I like the "flatter" UI design overall, but I agree on the whitespace. Especially in Gmail. I wouldn't mind a flatter phase going through The Internets, as I think it's less distracting, but I entirely agree. Less wasteful display of data, please.

I would be interested in any info people may have as to whether such a large amount of whitespace does or does not improve user's understanding/use of sites. I like dense displays, but I'm also willing to learn how to use more powerful tools, as I value the efficiency.

Yes the extra whitespace in gmail is good. Just read TuFte's book on ink-to-information ratio. Good stuff

This has nothing to do with whitespace. It's just a CSS library for Google+ style buttons.

But it does have something (ie, everything) to do with spreading the Google+ style, which includes the whitespace.

I think you're going to lose this battle :)

I like the new layout and white space, it's much easier for me to read, but I've always liked this style. In fact, I have a tendency to double space much of my code and other coders hate that I do this.

The only think I REALLY don't like is the giant red COMPOSE button. Uhg. I just want to change it to another color. I REPLY all the time but don't compose often, and having this giant red eye-sore there all the time is very uncomfortable.

I'm using the new gmail theme, and I don't have any of those complaints. I'm on a medium resolution screen (1400x1050 I think) and I currently have 18 mail entries visible.

It definitely took me a bit to get used to a typography-centric layout. I really do like it now, however.

Between the dense new theme and the original, I go between 18 entries and 26 entries. The original also has noticeably more preview text. The "normal" new theme gives me only 14 - nearly half the number. Were my window a bit shorter, it would be half, because the header area and priority-inbox-label lines are larger.

The increased whitespace makes it massively less dense.

Okay, thanks. I was just about to write the exact same thing (although I may have been more dramatic complaining about the huge amount of unnecessary white space that fills my small netbook screen).

The new buttons however are quite nice and simple. There should be a hint of 3D though, to make them feel more "press-able". Other than that, I am okay with them becoming wide spread on the web, just don't surround them with so much wasted space.

I wrote a userscript that dials down the whitespace, if anyone's interested: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105891