SXSW: Gmail: Behind the Scenes
Jonathan Perlow - Set out to make an email client that he would want to use: never have to delete mail, make the UI feel as sleek as desktop app.
Arielle Reinstein - leads the gmail blog, the public relations of gmail.
Edward Ho - Buzz lead, sense/strength/quality of team more important than the quality of the code. Have often code reviews to make sure people are executing as well as ideateing. The team sat unnaturally close to each other so that im & meetings were unnecessary. Also, there was less confusion, because everyone is aware of everything and able to contribute to decisions.
Todd Jackson - Google Gmail/Buzz project manager. Leads the group through consensus. Shit funnel vs. shit umbrella. "You have to be the shit umbrella."
Braden Kowitz - User experience at Google Ventues.
Google is a company of do. When someone has an idea, they do it (prototype, mock-up, etc.) Good example is the gmail un-send. That was a large internal debate and an engineer who wasn't even part of the core team implemented the feature into labs.
Google has on-demand build/deployment so they can test a full build of gmail with their real user accounts.
Latency is a critical issue. All new features go through testing to make sure latency isn't added along with the feature. Added latency can kill a new feature.
Listening to all the feedback from all the users is a challenge. Everyone on the Gmail team uses reader feeds to keep a pulse of the conversation about Gmail.
90%+ unit tested.
"We have this amazing technology called 'work really, really hard'".
Really extensive summary of the seminar:
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