Google has long been known as the leader in email, but it hasn’t always been that way.
In 1997, AOL was the world’s largest email provider with around ten million subscribers, but other providers were making headway. Hotmail, now part of Microsoft Outlook, launched in 1996, Yahoo Mail launched in 1997 and Gmail followed in 2004, becoming the most popular email provider in the world, with more than 1.5 billion active users as of October 2019.
Despite Google’s stronghold on the email market, other competitors have emerged over the years. Most recently, we’ve seen paid email products like Superhuman and Hey emerge. In light of new competitors to the space, as well as Google’s latest version of Gmail that more deeply integrates with Meet, Chat and Rooms, we asked Gmail Design Lead Jeroen Jillissen about what makes good email, how he and the team think about product design and more.
Here’s a lightly edited Q&A we had with Jillissen over Gmail.
Google has been at email since at least 2004. What does good email look like these days?
Generally speaking, a good email experience is not that different today than it was in 2004. It should be straightforward to use and should support the basic tasks like reading, writing, replying to and triaging emails. That said, nowadays there is a lot more email, in terms of volume, than there was in 2004, so we find that Gmail has many more opportunities to assist users in ways it didn’t before. For example, tabbed inboxes, which sorts your email into helpful categories like Primary, Social, Promotions, etc. in a simple, organized way so you can focus on what’s important to you. Also, we’ve introduced assistive features like Smart Compose and Smart Reply and nudges, plus robust security and spam protection to keep users safe. And lastly, we’ve made deeper integrations a priority: both across G Suite apps like Calendar, Keep, Tasks and most recently Chat and Meet, as well as with third-party services via the G Suite Marketplace.
How has Google’s hypothesis about email evolved over the years?
We see email as a very strong communication channel and the primary means of digital communication for many of our users and customers for many years to come. Most people still start their workday in email, which is still used for important use cases, such as more formal or external communications (i.e., with clients/customers), for record-keeping or easy access/reference, and for communications that need a little more thoughtfulness or consideration.
However, the communication landscape has been changing and people are moving toward a mix of different communication channels, especially in the last couple of years. We recognize that certain use cases, like a small team collaborating on a project or someone having a question for a friend or direct colleague, are simply better suited for real-time, synchronous communication channels. At the same time, our research — and our users — consistently tell us that email still holds significant value for many use cases.
As the communication landscape evolves, email should evolve with it — and our job is to support our users across their goals and use cases. We see unique value in each communication channel (email, chat, voice, video), which is why last [month] at Google Cloud Next OnAir, we announced a new integrated workspace in Gmail that intelligently brings together the people, content and tasks you need to make the most of your time at work.
What are the most important elements of Gmail’s product design and why (e.g., ease of sending messages, archiving, email reminders)?
Traditionally, Gmail’s product design has been based on three principles: ease of use, helpfulness and flexibility.
First, the product should never get in the way of critical tasks like reading, writing, replying and triaging emails. This should always be straightforward and easy to use for all Gmail users.
With our latest launch, we also extend this to chat, voice and video as well, allowing users to connect any way they want. On top of that, we provide a layer of assistive features to help users achieve their goals and make specific use cases a little easier. This ranges from features like powerful search and different inbox types that automatically sort your email for you, to features that help you write better emails with less effort like Smart Compose and Smart Reply. Last, but not least, the product is flexible. With over 1.5 billion monthly active users we have a lot of different types of users with different workflows and needs. From the fairly casual consumer users who only receive a couple of emails a day to the enterprise users who spend hours a day in their inboxes and have very specific workflows. That’s why we support different inbox layouts, preview panes, filtering and labels, as well as an array of third-party add-ons via the G Suite Marketplace.
That being said, communication and collaboration are about connecting people, and we’re always looking for ways to better integrate our products to help everyone work better, together. As user expectations around communication, productivity and collaboration evolve, so too must our product. That’s why with our latest update to Gmail, we not only brought together the core elements of work — email, chat, voice and video, along with document collaboration and task management — but we made them work better together with seamless navigation, search and intelligent suggestions. A key value proposition for this type of integration is that users can more easily stay on top of things, from anywhere, without having to worry about having to switch between apps or interrupting their flow and focus.
Over the years, there have been a handful of major redesigns. What’s been the driving force behind them?
As a team we look at a couple of sources for determining next steps for our product: We look at end-user feedback, (enterprise) customer feedback, general opportunities in the market and other initiatives that we are asked to support from within Google but outside our team (e.g., new Material designs, etc.) that are meant to make all Google products more consistent and easy to use. All of this informs our strategy for the future and often means that we invest in certain areas that result in product enhancements and updates. Our latest redesign, the one we announced last [month], is a great example of this. However, adding new features to a product comes at a cost as each new feature makes the product a little bit more complex. It is a continuous journey to rethink our product and redesign it in order to evolve it to the needs of our users, which has been the basis for the handful of major redesigns in Gmail’s history.
Who makes decisions at Google about key Gmail product decisions?
This all happens within the Gmail team itself and it is a collaborative process. We have a leadership team consisting of Product, Engineering and UX leads. As a team, we set the general direction and product strategy based on a combination of user trends, data and research, and then organize the team around these key investment areas. Each of these investment areas has specific leads who take this direction and come up with the actual concepts and product improvements they believe will help to move the product forward. After alignment between Gmail leadership and the area leads we kick off workstreams to execute.
What’s the process for implementing major design changes to Gmail?
We adhere to a “goal-based, research-driven, iterative process” that is optimized for quick learning. For every project, large or small, the cross-functional team defines the goals we want to achieve and the metrics (often a combination of qualitative and quantitative) that define the bar for success. This has been a great way for us to get alignment across the team early on in the project lifecycle. After this, the team defines a plan for development and execution that’s driven by frequent user feedback, which ultimately leads to several user-facing milestones to formally and publicly test our features. We start with smaller lab studies and progressively scale all the way to alphas, betas and experiments in the actual product. This helps us to rapidly learn and make changes as appropriate.
How do you navigate the desire to create a robust email service while also minimizing clutter and complexity?
This is a classical case of “form follows function.” Using our goal-based and research-driven process, we ensure that we understand how the product is evolving, and if we have the appropriate level of complexity to support our users’ goals and workflows. Sometimes we learn we need to add more features because the current feature set is insufficient. Other times, we learn that adding a new feature to an area makes the product too complex and we need to rethink it or redesign it. It is a constant ebb and flow.
Anything else you think people should know about Gmail’s product design and features?
We’re excited to continue to improve this new integrated workspace further — with features like picture-in-picture video calls and enhancements to rooms to make working together on projects even easier. We also consistently experiment with ways to improve our core email experience as well. Our goal is to provide an intelligent and seamless solution that gives everyone the ability to make a real impact and the flexibility to work exactly where and how they want.