Google to redesign Gmail to make emails more reader-friendly on mobile

Google has announced that it is redesigning its Gmail interface to make emails on mobile more reader-friendly. With Gmail and Inbox by Gmail getting a responsive design, mails would be expected to adjust themselves to the type of device they were being viewed on, whether mobiles or desktops.

Emails were earlier formatted by default for the large desktop screen and reading them on the smartphone was a difficult. Images were too large to display on the small screen, which meant they extended outside of the screen and viewing the image in entirety presented problems.

In certain other cases, some mails formatted for mobile display looked odd on the desktop. Google's new responsive design aimed to alleviate both issues.

The recent past had seen many websites and internet platforms shift to a responsive design with increasing content consumption on the smartphone.

Apps were especially designed to have a more mobile-friendly design to fit everything into a small screen.

"Starting later this month, Gmail and Inbox by Gmail will support emails created with responsive design, meaning their content adapts to fit screens of all sizes. Text, links, and even buttons will enlarge to make reading and tapping easier on a smaller screen. If you're on desktop, you'll also see improvements, since emails designed for mobile can also adapt to fit larger screens," Pierce Vollucci, product manager at Google, said in a statement.

However, this did not mean every email users had ever been sent would look good on mobile, nor did it affect the plain text emails; it only applied to emails designed to look more like mini webpages, which would now need to be created with responsive design in mind.

However, finally the addition of proper support in Gmail meant one could expect this to become the norm in due time, according to commentators.