towards better interaction

As you all might have seen a red color bold section in your gmail called “new gmail labs” which gmail announced on 5th June. While looking at those features, i found some very interesting and really needed. Lets check it out.

1. Quick links

Personally i like personalized application, and thats what gmail has done here. Though its not totally personalized, but for sure nice one. In “quick links”, you can make your customized links which is seen on the left side of the page.

Though i wish i could have more control, like i could hide option like spam, chat history etc which i never use and make my gmail more clean and focused on features i use. But still a nice one.

2. Superstars

In existing gmail, we can star some mail and give imprtance to that particular mail. Now how to categories those makred mail. Initially i thought there should be some option showing 5 stars and i can choose some stars according to the imprtnace of mail. For this reason, here comes superstars.

3. Fixed width fonts

Here you can view all mails in fixed width fonts. I feel its somehow incomplete. Because i always get frustrated when i have to change fonts and colors for each mails. I sent mails with “trebuchet” with light blue color. I always have to change those fonts and colors every time i write a new mail. The question is, why can not i make it default?

4. Mouse gestures

This is the one i like the most. I have always been into exploring new possibilities and modes of interaction. Here is find a new way of interacting with the content. I do not say its completely new, but in email domain i have not seen this sort of interaction. Here you use mouse gestures to go to next and previous mails, but right clicking and then moving mouse to left and right for previous and next mail respectively. I loved it.

There are more features though, but there were the one which i liked.