With the buzz going around about Google+ — the new social network from Google —, the search giant also is redesigning other products; so far Google Calendar and Gmail are the ones with the new face-lift, but complete makeovers may start happening around various products to have a more unified, focus and clutter free UI.
Let’s start talking about the redesigned in Google Calendar, this new face-lift was rolled-out last Wednesday and it is just cosmetics. Google hasn’t introduced any new features to its calendar service, now it’s all about making it look like Google+.
Here is an image showing the new design from Calendar Help.
Other changes that were included in Google Calendar are:
- Quick add now is merged in the Create button.
- Print and Refresh are buttons and not links anymore.
- Save and Discard buttons where relocated to the top of the event page, not at the bottom.
- The mini-view calendar is now collapsible.
- Alarm with reminders, person icons for event with guests, and others visual indicator icons will now only show when the event is hovered over.
All these and more changes are coming in the near future. Google is rolling out the new look slowing, so it may take some time until you see the new changes in your account.
“The way people use and experience the web is evolving, and our goal is to give you a more seamless and consistent online experience — one that works no matter which Google product you’re using or what device you’re using it on.” Google said.
To use the new look, log in to your Google Calendar account and click Try the new look in the upper right corner. And don’t worry that you can always choose to go back to the old style.
Now let’s look to Gmail redesigned:
We already have seen how Google’s homepage has been overhaul — not so enthusiastic about the new black bar, but what do I know? — to start making it more like Google+ and I already have shown you above how Google Calendar now looks like. Well now Gmail is also having a complete redesigned in its look and feel.
If you click on the Gear (top-right corner of the service), then from the menu you select Mail Options, and go to Themes (or just click this link Themes tab in Gmail Settings), you will notice that there are two new themes for Gmail called Preview and Preview (dense). These new looks are cleaner and they have spread out arrangements, in my opinion they look much better than the Classic Gmail theme used to be, making it better suited for reading.
The company has said that the interface updates are to help to remove clutter and “make Gmail as beautiful as it is powerful. This is part of a Google-wide effort to bring you an experience that’s more focused, elastic, and effortless across all of our products”.
Google is gradually working in the new designs, in the meantime this is “a sort of sneak peak” as you have to manually activate them. And they are two because eventually, according to the company, they have to “expand dynamically to accommodate different screen sizes and user preferences[…]”
Google believes that with these makeovers they are removing all the clutter around the product making it more focus and effortless. Now, what do you think? Leave us your thoughts on the new Google Calendar and Gmail redesigned in the comments below.
Sources The Official Gmail Blog & Calendar Help
