Improving the Gmail Experience — Take Action Later
I identified that I was struggling to keep track of important emails on Gmail and often overlooked them as time passed. I validated the same from my friends and colleagues as well. They were dealing with the same challenge.
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This case study discusses challenges in managing important emails in Gmail and proposes a solution called "Take Action Later." It suggests displaying key emails as thumbnails on the home screen for better scannability and prompt action. Future improvements include expanding task options and refining the compose pop-up interface.
Starring in Gmail
Gmail gives us the option to star any critical email so that we can review them later as needed. Some emails are also marked as important in Gmail, but we (as users) are unable to mark any email as important because its already marked automatically (can see under ‘important' in hamburger menu)
Problems
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When a user needs to respond to an email or take some other action, there are times when he makes a note of it as a task for later completion. But he/she continues to overlook those as time passes by.
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Nothing on the homescreen is changed by starring the crucial emails (only the star gets changed into yellow filled star and acts as a marker). With so much information, it becomes challenging to see the critical emails on the home screen (unless you search them by keywords, or click on hamburger icon and select starred mails).
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Another very time-consuming and confusing option is to designate an email as urgent. Steps are mentioned in the screenshot below.
Research & Learnings
Toptal.com
Product designers often communicate a lot of information in a short period of time. Those who understand the term “scannability,” common eye-tracking patterns, and modern design principles are better equipped to create easily consumable content and “sticky UIs.”
What Is Scannability?
UX experts at the Nielsen Norman Group conducted research to answer the question: How do people read on the web? His findings were simple. They don’t. Scannability is, therefore, the approach of laying out content so it is easy to scan.
The ideal way to determine the scannability of a digital product is to observe it from the user’s perspective and answer these key questions:
1. Does the content of the page correspond to audience expectations?
2. Is the main message of the page easy to understand in a short time period?
Lessons from neuroscience: How to design for urgency — invisionapp.com
Here are two ways in which you can use neuroscience to get the results you want.
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Eliminate distractions.
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“If people think they have all the time in the world to make a decision, they often deliberate for so long that they eventually end up forgetting it altogether.”
Solution (Improving scannability of important emails)
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To design a top hat over all of the emails on the home screen that looks like stories or thumbnails. This would make it easier for users to scan and respond to crucial emails.
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Opportunity for the users to choose actions, set deadlines & notifications
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An intuitive and smart way to complete the tasks on the home screen itself.
Design
Since its a personal project and without having to worry about the technical details, I jumped straight into high fidelity screens so that I could focus on overall look and feel of the design. I tried my best to follow all the design guidelines issued by Google’s Material Design website.
Adding a ‘Take Action Later’ CTA in all the mails
Take Action Later flow
Simply adding a CTA won’t be enough to satisfy all of the users’ mail-related needs. To accomplish the purpose, a clear flow is required. Please follow the arrows:
By following these easy steps, users can put the tasks on their home screen as thumbnails, ensuring that those crucial chores receive the attention they require.
Now, how do we finish these tasks? A smarter way? Oh yes!
A simplified version of compose box will appear when you click on any of the thumbnails, allowing you to respond, send attachments, or take any other action right away.
Taking an example of sending a reply to Amy (first thumbnail) for the awesome gifts.
The compose pop-up will help the users to give a sense of completing the tasks in that moment itself, they can also choose to expand it to the normal full compose screen. From, to and subject will be automatically added based on the email for which you have selected Take Action Later.
A scroll bar will aid users in navigating to the bottom of a long reply or reviewing it once it is completed. This way we’ll be able to improve scannability of the important emails to a great extent.
Future scopes
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More variety of tasks can be added in Choose action dropdown.
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The compose pop-up can be made more intuitive. For minimal time consumption, several layouts can be created for various tasks.
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Scope of grouping thumbnails of mails of similar category. Need more brainstorming on that.
