Ads in Gmail

I am officially back into work mode. This means a lot of design, development, proposal, and budget conversations. Work is back in full effect. One of the byproducts of returning to work is that a lot of my time is spent on email: writing, reading, drafting, rewriting, and ensuring the right people have visibility

I don’t mind this, though sometimes I miss having one simple design task for the day. Those days are long gone.

This got me thinking about Gmail’s current UX, which involves a pretty simple email experience plus ads in the promotions, social, and updates sections. What if they were a bit more aggressive with their ads? You can imagine ads that render within email threads that are driven by the context of the emails.

This feels like a bridge too far. It’s invasive and begs the question, “Are you reading all my email communications?” While I don’t think people would like the privacy implications, it does feel like the ads would be relevant…

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