Google, Gmail, and the Delete Button
Google idealism of “do no evil”, while admirable, is still not necessarily practical. What I mean by that is that Gmail users like myself have contended with the fact that Google thought, in their original release of Gmail, that 1gig of space is so profuse and excessive that users would never really need to delete a message. No, I’m not making this up… So they placed the Delete button in a pulldown menu with other functionality like Flag, Mark Unread, etc. that, while important, is not used as often as other buttons like Reply and Forward).
What is most interesting about this is ultimately that internet idealism has to be tempered with the fact that real people with real deficiencies and different understandings of how computers work use the products of the internet. The minimalist simplicity of Google was such a cusp in the design theory of the web at the time, that it came to be one of the most identifiable characteristics of the brand. They took that kind of thinking slightly too far by hiding the delete button, but it seems they finally took their head out their arse and wisened up. Thank goodness…
I can’t see it in my gmail
It’s a UK based account so I suppose that may be why…
Jazzle,
I found out about the changes from a person that I introduced to Gmail. She was able to see the new feature a couple of days before myself, which leads me to belive that it takes a couple of days to propagate through the Gmail system. It could be the UK thing, but chances are it’s just the delay in rolling it out to all users. Keep us posted on if it ever comes!
yup, it’s here now.
and probably has been for ages!