Redesigning swipe for Gmail

A Gmail experience where users can customize their own swipe interactions in multiple ways and find archived emails in its own folder.

Responsibility
UX/UI, End-to-End Design
Duration
1.5 Month
Tools
Figma Figjam Notion InVision
Team
Myself
Final output
Live preview

Summary

As of 2022, there were more than 1.8 billion Gmail users.

I first noticed there’s usability issues with Gmail from a conversation with my friends when I realized that the three of us were all confused by a simple interaction. That, by swiping left, an email is archived. Yet afterwards, the archived emails could not be easily found.

If more emails get lost in Archived, Gmail could lose a large number of users. So here’s the questions. How might we improve the swipe interaction? How might we make users have a better experience?

Before everything start

To start, do you have a preference for which email app to use?

Do these screens 
look familiar to you? You should see this when setting up
 your default email app.

Or, do these look more familiar? These are email apps that users downloaded to their phone.

1 Question for you

Are you more familiar with seeing the default email app or the ones that you downloaded.

Or both? Which apps do you prefer, the default one or the one you downloaded? Why?

Review the conversation

Let’s have a look at the conversation between two Gmail users.

Problem Overview

In Google’s Gmail app, swiping left archives the user’s emails by default. Some users have accidentally performed this action and could not find the archived emails after, as the Archived folder is hidden in Gmail.If the user amount increases, how can we provide users with more control over swiping interaction and more connivence in organizing the mail they receive?

Design Challenge

HMW redesign the interaction of swipe for Gmail users who don’t expect their emails to be archived so they won’t lose any emails.

Solution

My solution provides Gmail users with the ability to control what and how many swiping interactions they want. With this solution, users now have the ability to create a subset of personalized swipe interactions based on individual preferences and find their archived emails much easier.

View final output

My Design Process

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Constraints

To help focus my design decisions, I gave myself constraints which were:

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Understanding the task

Before setting out to do research, I wanted to understand what my design task is, who my users are, and what are the painpoints, goals and motivations that my users have
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So to kick things off, here are 3 areas that I brainstormed below.

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Quantitative & Qulitative Reaserch

In order to better understand Gmail users, I did 3 rounds of research. I used Notion to record my entire research data. Click here to see more.

Affinity Map

I posted some responses that significantly helped me gauge what their main pain points are and what feasible opportunities exist to face this challenge. Although these aren’t quantifiable, it gave me valuable insight into what users want and do not want.

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Identifying the Problems

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Persona

Finding the Solution

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Creating paper prototype

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Iterations

Screen flow into 4 steps

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Key screen

Final output

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Testing my final design

After interviewing with 20 users and conducting 5 rounds of usability tests, I went through 8 iterations of my prototype.  

Because the main problem I wanted to solve at the beginning was "Users archiving emails by swiping accidentally", the earliest iteration assigned 2 to 3 fixed options for changing the swipe action. Although this version solved the original problem, users reported that they have different preference for what they want the swipe actions to be.

Based on this learning, I switched over to a more customizable design, by allowing users to pick their own swipe actions. To conclude my final iteration:

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  1. Resolved the main issue of “Users accidentally archiving emails.”
  2. Fixed the problem of Gmail offering only 1 option for left/right swipe.
  3. Added settings preview so the user can clearly understand that swiping an email can have multiple actions.
  4. Added an “Archive” folder to make it easier for users to find archived emails.

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Stuff I learned

This study case was a passion project inspired by a problem that both my friends and I had come across. I found the design process in this project extremely interesting—From discovering the problem with the swipe action in Gmail to researching, ideating, and observing different users’ habits of swiping. Each round of usability test uncovered new problems that needed to be prioritized and expanded on so that they could be tackled one at a time.

Overall, I think I’ve done well in three areas:

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  1. To find out how the problem was bothering users, I interviewed 20 users and conducted 3 rounds of interviews to uncover each user’s needs and pain points as much as possible. I learned about their frustration, thoughts, and opinions.
  2. Made use of paper prototype so that users could experience the different interaction options for the swipe action physically.
  3. In the final prototype, I allowed users to customize their own swipe action based on their needs.

If there were more time, I would like to experiment with more ways to interact with the Swipe Settings. For instance, allowing users to drag and drop an option, such as “Archive,” directly into the preview area, or even turning the Left Swipe box into a dropdown, which could make it easier for users to change their settings.

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