GMail and the reply button on smaller monitors

[timbo343]

This is a bit of a moan about Gmail and how the interface is laid out on

 

It would appear that users are unable to see some buttons in Gmail so users are finding it hard to reply to emails, this is due to the fact the Gmail in the view the staff prefer does not work correctly - see below.

 

 

Missing these buttons:

 

 

The savvy ones (the very few) know that they can right click on the messages however for the general user the reply button is missing as the interface of Gmail does not scale properly.

 

The screen resolution is 1280 x 1024 which is max for our 4:3 monitors.

 

When we were on Office365, we never had this issue as the reply button was more central.

 

I guess the only ways round are:

- tell the users to use a different view

- Hide the left column where inbox is shown

- purchase wider monitors (could cost £9000 in total)

- complain to google and wait for them to move the buttons - fat chance of this happening!

[jthompson]

The buttons are most likely there, but the user will need to scroll to the right in the message. Note the scroll bar at the bottom of the message content pane. Zooming the web page out a notch or two might help, as will collapsing the labels list (hamburger top left) or dragging the message list/message content divider to the left some more.

 

That'll be happening because the affected emails have fixed width content in them.

[timbo343]

Yeah they are there but to the general user they don't see them.

 

Zooming out of the page is not an option for some due to eye sight problems.

 

Reply and forward buttons are to the very bottom of the email, why on earth would you put the right at the bottom! God only knows!!

 

Having the buttons on the toolbar where Report, Bin, Snooze would seem to be more suitable or a least not make the buttons part of the email!

[Arthur]

I guess the only ways round are:

- tell the users to use a different view

- Hide the left column where inbox is shown

- purchase wider monitors (could cost £9000 in total)

- complain to google and wait for them to move the buttons - fat chance of this happening!

Option 5 might be a good workaround?

 

• Turn on keyboard shortcuts and then get the user to press the 'r' button when they want to reply to an email.
  

[jthompson]

Reply and forward buttons are to the very bottom of the email, why on earth would you put the right at the bottom! God only knows!!

 

Having the buttons on the toolbar where Report, Bin, Snooze would seem to be more suitable or a least not make the buttons part of the email!

 

They're at the bottom so that you have them there to reply to the most recent message at the end of a thread.

 

They're not in the same bar as snooze, archive, labels, etc. because those are actions for the whole thread, not individual messages. The reply/forward actions that you're missing are specific to each message within the thread. That's an important distinction.

 

I agree that it would be helpful if Gmail's design was more responsive to smaller window sizes, though. We've had similar queries about the print option going 'missing' in this way. Not helped by the fact that you an option to the whole conversation, as well as print options for each individual message as well.

Edited January 31, 2020 by jthompson

[southhamster]

Agree with this. The admin console has a similar problem. On 1366 X 768 listing names you can't scroll down as the scroll bar only appears when you scroll across which partly hides the name!