Gmail: Is it worth the change?      17.April.2006

I've been a Yahoo! email user since 1998. I've come to rely on it's features, the way it manages my contacts and addresses, and how I can use my Yahoo! username and password for other features such as Flickr and My Yahoo!. So when a friend sent me a Google mail (Gmail) invitation, I was a little hesitant. I created an account and decided to check it out. Here are my impressions about Gmail and why I won't be switching anytime soon.

Unable to easily import contacts
I emphasize 'easily' because technically, you can import contacts into Gmail. It's just not easy. First, you have to go to the Help Center in order to find directions on how to do this.

1. Export your contacts from your existing email account as comma separated values (CSV)
2. Edit and clean up this CSV file
3. Import the CSV file into Gmail

Who's going to go through these steps? It's not hard to do, but irritating to set up.

Gmail Inbox has a strange way of looking sparse yet confusing
Lack of contrast is the theme to the problems I have with the inbox. Please see figure 1 at the red highlighted areas and the corresponding comments below.

1. Compose Mail - OK, this is not a contrast problem, but its placement on the left navigation area is odd to me. Why not have it in the blue background in the same linear space as the gray action buttons?
2. Labels - I like the labels we can create and attach to our messages. I created one called 'Read Later' which is a great way to tag emails and give it some context for recall later. However, the small green font in front of the subject text gets lost. How about some contrast? Simple formatting can take care of this.
3. Snipits - Snipits are descriptions of your email. I love this. But again, why such low contrast of the gray font? This entire line looks like terrible clutter.

Figure 1: Gmail Inbox

Suggestions
1. Compose Mail - Move this to the blue background next to the other action buttons. Compose is the first action along this space.
2. Labels - Use darker green font, align all labels in a column.
3. Snipits - Use orange font for contrast from subject text (or any warm color other than gray)

After:

Figure 2: Gmail Inbox - Suggestions