Gmails stupid tiny compose button gets a little less tiny on Android

Google has tweaked the appearance of the compose button in Gmail’s Android app. First spotted by 9to5Google, the old button, a small “floating action button” with a plus in it, is now an oblong button containing a pen icon along with the word “Compose.” It minimizes into its old circle shape when you scroll down your list of emails. Ultimately, though, I’d still argue that the bottom-right of the screen is a bad place for the app’s most important button.

I’m sure that Google’s floating compose buttons — which it uses across other G Suite apps like Drive and Docs — are the result of hours of testing that show that users easily find buttons when they’re positioned on the bottom right of the screen. I don’t doubt that there are objectively...

Continue reading…