Gmail getting a refresh

Google are certainly continuing to push upwards with the launch of its Plus social network now well under way, even if it is in an initial limited-invite state. To help with the continuity lots of Google features are being refreshed, as they have stayed the same for quite a while now, and this includes Gmail’s user interface.

The redesign will hopefully give a much less cluttered user interface aiming to bring it into line with Google’s new homepage. More importantly they are trying to make Gmail more of a pleasant tool to use day in day out.

Google have, in my view, been quite clever and are releasing this ‘new look Gmail’ in two versions, where the only difference is the space between each element on the page, with the denser layout working better on small systems, such as netbooks or even Chromebooks.

The updated looks are available as ‘previews’ in Gmail Themes currently but there are a fair few creases that need to be ironed out. This is mainly caused by the Labs extensions that you are likely to be running, so if you want to try out the new looks you may have to disable some extensions.

Next in line for an update will be Google Calendar and I’m sure we will be hearing lots more about Google over the next few weeks!