Google wants to make Gmail your new ‘home for work’ by merging email, Chat and Measure into one browser window, as well as a mobile app. That said, the company will be running standalone messaging and video calling applications, with Google Chat testing a redesign of a web client.
Google Chat today is available for paying Workspace customers, while personal accounts can be accessed by conversation when invited. The current web interface is a side-loading grouped by Fixed, Chat (single-user or group messages), Rooms and Bots. The selected conversation is shown to the right for a fairly standard layout of the chat program.
The redesign is mostly the same, but simplified with the left panel containing Chat and rooms only, as well as Gmail’s Google Meet shortcuts for ‘New’ and ‘Join a meeting’. Wires appear on the right, but you now have the ability to “exit full screen” from the top right corner. This creates a small chat window identical to Hangouts – Gchat before that – in web Gmail.
At the bottom of the screen, fixed to the right, it can be minimized so that only the contact’s name appears. You can do everything here, from adding emoji to uploading images, as well as browsing Drive files and sending a Meet request.
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Besides being very familiar with years of Gmail users, it’s an effective way to talk to multiple people at once. For example, it would be very convenient to have one room on the main screen and multiple fixed windows so that you do not have to switch constantly.
Elsewhere, this new user interface allows you to shrink the sidebar so that only profile avatars appear. The full one appears when you hold over. The search field has been moved to the top bar, with ‘Active’ just next to it.
This Google Chat Web Design is not widely implemented and appears in a personal account. This can be part of the company’s plan to migrate personal Hangouts accounts to Chat before reaching the enterprise client.
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