I to am a bit confused. When I screenshot the two different formats side-by-side then I see 9 emails displayed in the new version versus 10 emails displayed in the old version. Granted that the new UI does give more of the thread open.

In the old UI we were managing the status of items inside of each Inbox or inside of your own global inbox. All of that was 1 click away. Your calendar, contacts, etc. were all 1 click away with no need to go through a dropdown.

In the new UI we are managing by status versus by inbox. That being Open, Later, Done. I just don’t know that our workflow matches that mentality. 

In addition, the Later and Done designs don’t have headers for types of work like the Open section does. In the Open section you have All, Tasks, and Discussions. Inside Later you have All, Waiting, and Snoozed. Inside Done you have All, Archived, and Resolved. I would argue that there needs to be some way to see type of work in those two segments and not just a further breakdown of status. Maybe it defaults to all statuses with in that section and then you have headers for Tasks and Discussions like the Open section. Then you breakout the sub-statuses by having a dropdown arrow like you do on the Open segment for Subscribed, Assigned to me, and direct.

All that is to say, the filtering does not feel consistent and I am not sure who was the test case for the workflow.

Personally I worked out of Inbox or the Shared Inbox most of the time and swapped between statuses using the pre-filtered headers in the old UI. Now that I have to go between statuses on the left hand Navigation then it feels clunkier than the old method.

I also agree with other commenters that the search bar being permanently at the top felt more intuitive and that there has been increase in total clicks for the same workflow.

Mass assigning Conversations should be easier, it is now hidden in a dropdown, which cost me one more click, there is so much space on the rest of the page to add it to the other quick actions.

Just wanted to echo what some other folks are saying as well:

Search bar on top with a wider click-zone was more intuitive and easier to navigate.

Something I noticed was the Discussions when clicked only has open Discussions, not an option to see archived discussions - you have to go to “Done” sidebar and then look through archived to find, unless I am missing an easier way?

Edit: saw you can filter to discussions in the “done” sidebar - this is more work to go to instead of Discussions being its own sidebar option like it was previously

Hi ​@futureproof - thanks for your kind word! To your questions - the mobile app will be updated in Q3. Re the Front UI Kit for developers - currently we don’t have plans to update this right now, but curious if this would be important for your team? 

Thank you ​@meganbeatty , but in “Later” or “Done” section it's not possible to distinguish the Discussions section, like you can in “Open”. Is there a way to filter discussions in “Later” or “Done”?

 

Currently, there isn’t a way to filter for discussions in the Later of Done sections - this is something we are currently discussing internally however! 

Tags don’t have enough contrast when there is an unread email under that tag. For example the following tags PayPal and Wise have an unread email and the text is in bold but the colour contrast is really bad compared to the rest tags that do not have an unread email. 

The PayPal and Wise text in bold hex color is: #f3f2f7 

The Stripe, Invoices tags text in normal hex color is: #e4e3e8 

The Old Interface has much better contrast. Here is how it looks in the old interface:
 

The PayPal and Wise text in bold hex color is: #eeedf2

The Stripe, Invoices tags text in normal hex color is: #a5a4a8

Please fix this.

I am finding it hard to believe that any power users of this product would find these changes beneficial. It’s less efficient (more clicks, less intuitive location for search, etc) and visually very messy

I use Front on a desktop and it’s very hard to see and distinguish anything now. At least make new messages really stand out like previously. And put the delete icon back in the ribbon. It’s not something we should have to go hunting for. 

New messages are basically not visible. It may look sleeker to you (or streamlined) but honestly for visually impaired people, anyone who is sensitive to lights and just any glasses user it is very hard to distinguish anything now. The boldness of new unread messages is sooooo important. Please bring it back or at least make themes more adjustable. 

Hi there,

Will we be able to customize the ribbon/toolbar at all? I’m frustrated that the trash and tag buttons are now nested within dropdown menus. Some other commenters have touched on this already. The ability to add additional items to this empty space would be fantastic.

 

And I just want to add, it seems to me that your team mistook a clean design for an efficient/convenient one, as so often happens with redesigns. I appreciate that the new inbox may be a great improvement for some, but for others (myself included) it just seems that certain features were sacrificed in the name of an attractive UI.

This. I don’t like it that features I use a lot are now more clicks away than before. Opening the calendar, adding a tag, creating a message or deleting a conversation now takes more clicks than before. That’s not convenient. And yes, I know the shortcuts.

The fact that my colleagues had to ask someone where the search function was, is another example. You search in your conversations, so you expect this function to be above the conversations. Where it was in the old interface. Not in the sidebar.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

In the old screen, I had emails coming in from my Parabola flow, moving to another “folder” to keep my inbox cleansed up and be able to access the Parabola emails when I needed them .  In the new screen, they are all together and i cannot find my old folders i had set up for these things to move to - they show up in my inbox - how do i fix this?

So many important buttons and context were buried, and yet we have two settings buttons, one at the top in the navigation menu and one at the bottom of the sidebar.

I’d like to echo the sentiment of other users on this thread. In a effort to simplify the layout, Front has added complexity and confusion to what were previously efficient workflows. 

Here are my team’s primary concerns:

1. Dynamic Objects/Links now require an extra click to view, making it harder to reference key information directly in the email body.

2. Colored Flags are no longer visible in the email preview corner, making it harder to quickly identify which inbox an email belongs to.

3. The overall look feels dated and more aligned with Outlook, which contrasts with the modern, clean interface we appreciated in the previous version.

4. It’s difficult to see when new emails arrive, which makes staying on top of time-sensitive messages more challenging.

5. The search bar is no longer persistent in the top navigation and is now tucked away, which adds friction to a task we do frequently.
6. The addition of "done" and "later" feels unnecessary and is inconsistent with the prior naming convention (snoozing and archiving) that made managing a Front inbox so efficient. 

Requiring extra clicks for routine tasks adds up and leads to significant time wasted over the course of a day. 

We previously loved using Front, but the new interface now feels tedious and uninspired. I’m hopeful that the previous inbox layout will be revisited as it was the best thing about Front!   

We have been using “create linked conversation” and I don’t see that as an option anywhere in the new look. Am I missing something? This was an integral part of tracking and was a great feature when it launched. 

​@jen_shimp to link a conversation you need to use the + sign next to the tags, above the email, if this is what you are talking about

Hi

Here's some feedback from our team, the general sentiment is that efficiency has not been put in the first place designing this new UI, which is unfortunate.

• Bad contrast in dark mode (internal message and message from and to the client are hard to differentiate.

• Discussions are now "hidden" have to search further back and especially to find back archived discussions. Would be great to have the discussion tab back.

• In general have to click 2 or 3x times more than before.

• Dynamic objects are now "hidden" in the header behind a small drop down menu, in the previous version this was more visible and better accessible

• Archive of the private email inbox hard to find

At the moment I’m unsure of how this new design will impact our daily operation. The need to make more clicks will definitely not help.

Most users reverted back to the old version because of this.

Where did the “assigned to me” section go? How do I answer my customer’s chats/emails that are assigned to me? 

Hi ​@Front User 383, you can expand the open inbox, and you'll find the "assigned to me" section. It's not really visible right away when you change to the new UI.

I’ve been using the new layout since it launched last week, and I applaud the Front team coming up with this sleeker design. I have a few pain points that haven’t gone away as I’ve gotten used to it:

• The lack of contrast in the list of emails in the inbox is a bit disorienting when things get busy. I have to take a moment to engage my brain to parse the list of emails, in a way I didn’t have to before, if that makes sense. I’d suggest a bolder line between emails or having a shaded outline of the preview (any number of other small changes might do the trick here).
• The search button is smaller, so it requires more precision to click; this is a shame given how often my team uses search (because Front’s search is so helpful). I think I understand why this change was made: to make the inbox the “main event” and not take up screen real estate with a bigger bar. Still, I’d like the option to move it back to where it was.
• Opening a new email draft now takes two clicks (I have to click the + symbol and then “Message”). My team doesn’t use any of the other options (Discussion, Talk, Call), so this is purely downside for us. I’d suggest that if you disable three of the options, the + button automatically opens up the one remaining (in our case, opens a new message) -- or just have a bigger “New draft” button as before.

Was it intentional to remove the ability to see if discussions are assigned directly from the list view? In the previous interface we were able to see at a quick glance who was assigned to a conversation or a discussion. Within the new interface, only email conversations display who is assigned to it, but if the message is a discussion you have to select the message in order to see who is assigned to it. Would it be possible to display who is assigned to the conversations regardless of it being an email or a discussion?

 

Hi there,

Will we be able to customize the ribbon/toolbar at all? I’m frustrated that the trash and tag buttons are now nested within dropdown menus. Some other commenters have touched on this already. The ability to add additional items to this empty space would be fantastic.

 

And I just want to add, it seems to me that your team mistook a clean design for an efficient/convenient one, as so often happens with redesigns. I appreciate that the new inbox may be a great improvement for some, but for others (myself included) it just seems that certain features were sacrificed in the name of an attractive UI.

+1 to this.  As a customer whose team leverages the tags feature quite a bit for tracking and categorizing work, nesting that option felt rude, and moving that and the  from the right to the left seemed like moving things just to move them.  It would be nice to have the option to decide what I want as 1st order access vs. adding clicks to every interaction (this adds up) or people needing to be sure to have right thing in focus for the hot-key to work vs. just adding an errant ‘t’ into an email or comment.  There’s plenty of real estate for a customizable toolbar there (same could apply to the inbox/caldendar/contacts etc. drop-down that used to be button/tabs).  

Also, minor nit, but I’m sad to see the empty-inbox people go in favor of a comparatively sterile block stack.  The “personality” there was a nice touch as a reward for cleaning a plate.  

Where is the “create linked task” option?!

I’ve been living with this ‘reimagined’ experience for a week now and I have nothing good to say about it. There’s less contrast and less shapes that could carry valuable information like color. Even unread messages are harder to see.

Just give me a native Mac app instead of this Electron web app and I would be very very happy.