Google Mail UX - Good but not fool proof
User Experience is an increasingly big deal in web apps. I use the Google product suite for pretty much everything these days and, when exposed to that kind of usage, a lot of WebApps UI's start to show the strain.
Generally, Google Apps have great UIs, clean, fast simple and intuitive. But even they aren't perfect. Take this example from the new Gmail theme:
In a normal mailbox view the "Delete" button is at the far right of the main action buttons:
In the Spam view, the "Delete" button is on the left of the cluster:
Now compare the positions to the end user (the red indicates the position of the normal delete button):
What Google have done is a classic example of poor UX - same button, same action, two very different locations.
This is a rarely used button in the system and, as such, I normally end up marking Spam as Not Spam (and having to undo) when I actually meant to delete the damn thing.
It's a simple fix but seems to have been overlooked by the Google team this far.
The iPad - Less than it should have been
It has to be said that, in my search for Gadget Nirvana, I've frequently flip-flopped over which vendor or sector was more likely to provide the ultimate, all in one solution to ... well ... everything! Circa 5 years ago my money was on open source (hardware, software, flapjacks, whatever!) to combine my massive list of entertainment, communication and connectivity requirements into one, affordable, hackable, workable device. With the purchase of my first MacBook Pro I shifted over to Apple as the possible saviour of we the fickle, techno devout members of the Nintendo generation. With the release of Android, Google OS, the Nexus One and their awesome web-based tool kit, my allegiances shifted to Mountain View for a while - they promised the answer to all my needs (well, almost all) in a shiny fun a clearly "Not Evil" package. And now?
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