[vlovich123]

Doing all the work twice is expensive. It’s not just the actual work of doing the design, but then you’re 2x testing costs too (unless you YOLO one of the modalities). More cost effective and better quality result to make a choice to make the platforms more uniform rather than trying to optimize for both. This obviously only holds when there’s a massive disparity in revenue. If your PC/laptop users make up a non-trivial parts of revenue it can start to make sense (but again, generally only if doing so will help you retain that market or get better revenues). The other thing unifying things does is it helps engineering and design teams by removing complexity.

All of the above is general trends of how these decisions are made. There will always be counter examples or situations those aren’t good ideas (or that someone has made a mistake applying a lesson to the wrong situation).

Saying an entire group of people is lazy or dumb is not a particularly insightful way of looking at anything that helps your understanding of the situation or learning what kind of results different incentives yield.

[Jap2-0]

> Doing all the work twice is expensive.

Sure, but they already do all the work twice.

I get a completely different site on my phone than on a desktop/laptop.

In fact, they maintain far more than two designs - in addition to two native apps, there's a mobile website, the desktop website, and the basic HTML version. On top of that, they have multiple display density options for desktop (which admittedly is mostly just adjusting padding), redesigned the desktop site a few months ago, and had Inbox for a few years. On top of that, you can (some of these without a reload) change whether there are separate inboxes for various labels, add/remove a reading pane, and split threads into individual emails.

I don't think Google is lacking in potential to maintain a website.

[noemit]

They don't. The browser just adapts.

[Jap2-0]

Desktop: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/

Desktop (plain HTML): https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/

Mobile: https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/

[vlovich123]

Is the plain HTML version under even the most basic maintenance? I was under the impression that was the old interface and they just kept it around because people liked it/slower countries.

The mobile vs desktop versions you posted are likely the same codebase with minimal (if any) differences. My understanding is that generally such things are accomplished transparently with flex layouts that automatically adjust to screen size

[Jap2-0]

> Is the plain HTML version under even the most basic maintenance?

I doubt much work is being done on it, but presumably they at least make sure it works; I mentioned it because a few posts up (edit: you) mention testing (rather than initial design) as the reason why having multiple designs is so difficult.

> The mobile vs desktop versions you posted are likely the same codebase with minimal (if any) differences....

It's entirely possible that they're derived from a similar codebase at some point, but what reaches the browser is significantly different - it's barely responsive, based on user-agent, and appears to be significantly different obfuscated blobs of HTML, CSS, and JS.

[vlovich123]

I can’t speak to it but just because something is tested occasionally doesn’t mean the testing budgets are the same or serve the same purpose.

For example, the feature set required to support the HTML page could be frozen and the APIs backing them stable with no need to change. So testing isn’t really necessary. Alternatively, there’s just API changes being made to remove dependencies on deprecated code and so the testing coverage comes from the testing that happens of that API surface through other means. Finally, it could be that the HTML page is even fully staffed to support emerging markets. That’s a different budget potentially than the budget for the “rich” UI.

Again, my point isn’t to argue over the specific business pressures and practices Google has for their email UI. This requires a level of knowledge I don’t think either of us possess. All I’m trying to do is illustrate that there could be all kinds of pressures why the system is the way it is, but dismissing it as “laziness” or “stupidness” on the part of the designer is itself a lazy and stupid conclusion to make without concrete evidence. I generally assume that’s not the case and look for the incentives/pressures those people are under until there’s overwhelming evidence those people are actually stupid/incompetent (and even then, the question becomes what structures, incentives, pressures were in place to put those people in positions they shouldn’t occupy).

[bogwog]

> Saying an entire group of people is lazy or dumb is not a particularly insightful way of looking at anything that helps your understanding of the situation or learning what kind of results different incentives yield.

Maybe, but when you're talking about the armies of designers at the multi-billion-dollar tech company Google not going through the effort to maintain two stylesheets, I think "laziness" is an accurate description.