Icons rather than localized text sets save ever so slightly on UI instantiation latency…

dmerr:

There are several things in the new gmail UI that I like but several that leave me scratching my head; see image (click to expand).  Mainly, the switch from text buttons to icons.  Can you tell effortlessly which icon is archive and spam and move?  I can’t.  I suppose translation is then some extra work but it was already in place.

Also note how the back button and reply button are basically the same.

I wouldn’t blame a programmer for these — I’d likely get them wrong myself, but a company of Google’s size can have some human interface gurus.

One thing they have always gotten right is keeping the UIs clean and without much adornment.