Making the inbox unambiguous.
After several user interviews, at different levels of knowledge, we determined that Gmail's desktop inbox was being underutilized and basic functions were often ambiguous. Users were surprised to find out about useful tools, such as labels and inbox configuration, they'd never used before.
We had test participants complete tasks using the Gmail interface. We designed the tasks based on our research and the issues repeated during interviews.
We found that users had significant struggles with even the most basic tasks they were assigned. Failure rate was almost fifty-percent, confirming our research.
Taking our findings from the research process, we began to sketch possible solutions. We created wireframes for three different pages we thought were the most problematic: the inbox, the opened email, and settings.
We ultimately decided on focusing our prototype on the inbox page.
Inbox
Email
Settings
Using our wireframes we made a static mockup of the Gmail inbox. Our main goal was to improve the visibility of common controls, making them easier for the user to separate and understand.
After Presenting our design and research findings to our instructor, she remarked that "We had taken an already established design and improved on things she hadn't thought about."
This redesign was more intense on the research than the actual redesign of the interface. Taking a well established design by a company with as much resources as Google and trying to improve upon them was difficult but rewarding.
We would have liked to make prototypes of different sections of the interface, like settings and email task bar, but couldn't because of time constraints.
Google did a redesign over a year later, which incorporated some new features but unfortunately they didn't deal with the issues we were trying to fix with our design.