Mountain View, California — Ever since its major GMail update in late 2007, and in keeping pace with the Mountain View, Calif., company’s incremental updates ideology, the search engine leader for the past couple of weeks has been adding one or the other major features to Gmail; and the two recent ones were Google Maps Previews and a Redesigned Chat Window, and now the web giant has just revamped the Gmail contact cards.
Wondering what contact cards are? Well! You know it actually. Google just redesigned the Gmail contact cards, which pops up when you hover the mouse over the communicator of a message or a Gmail Chat contact. Take a look at the older window below…
Although, the changes are not radical by any means, but few things are different and others have been moved about. In fact, most people are likely to not even notice them. The action buttons, Email, Chat and More, have been moved to the bottom and the name and email address of the contact are now better highlighted. The card also drops the think blue border in favor of a much more subtle and elegant thin gray one and a shadow effect.
Google has already unleashed several revamped elements and, if it continues with the same pace, then for sure the entire interface will be redesigned, one element at a time, and this is how it had been looking till now…
The change is pretty clear and there are not any changes in functionality. However, unlike the old contact cards, users will not be able to edit the name of their contacts. When a name is clicked on the card, it automatically redirects users to the contact manager page, where they can edit their contacts’ information, but it still allows you to change their pictures.
But the change may also be a preemptive move to make space for new buttons if, or rather, when Gmail brings about some new functionality. These are all very small, cosmetic changes, but put them all together, and you will see that Gmail has actually changed quite a lot in the last couple of years.
Of course, with Google Voice functionality making inroads to Gmail one way or another, probably very soon, entirely with the option to call any phone number in the world from inside the email app, the move would make sense.