Google Suggest and GMail are a step backwards
People have been posting a lot about how cool they think GMail is, and how amazing Google Suggest is, and how XmlHttpRequest is going to change our lives, and I can’t take it anymore, I have to say something.
UPDATE: I’ve posted a follow-up to this article which explains more about why I think the web is not a cool platform for complex applications.
Part 1: GMail is a step backwards
People like GMail’s interface for some of these reasons:
- It organizes e-mail into “conversations” so you can see how a series of e-mails progressed, and logically organize your e-mails
- You can “Archive” e-mails instead of deleting them, so you can look through them later
- You can search through your old e-mails
- You can apply colored labels to messages automatically based on rules
- It filters spam mail
My response to each of these features, respectively:
- Netscape Mail / Mozilla Mail / Thunderbird has done this for years
- Netscape Mail / Mozilla Mail / Thunderbird has done this for years
- Netscape Mail / Mozilla Mail / Thunderbird has done this for years
- Netscape Mail / Mozilla Mail / Thunderbird has done this for years
- Netscape Mail / Mozilla Mail / Thunderbird has done this for years
I think Outlook Express does some of these too. GMail doesn’t let you save drafts, send a message later, create folders and subfolders of e-mail, “Go Offline” to read your messages offline, like Thunderbird does. Thunderbird also has a “filter as you type” search box for your list of messages. GMail doesn’t allow that either.
Part 2: Google Suggest is a step backwards
People like Google Suggest because it has that dropdown menu of popular searches. That’s all it does, so it must be why people like it. People say “I was blown away with it” “Google did amazing JavaScript again” “another search engine innovation” “just when you think search couldn’t have gotten any better”
Web browsers have had dropdown menus of recent / frequently used URL’s, for years. IE’s is even resizable. Would it be amazing if Firefox or IE requested the top 50 URL’s from some website, to fill that dropdown menu with URL’s as you typed? I don’t think so. We all know that applications can connect to the internet and get information, and show it to you. This doesn’t amaze us, or at least, it doesn’t amaze me.
Part 3: Why does this amaze people
I think people are only so amazed about Google Suggest’s dropdown menu because it’s JavaScript, and we all know how much JavaScript sucks. Or maybe it’s because you don’t normally see such dynamic interactive behavior from websites; they’re usually more static.
I think Google Suggest’s popularity does not show how XmlHttpRequest is the way of the future. It shows that JavaScript and HTML and interactive web-based applications suck, and that we have low expectations for web-application usability features.
Part 4: What is my point
In my experience, web applications are almost never as usable, as powerful, or as user-friendly as actual applications the user runs on his or her computer. I know that I personally avoid web interfaces whenever possible.
I don’t think people should take Google’s lead and start making detailed interactive web applications. Developers should think about whether their users would be better suited with a downloadable application.
I think Weiqi Gao might have a similar opinion to mine. Google Suggest probably took lots and lots of hacky JavaScript programming. It probably would’ve been a shorter, simpler Java program, or maybe C# program. The point is, HTML and JavaScript are not the right tools, and the Web is not the right platform for this kind of application.
Maybe the Web needs to change, maybe developers need to change, but to me, widespread amazement over a dropdown menu shows that something is wrong.
December 18th, 2004 at 10:35 pm
You forgot flaging items, which most clients have been doing for years as well. I think people like javascript web applications becaus they are so easy to run. You don’t need to download it to your hard disk manually and then find it when you want to run it, theres no installer, no security crap, etc., and you don’t have to worry about updates. Although I tried google sugguest, and it was harder to use than regular google. It takes a lot more time to search through a list then type 3 or so more characters to finish your search, plus you don’t have to worry about slowdowns from javascript or waiting for the script to download crap from the server. I do think google is getting way more press and appreciation than they should be. Google results are getting worse and worse, and all froogle, and all the other thigns suck so much. I think its a fad like napster was… I mean think about going back and using napster, it couldn’t swarm!
December 18th, 2004 at 10:37 pm
yes yes yes yes! Finally a voice of sanity that isn’t gleefully batting away at every shiny object google dangles out there. Well said!
December 19th, 2004 at 7:03 am
Firstly, does Netscape Mail / Mozilla Mail / Thunderbird work via a web interface? In fact is there any web-based email system that gives all of these features (or even a meaningful subset)? Secondly, correctly me if I’m wrong but I thought del.icio.us-style tags aren’t in mozilla/netscape mail (they are very different to normal hierachcical(sp) arrangement of email prevelent in most clients. Your argument is basically “but it’s in desktop/rich/thick clients” which is or course correct, but that’s not really the point. These things are being provided via the web. And the web is very different to a rich client.
December 19th, 2004 at 8:25 am
> GMail doesn’t let you save drafts
Gmail suport drafts.
December 19th, 2004 at 10:38 am
Seems you have a strong bias against Javascript and don’t like anything that is contrary to yur bias. The things your are complaining about are good examples of how Javascript can be as good as local rich client apps like the ones you mentioned.
December 19th, 2004 at 12:44 pm
Can I access the e-mail saved on my desktop at home from my friend’s office? With GMail all I need is internet connection.
About being offline: I can use Gmail’s pop3 interface and get the e-mails for reading offline.
The advantage of web based e-mail is just that, being able to aceess with a browser and internet connection from anywhere.
December 19th, 2004 at 1:59 pm
I think several of you guys who posted comments didn’t read my article thoroughly, or understand what I meant. That’s okay, I’ll post a follow-up article later this week to elaborate on what I meant.
December 19th, 2004 at 2:49 pm
re webmails: What most geeks don’t seem to understand is that normal users really, really don’t like installing or setting up programs. Gmail is just the most impressive webmail right now. I think if Thunderbird, and other mail clients, provided a nice way to download and import server settings it would do a lot towards getting people to move to more advanced clients.
December 19th, 2004 at 3:21 pm
Keith,
Not sure about everyone else, but the reason I’m interested in GMail (and Google Suggest, to a lesser degree) is that it _might_ show that it is possible to have rich client-server apps that don’t require a large investment from the end-user. So far, WebStart, Flex, Laszlo, etc have all shown us that rich applications are possible (and easy), but for some reason or another they have’t caught on. It might be that doing rich apps in the browser is the key, and so I’m very excited about it.
Then again, I don’t see why Laszlo isn’t catching on more (now that it is free, even more so). Almost everyone has Flash, so what’s the problem?
December 19th, 2004 at 3:39 pm
You are completely missing the point. (Or you’re just stretching it to be controversial)
There is a demonstrable demand for web-based applications. Tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people use webmail in preference to desktop mail. Hundreds of millions of people use Google search via the web despite the existence of thick client search apps. This is a pretty good indication that there are benefits to having an application on the web that in fact outweigh the substantial drop in UI quality.
If you can deliver a richer user experience over the web as well (without resorting to proprietary solutions like Flash), then you’re well on the way to harnessing the best of both worlds. And that’s a step forwards.
December 19th, 2004 at 4:23 pm
6: you also needa browser that supports javascript (or more specificly the gmail scripts). the Java vnc viewer over http would be supported on more systems than gmail, and would be just as easy to use.
10: I’m pretty sure that Flash is just as standard as the browsers required for Gmail and Suggest, and when programing for flash your just writing for one platform instead of 100.
Most of you commenters are missing the point here, rich web applications are nice, just not ones based of javascript. javascript sucks, whats not to understand about that?
December 19th, 2004 at 8:45 pm
Look, I buy what you have to say about gmail …. I don’t get it either. Javascript, from what little I’ve read has led me to avoid it. But I think the most pertinent point is creating an application that is relevant and *only* possible in the network. The value of what we see in Google Suggest is only possible with a steady stream of network feedback to enhance the user experience. (from a constantly updated network resource I might add … lest someone suggest downloading a terrabyte database every now and then)
Yes you could do this in the programming language of your choice, web or non web, but Google just showed us how it is possible to enhance the user experience with realtime network feedback. Someone will do it better, someone will find a way to make more money from it, but Google certainly threw down the gauntlet.
John
December 20th, 2004 at 3:23 am
Re: Google Suggest and GMail are a step backwards
Yes other software has done what google has done with gmail and suggest. No one is saying they did it first. I think the reason why people like it so much is that gmail is a web based interface. This…
December 20th, 2004 at 4:56 am
> Java vnc viewer over http would be supported on more systems than gmail, and would be just as easy to use
You’re kidding, right? VNC is pretty intensive, both in terms of CPU usage at network usage - far more intensive that a webmail client. Additionally you still need to install the VNC client, which in an environment where you’re not allowed to install software is kind of difficult.
> 10: I’m pretty sure that Flash is just as standard as the browsers required for Gmail and Suggest, and when programing for flash your just writing for one platform instead of 100.
Firstly, GMail just requires javascript, Flash requires Flash. Whilst flash is installed on a number of browsers, I suspect there are more javascript browsers out there than flahs ones. Taken togther with the paucity of good flash developers, and the difficulty of binding with server-side applications, and you see why it hasn’t caught on. MAcromedia are trying to push this with Flex, and MS have their own take on it for Longhorn - it will be interesting to see where that goes, but the popularity of web apps don’t lie.
As for Javascript, the language itself doesn’t suck. The language itself is quite powerful. What sucks is the differing implementations of it, the lack of tool support, and the lack of rigour apparent in developers of Javascript - if you can write good Java/C#/C/Perl/Whatever code then you have no excuse for not writing good Javascript code.
December 20th, 2004 at 8:23 am
[…] e=”Permanent Link: “>
Filed under: Programming — Ian @ 2:23 am
Re: Google Suggest and GMail are a step backwards Yes […]
December 20th, 2004 at 12:33 pm
google suggest is pretty cool. so is gmail. check and mate
December 20th, 2004 at 4:08 pm
Because GMail is a web app, enhancements and bug fixes simply appear. No need for the user to continually download new updates.
That’s the advantage of web apps over thick clients: deployment to thousands of machines is a lot easier.
December 20th, 2004 at 5:54 pm
1+2 is so obvious and uncontested, that nobody else deemed it important enough to mention. The fact that Web-Apps are a lot worse than Desktop-Apps in terms of UI is an evident fact, why are you implying that this could in any way be news to anyone?
You seem to be missing something: The Fact that webbased applications are popular with many developers as well as with many users _despite_ their worse UI. So the improvements to this bad UI are (even by your own logic) not a step backwards, they are a step forward - however webapplications have had a starting point that was “behind” - something which nobody ever denied. ;)
Most smart people would probably agree, that there are applications that are a lot better written as a desktop-app, and that others are better as webbased-apps. However suggesting that everybody should stop using and developing webapps in general and “should go back to desktop-apps period” would itself IMHO be a actually a “step backward”.
December 21st, 2004 at 12:36 pm
Just noticed something cool in GMail that Thunderbird may not have yet: Undo Discard.
When you are in the middle of composing an email, suppose you decide to discard it. Then suppose you change your mind and want to continue writing. The email is not lost; you just click Undo Discard.
Another great example of how webapps are continually updated with new features - no installation required.
December 23rd, 2004 at 3:48 am
VNC Server has a built in HTTPD that serves a page with a JAVA viewer, which would not need a client to be installed. Yes it requires more bandwidth, but I’d be willing to bet its runnable on more systems than gmail.
Try running gmail with netscape 4 or an older version of IE or maybe even opera. Gmail just says you cant use it, even though those browsers run javascript and could most definitly run the latest version of the Flash plugin. As it was stated, all browsers use a different implementation for JS, which google has to specificly program for. So “just requires javascript” isn’t true.
Yes, you are right, the actual language isn’t as bad as it’s lack of basicly everything (standards, tools, etc, not to mentsion documentation).
Many people underestimate flash, and I think macromedia is doing a horable job at marketing and improving it. The last few versions have gotten worse in many ways. Plus all these run-off programs like breeze and flex and central and remoting and server and robohelp (or whatever they call it now) all make it really confusing, not to mension most of those products suck or produce crappy output. Aside from these problems, Flash is a really excellent rich application platform. Antialiased compressed vector art and animation coupled with excellent scripting abilities and small, fast, and easy to install plugings make it quite a nice choice, way better than SVG or javascript, IMO. Java has quite a bit of bloat and is much harder to get all that nice animation, but its much easier to prorgam in than actionscript.
January 6th, 2005 at 5:52 am
I think the complaints about Google Suggest miss the point about what most people (not developers) think is cool about it. The contents of the drop-down list are the most popular correlated clusters of topics that start with the current input string. The novelty lies in instantly finding out what sub-topics of your topic millions of other people have been interested in. That’s not (simply) a matter of new or cooler UI: its the meaningful information presented to the user, done in a (essentially) instantaneous manner, so the user does not have to do any more work, and often much less, by simply selecting a suggested topic without having to type the whole phrase in.
I have used it to quickly see which sets of related keywords were more popular. For a cute example I heard from one of Google’s top engineer’s, try entering “rolling hash” into Google Suggest. If you were looking for information about the class of algorithms by that name, you can quickly tell that you are in the minority for those keywords. ;-)
Regards,
-Dov Wasserman
February 17th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Wow. I couldn’t disagree with you any more. Google is making huge advances. First of all I’m sorry that you might still be stuck with dialup but in the wave of the future everyone has broadband. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. Why not connect? Sure you can download an application to your computer…but what happens when your computer crashes? All your e-mails are gone. I agree it’s nice to work offline but it’s also nice to not put all your eggs in one basket. I think google’s advances are in the right direction and I think to say any different is living in the past.
March 12th, 2005 at 1:11 am
What’s so great about Google Search?
Keith posted an interesting article countering the hype generated by Google Suggest & GMail - Google Suggest and GMail are a step backwards
I think there are two things which makes Google Suggest interesting.
People now realize there is a way to…
August 19th, 2005 at 3:34 am
No one gives a shit about Netscrap and OutCrook. Get over it, you zealot!
January 1st, 2006 at 3:08 pm
You suck dude!!!