The New Gmail Interface
Prepared By El Mehdi Zeroual, E-Mediat Morocco Training Coordinator
During the
summer of 2011, Google has introduced updates and improvements concerning a
number of its products such as Gmail, Blogger, and Youtube. In this article, we will focus on Gmail as we will share other updates on Google products in coming articles.
Google made profound enhancement on Gmail both graphically and functionally. The new
interface is intended to make our emailing practices more efficient and to satisfy users’ needs. However, Gmail becomes a little more complex. For
that reason that Google engineers have been upgrading Gmail step by step “we’ll
be working on these upgrades gradually over the next few months to allow plenty
of time to understand and incorporate your feedback into the evolving design.”
(Google Gmail Team – Official Gmail Blog).
To start,
Google completely redesigned the look of Gmail to make it more user-friendly. In
conversations, users can see profile pictures for contacts to easily know who
said what.
In addition,
the new interface automatically adapts to any screen and size window with the
ability to personalize display density as well (Right top corner icon). There are other options under the same Menu:
- Going back to the old Gmail look
- Settings: Main Gmail Settings
- Themes: To change Gmail theme. Users have the option to choose from Color Themes, Classic themes and HD themes which come up only with the new interface.
- Help: to read more about Gmail options
Moreover, now users can
personalize Labels and chat area (left of the screen) depending on their needs and preferences. They can resize both of them as they can hide the chat area entirely (see difference between chat and labels areas below)
Since Google is a leading company in Search Engines, e-mail search is another tool that is developed and enhanced in the new Gmail version. To show the advanced search panel, you click on the arrow in the search box. It is easier and faster to find the e-mail (set of e-mails) you are looking for. Furthermore, Google latest innovation added to the the advanced search is the ability to create filters related to your search.
