text labels; not a good decision from a usability point of view.

jordisan November 3, 2011 design, GMail, Google, icons, IN ENGLISH, TECH, usability 1 Comment

A lot has been written about the new GMail interface; most of it is a matter of opinion, but I’m afraid Google has committed an obvious mistake: using icons (in buttons) that don’t have a clear single meaning.

Let’s take a look at two of the buttons; isn’t this your first guess when you see them?

Guess for two of the buttons in new Gmail interface: download? important? 

Wrong. The real functions of those buttons are:

Real meaning of the icons: archive and spam. 

Using fancy original self-designed icons is a common mistake made by novice interface designers; icons are hard to memorize, and users usually recognize just a few of the most common. Many times, the best way to describe a function is simply a text label.

I’m surprised Google has fallen into that error; maybe they have been paying too much attention to people complaining about their ugly interfaces. Anyway, Google, please, give me back my text labels for actions!

D’oh! The attachment! A simple solution

A simple and easy solution to those forgotten attachments in e-mails. Hasn't it happened to you?

jordisan March 18, 2009 correo electrónico, email, GMail, Google, Google Mail, IN ENGLISH, interfaces, TECH, usability No Comments

Has this ever happened to you? You want to send a file to someone, so you write a nice e-mail explaining what it is; then you click the send button, and some minutes later you receive the reply: “ok, very nice, but … where’s the attached file?”.

Yes, you forgot to attach the file. It’s a common but hard to avoid problem; a good rule is always attach the file before writing the e-mail, but aren’t there any better ways to avoid this?

Some systems, like GMail or Thunderbird, have options to alert you when you try to send an e-mail which includes specific words (“file”, “enclose”, “photo”, …) but has no attached files. It’s a nice idea, but far from perfect: you will still miss files if the system doesn’t detect these words, or you will get an annoying alert about an attachment you don’t want to send.

A simple solution

Here’s a simpler solution: the user gets notified of how many attachments the e-mail has when he/she is about to send the e-mail, not using annoying alerts but simply including that information in the send button, like this (GMail example):

Composing a message in GMail, with the button 'Send (0 attachments)' highlighted 

So when you are going to send the e-mail, you realize that the message has no attachments. Simple and effective, don’t you think so?

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