Google is notoriously functional and it has a laser like focus on functionality of its services. This leads Google to sometimes not give much thought to aesthetics and looks of a product. Gmail has tweaked something that is totally about looks and not functionality.
Gmail has redesigned contact cards and there are positives on the aesthetics side but a negative on the functionality side.
The old contact card was not very pretty but allowed inline editing of the name of the person. Like you can see in the image above. Now with the new format of contact cards clicking on the name takes you to the contacts editor within Gmail. So here I guess Gmail has chosen style over functionality. This feature was very useful for Orkut users who had contacts with weird names which reflect Orkut account names.
Gmail has recently made a lot of changes from allowing nested labels to integrating Google Maps in Gmail.
Why do you think Gmail has changed it’s contact card design and loose out on functionality. My guess is as good as anybody’s guess.
Do you like the redesigned contact card? Do let me know through your comments.
(via Google System)