Gmail has a usability problem with its ajax loading… message, it covers the “logout” button and makes it difficult to click on it.
You can still click on the logout button while it’s loading, but you need to make some real effort to do that. You have to click that 1 pixel edge of “logout” button which is barely visible beneath the loading… message.
It’s true that we can just wait for the message to be gone and only then click the logout button. However, sometimes, when there is a problem with internet connection or when the connection is slow, the loading message would not go so easily. In fact, there are times it will just stay like that – frozen, until you refresh it again.
I hope guys over at Gmail can solve this usability issue soon.
The other thing I would like to see them do is move the loading message down to the bottom left corner of the page. Many people (like me) look down on both IE and Firefox at the status bar. There is nothing natural or intuitive about the gmail loading status message being in the upper right corner.
Hmmm. Why would you want to logout while you are loading something? I don’t think thats a usability issue. It’s a little far fetched. Just my 2 cents.
This is THE most irritating thing about using Gmail. You want to logout while loading because it’s taking far too long, because of the connection, and/or you need to go do something else.