"All of the decisions revolved around the central fact that a typical Gmail user was receiving only about five emails per day, most of which were of promotional nature, and as such, required no response."
So, they designed Gmail around people who don't use email? That explains a lot.
It's not written very clearly, so I can understand the confusion, but that's not how I interpreted the article. It sounds more like the sequence of events went like this:
1) Based on their observations of user behavior, the Gmail team started pushing to simplify Gmail's interface;
2) This prompted a backlash among Googlers, who use Gmail for their work email and therefore need the sort of power-user features that would have been dropped in a simplification;
3) The Gmail team pushed back with a "you are not the user" argument;
4) A giant political furball ensued, with the stakes being whether Gmail would become a simplified email tool for general consumers or a power-user email tool;
5) The "power-user email tool" side lost, but as a peace offering they received a consolation prize: rather than dropping their ideas altogether, the Gmail team would build a separate product (Inbox) incorporating those ideas. (I call it a "consolation prize" because any separate product will have to fight for its own user base, making success much harder than if it could roll out to Gmail's already massive user base.)
Maybe a clearer way to phrase is "they _re_-designed Gmail around people who don't use email".
I.e. the original version of the Gmail was designed by heavy emailers, they then noticed that most users got very few mails and redesigned it (in 2011) for that use-case. (Including the wide line spacing leading to low text-density, and similar things that lots of people complained about at the time).
I genuinely can't tell whether the article is suggesting that Inbox is for advanced users or for non-advanced users (and GMail for whatever the other user is). I believe, based on my own understanding of the two products, that GMail will continue to exist for advanced users, and Inbox will be simplified. But, the article is not at all clear on that; the last sentence seems to flip the meaning of the rest of the article and indicate that Inbox is the "advanced" one, while GMail will be made more simple. Or something.
It seems to me the other way around. I am a high volume user and I have relied on Gmail for almost 10 years. I signed up for inbox (because I am always looking for something better). I found it slowed me down. It was pretty but superficial. I prefer the plain but functional Gmail. Just one data point, I realize.
Thank you for clarifying. It makes the last sentence of the article make sense, but I think one would have to already know the difference between GMail and Inbox in order to understand the article with confidence.
No, it doesn't. "The decisions" refers to those that the design/product team made (see paragraph preceding the GP's quote)---the same changes that were made and roundly panned by Googlers.
Inbox, on the other hand, is "specifically designed from the ground up for advanced users who have to handle a firehose of incoming emails every day" (last paragraph of the article).
To summarize the article: the Gmail team decided that Gmail should be geared toward non-power users; power users of Gmail (Google employees) hated this decision; Inbox was born as a product specifically for power users. In the meantime, (some) power user affordances were kept in Gmail, but better hidden.
That's not how I interpreted the article, but I may be missing something. I haven't used Inbox, but the description below indicates it's for advanced users, not somebody's Aunt Floe.
"In parallel, the Gmail team would begin working on a standalone product specifically designed from the ground up for advanced users who have to handle a firehose of incoming emails every day. And that’s how Inbox was born."
I like Inbox, but in my experience it is inferior to gmail for that particular use case. Gmail does a far better job of displaying a lot of information that I can scan quickly. Inbox treats you email like a todo list and expects you to deal with everything (that isn't automatically sorted out) individually.
I use Inbox for my personal email, but gave up on it for my work email.
I feel like most startups were using google mail (no longer free so not sure if people are buying it). I'm the "interesting" guy in my small startup office because I use apple mail as my client instead of gmail.
So, they designed Gmail around people who don't use email? That explains a lot.