Battle of the UX: Gmail Vs. MS Outlook

Nussi Einhorn
3
min
Battle of the UX: Gmail Vs. MS Outlook

Gmail and Outlook combined have billions of active users. They are most likely the most well-known names in electronic mail software.

While they generally provide a good experience for their users, there are some aspects of their UX that could be improved.

Let's read the following UX stories and let me know if these are the same things that you have experienced while using these apps.

Gmail

"I wish there was an easier way," Jay thought. 🤔

Jay, an executive assistant, checks and manages the company's emails

on Gmail first thing in the morning. 📧

This morning, he noticed that there were 15 emails sent one after the other

that needed to be marked as important. 📌

To mark them, he needed to click ✔️ the checkbox individually.

Jay would receive these waves of emails on a regular basis 😮

and would sometimes wish there was an easier way

to mark ✔️ multiple emails like these in one swoop.

Jay's situation could've been helped with a tweak to 👉 the software's UX.

Rather than clicking the checkboxes individually,

it would have been much easier and faster to click one email

and drag the cursor down to the next series of emails one wants to select. 🤙

Outlook

Ben finally got a reply!  🙌

Ben 🙎 met Alyssa 🙎 at an out-of-country convention.

They had a very meaningful talk, so they decided to exchange emails 📧 and keep in touch.

He sent her the first message on Outlook, and today he received a reply.

He wanted their conversation to be light and fun, 😀

so for his reply, he wanted to add some emojis.

While he was writing ⌨️, he couldn't find the emoji icon on the message box

until he clicked the three dots at the bottom.

There it was! The emojis! 🤦‍♂️

Ben thought that a feature such as this...

could have been placed in a better section of the message box

to make it more accessible. 👌

With the visible space that the Outlook software has on a computer screen,

it would have been much better if it was 👉 utilized.

In this case, adding features such as visible emoji icons (and the like)

on the bottom section of the box would be a good way of using the extra space that the screen has.

Furthermore, the features would be more accessible to users. 👀

Poll this week

This week, we asked people to vote on which of the two has a better user experience.

Take a look at the results below...

It's a landslide! 81% of the 726 people who voted chose Gmail as the email app with the best UX.

Some left comments regarding their reasons for choosing Gmail over Outlook.

You may check what they had to say by clicking the link to the poll below.

Link to poll

In this day and age, we have nearly all of the resources required to improve and create better software. After all, we want to make our users' lives easier and more convenient.

That being said, we hope this article has helped you, product builders, learn and understand the value of good design in our customers' overall UX journey.

Do you need help with your software? Please click the link below to request a UX audit:

https://www.intentux.com/lp/ux-audit

More Guides