As most every Gmail user knows by now the @Gmail.com service (and the mail service within Google Apps) has been going through changes. Menu items have been changed to icons, color and font theme changed, menus accordian to expand or constrict and what scrolls versus stays in place are all part of the changes.
This image of the new left panel reflects some of the obvious cosmetic changes in appearance. But one image can hardly show the new dynamic functional changes. Google is making too many changes, and making them to quickly for my liking but alas there is a sound reason behind them. Automatic “Device Adaptation” is one of the most core reasons
New computing devices – desktop, mobile and everything inbetween are being introduced to market with unprecidented speed and variety. Given that AAA computing (Anywhere, Anytime, Any device) is a basic objective for Gmail and all other Google Apps services, the software must be designed to work effectively on a large variety of devices and form factors.
It is no small effort to design a single program and user interface that makes sense and is useable on everything from a big 24” wide screen PC monitor to a 10” tablet screen to a 3.5” mobile phone screen. But these changes are an effort to move in that direction.
The list of changes is rather extensive, some very obvious, others so subtle you’ll never notice them. The navigation panel is a critical part of Gmail so I thought it useful to highlight its functional changes -best explained in this Google gmailBlog Post which closes saying;
“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.”
Hopefully you agree and the changes aren’t making you as cranky as they make me sometimes. I know we all have our “limits for change” and I’m reaching my limit, but things will settle down. Overall my time and learning investment will have a big payoff, I’ll be able to access my data on a wide variety of devices without relearning the app to do so.
