Google Inbox bundling — More problem than solution
I recently downloaded the Google Inbox app because Apple’s native email app feels like a relic compared to the newer email apps. The new Inbox looked sleek, has friendly gestures and positive reviews on the App store. However, there is an unpleasant twist to this story!
This post highlights two glaring UX issues that Google needs to address because it simply doesn’t work.
Bundling
Let’s start with the email bundling feature which on surface seems like a great idea. Bundling groups similar emails together, which makes easier to organize unread emails and also allows you to view a larger snapshot of unread emails. However, it comes with a pitfall and I learnt it the hard way.
I don’t trust online providers with keeping my financial data safe, so I created a checking account exclusively for online payments and I intentionally keep account balance of no more than $200. If any of the merchants get compromised, I don’t lose my shirt. In addition, I have notifications setup in the event of my account balance falls below $100. When I receive the notification, I simply replenish the account back to $200 balance.
On a beautiful Sunday when I was at a beer garden I received a text message from a merchant stating that my payment was declined. After the issue was resolved and my reputation tarnished, I wondered about whatever happened to the warning email on low account balance.
It turns out the email was bundled (buried in this case) with other finance related emails. The bundle, called Finance, listed emails horizontally (see left) and the first email was a statement from a financial institution, followed by a few amazon invoice emails. I ignored the chain because I already expected these emails. However, the account balance warning email from my bank was buried underneath 25+ emails and the only way you I could have noticed it is if I expanded the bundle and reviewed each email.
As you can see, a quick visual survey of the summarized bundle gave me the impression that nothing needed my attention. A simple inbox interface that was meant to improve my email experience actually cost me my reputation.
I reviewed my Inbox to see if there are any other forms of mis-categorized bundles and I found a few that made absolutely no sense. For example, my weekly HTML newsletters were bundled with online forum emails. Although bundling can be disabled, it comes as a default option during onboarding and most users accept the defaults.
I am not blaming the bank incident on Inbox but I’m pointing out that bundling does a poor job of prioritizing importance. It provides the same weight to each email, but in reality not all emails are created equal.
Viewing links
I enjoy reading newsletters during my commute. I load the articles beforehand in the Safari browser (as new tabs) so I could read them without connection connection. But, all that changed with Inbox.
When I click on a link, Inbox opens up the article in a Chrome browser and provides an option to go back to Inbox (replacing the usual browser back button). Seems like a useful feature. Wrong!
Instead of creating a new tab/window for every new link, Inbox re-opens the link in Chrome over the previous page, without an option to go back to the previous page (see below). Even worse, clicking on the “back to Inbox” button simply closes the tab.
Re-opening Chrome takes you to the default home page. I have to manually open up the history via burger icon to retrieve the visited pages.
Inbox assumed that I would always finish reading an article before clicking on another link, which in my opinion is presumptuous.
It’s frustrating to see new features break the workflow or in some cases make decisions without considering different use cases. UX should be effective (getting a task done) and efficient (in shortest time possible) and a few features in Inbox fail to deliver that.
On the bright side, I absolutely love the pinning of emails and turning emails into a task on the calendar. Google Inbox changed the way I manage my Inbox. Kudos for that!
