Comments on: Gmail let me down when it comes to discard an email

By: Vidyasri

Vidyasri — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:46:34 +0000

I agree fully with this comment. Both to move the Discard button further away, & to have a notice asking you to confirm that you want to discard.

By: Saager Mhatre

Saager Mhatre — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:44:45 +0000

The ‘undo’ metaphor described above is applied by Google uniformly across GMail- archive, label, trash, move- all actions are followed by the status message followed by the undo link. It’s just an uncommon affordance that Google seems to have really liked.

As for moving the Discard button to the right, I’d posit that inconspicuously placed buttons are worse than crowded buttons. If you’re looking for an alternative, I’d suggest we have the Discard button removed from the top bar, leaving it in the bottom bar only. That keeps all the actions together, while keeping the dangerous ones in the less trafficked one (but I’m just postulating, Google probably has better metrics on interaction patterns on GMail)

Nevertheless, all of that posturing is moot once you get accustomed to the undo link.

By: kumar

kumar — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:27:41 +0000

the best way is allow space for both type of users – first timers, frequent visitors, by allowing them configure whether they need alerts or not.

Simple. You get alerts if you want and you dont if you dont want. Thats usability in my regards. Remember world is always divided into “i am right” kind of people who happens to differ with each other.

By: Rajveer

Rajveer — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:42:30 +0000

@MauricioC, Matt Haley, and Perryn Fowler: Thanks for the heads up, I have updated the post based on your comments

By: Perryn Fowler

Perryn Fowler — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:33:20 +0000

While your suggestion to move the discard button to somewhere it is less likely to be hit by accident has merit, I strongly disagree with your desire for a confirmation dialog – *particularly* a modal one. It is a clear case of optimising for the worst case, and it is really irritating to be constantly asked if I really meant to do something.

A much better approach from a usability perspective is to discard the message when requested and then provide a way to undo if you need to – and that is exactly what gmail does.

By: Matt Haley

Matt Haley — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:00:28 +0000

I just tried this out, and if you hit discard, you do get a message at the top of the window to allow you to undo the discard.

By: MauricioC

MauricioC — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:05:12 +0000

It does show a *much* more useful and clean “Undo discard” option.