Foolish Google’s Mic Drop Day
by Miki Saxon
Google is supposedly packed with smart, above-average-intelligence people who are savvy to the ways of users.
Assuming that’s true, one wonders why they violated the number one caveat of software for their traditional April Fool’s Day fun by changing Gmail’s long-used UI (emphasis mine).
The premise of the joke was simple. In Gmail, next to the standard “Reply” button, Google added a “Mic drop” button. Using it would reply to the email, archive it — and also add a GIF of a “Despicable Me” minion dropping a mic. (…) Its placement directly next to the default Reply button — replacing the “Send and archive” button — meant it was easy to click by accident, especially if a user didn’t understand what it was.
Unbelievable. Even non-biz people know you don’t change long-used/well-loved anything (think Coke/New Coke), especially without warning, and expect your users/customers not to react strongly and, most often, negatively.
Especially as a joke.
Google’s product forums are full of furious users claiming they pressed the button by accident, often on important professional emails.
If you think Gmail “Mic Drop” stories of lost jobs/opportunities/etc can’t be true, remember: there are 900m Gmail users. It was live 12hrs. — Charles Arthur (@charlesarthur) April 1, 2016
Doing this was stupid, but Google’s response made it worse by totally ignoring user feedback and blaming a bug.
In a statement, a company representative said: “Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the MicDrop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.”
How’s that for uncaring, it’s-not-our-fault, smug and inane?
Perhaps Google should have renamed itself Arrogance instead of Alphabet.
