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My Google personal page is not so personal      29.April.2006

I have given up hope that Google will incorporate visually interesting user interfaces. Functionality is what really matters, and Google certainly delivers in that area, especially in the personal front page. I am a news junkie, so I like to cross reference articles I read with other sources. I have a couple of customization suggestions that would streamline my activity on this page.

1. Customize links above search input box
I hardly ever use Groups, News, or Froogle. I would love to add Scholar, Finance, Blogger, and Local. Since I use those Google products almost everyday, it would be great to have them as my main navigation.

2. Gmail area with more features
I use Gmail mostly for receiving news alerts on topic of interest and not really for communication with friends. I would like to be able to delete emails from the personal front page without going to my inbox. Also, the "Edit" link is misleading...I think it should give me more edit options than simply how many messages I can see.

Figure 1: My Google Personal Page


3. When viewing a message from the front page,
 I get this window that displays the message only. I must click on 'Inbox' to get into my Gmail account to delete the message. The extra clicks needed to delete is inefficient.

Figure 2: View of email from My Google front page



4. Reply button(not pictured here) is always at the bottom of an email message. It make sense one would read the email and then reply. But there are times when I come back to an email later and there is no need to re-read it, therefore, no need to scroll to the bottom again. It would be so simple to have a reply button at the top of the email message as well.