Google's Gmail is one of the most popular and widely used email service.
After a bunch of new features and a much-needed visual refresh, Google has also revamped its interface to support user mentions, just like social media and messaging platforms.
What it does, is adding a convenient way to add a mailto: link to an email.
When the recipient clicks on that link, it will prompt open a new compose window so they can directly write to that contact. It's also useful for those who need to introduce someone via email to another contact, or list a bunch of people’s email addresses in a message quickly.
To use this feature, users need to be at a composing new message or at a reply box.
There, they can insert anyone's email in the body section by just typing the @ symbol, followed by their name. For example, typing @A will bring up a list of people in the users' contacts that start with the letter A will be listed.
The @ mention feature is not a novel concept.
Previously, users who know a little HTML, can add this by themselves. But this @ mention feature does make it much easier to add the link, without any HTML.
The '@' symbol is not the only way users can link contacts inside the body of an email. Mentioning someone with a '+' symbol instead of a '@' symbol also links the contact in the body of the mail. Additionally, it automatically adds the person to the list of the user's recipients in the mail being drafted.
These little touch indeed make it nicer to get emails right.