We make fun of website redesign complaints a lot around here, but that’s really only because people tend to overreact to them. We’ve all been invited to a protest group whose purpose is bringing back some old layout, but the truth is, in three days, nobody cares. So since mature, intelligent professionals use GMail and Google Reader, you’d expect a more measured and nuanced response.
And you’d be wrong.
Gmail’s redesign, which seems mostly geared towards making the thing easier to use, people are whining about advertising they will just ignore anyway, and also that it looks “too much like Facebook”.
Google Reader, on the other hand, you’d think was suddenly being fueled by babies or something. It’s been tightly integrated with Google Plus, and basically made to be visually consistent, so you get the usual whining at length about how this new design sucks and I like the old one better. Some nerds in Boston even went to Google Cambridge and staged a funeral, because there’s nothing else they could be possibly be protesting right now.
In other words, in three days, nobody will care.
And if by chance you haven’t already seen it, here’s a better look at what the Gmail redesign will look like…