I almost gave up on Gamma before I saw what it could do

All right guys, welcome to another teardown.

This time we're going to take a look at Gamma.

So Gamma is a tool that is designed to help you create presentations, documents, media posts, websites, they've been around for a while now so I figured I'd sign up for the product, go through the onboarding, So I'll just give you my honest raw thoughts on what I think is working, what isn't, also what can be improved.

So by the end of this hopefully we'll have a presentation or a website of some sort Okay, so let's get started.

I'm gonna click Start for free.

Top right up here.

Okay, first impression.

So the graphics on the right, they're really cool.

I like the fact that Gamma showcasing some of the things you can design with the product.

And these look great, very professional, very well designed.

so it looks like we've got a couple of different options.

for sign up we've got Google or we can just use our email address, and no credit card required thankfully.

Always tend to see that as a really big barrier to entry.

so I'm glad we're not forced to enter in our credit card details to sign up.

The only thing I think it's missing is maybe some social proof.

although the images on the right are really nice and give me a sense of what I can create with the product.

I think some social proof over here on the right would have been nice.

And although I'm not a huge fan of this gradient aesthetic, it does tie in quite nicely with the website itself.

Although one thing I have noticed Here is the design of the Continue with Google button aligns more closely with the Gamma brand than it does with Google and the Google guidelines.

It's also not very well aligned with the form underneath which we're going to use to put in our email address.

So it feels a little little unpolished, unfinished.

Right, let's put our email in here.

So as you can see when I'm typing, it's removed the sign up with Google option.

So that's convenient.

there we go.

And then just as we finished there we've got Continue with email.

And you can see that button becomes active.

Okay, let's continue.

So next up it wants to confirm our email.

Now I understand from Gamma's perspective there's definitely benefits to this but as a new user signing up to the product, it just increases the barrier to entry and just forces the user to jump through some usually fairly unnecessary steps here to get into the product.

On a more positive note, what they have done here is given me a shortcut so I can open Gmail directly from this page rather than having to go to an email client and find the email.

thankfully that email has come through immediately.

So we're almost done setting up the account.

Click the button below to verify your email address.

So let's click Verify.

Okay, so it now looks like we've got to create an account.

like I think much of this could have been handled like earlier on in the process.

I'm guessing now they have my email address.

I'm on their mailing list.

so they can push the product to me that way.

But again it just feels like I'm jumping through more hoops to get into the product.

I don't know why they need to know my first name, my last name, language subdue English by default, which is good.

And we've got one password form field here.

Although the password instructions don't appear until you start typing, which is not Ideal because then you need to continue to add digits, until you meet the requirements.

Otherwise you can't click Continue.

This feels like another huge pain in the ass to me.

Okay, so, in order to get past this step and create a password, I've copied one from my password, manager, and it looks like it meets the requirements here.

So I'm going to click Continue.

Hopefully we get into the product, and test it out.

Yes, let's save.

okay, so we haven't been taken straight to the dashboard.

Looks like we've got some onboarding to go through now asking us how we plan to use Gamma and it does say, that it will use the answers to personalize the experience.

So that's what we hope for.

Still.

not in the product though.

I'd like to experience value a lot sooner than this so far.

I can't help but feel there's been quite a few hoops we've got to jump through before we get in there.

What I do like, is this is a full screen experience so I'm not getting distracted by anything else.

There's literally only this question for me to answer.

let's go with for work.

So which of the following best describes your role?

I'm going to go with design and product.

How many people your organization?

let's go with just me.

And then finally we've got, what do you plan to do with Gamma?

So let's create a presentation, build a website and social media assets.

Right.

Hopefully that's enough for it to go off.

So let's click Continue, and see where we go.

And then.

Okay, hopefully this is the last step.

where did you hear about us?

Let's just go with LinkedIn.

Okay, so now they're pushing their newsletter again, far from ideal.

I kind of just want to get into the product, start experiencing it.

after I'd signed up with my Gmail address earlier, I kind of figured I'd already be on their marketing list.

Now appreciate they're trying to sort of alleviate any concerns here by saying they only send emails occasionally, to help me get the most out of Gamma.

They don't send any spam and they'll never share or sell my email.

Yeah, I mean that's, that's all fine and well, but for me I just, I Want to get into the product and experience it.

So I'm going to click.

not now.

Okay, so I think we're pretty much there.

we're now going to create something with gamma.

so they're definitely persistent with this blue gradient.

Can't get away from that one.

so we've got four fairly straightforward options here.

We need to generate something from a single prompt, paste in some text, create something from a template or import a file or URL.

Now they're clearly putting emphasis on this kind of generate option with AI.

specifically we've got a illustration here of a cat with three eyes if I'm not mistaken.

Clearly don't take themselves too seriously.

I like that.

so if we're not sure where to start, it is pointing us in this direction and that is the one that's recommended.

I feel like they could have done something else with the layout here to put more emphasis on that first option.

anyway, let's click Generate.

Okay, so what would you like to create today then?

So we've got presentation, which is the default option?

Web page, document, social or a graphic.

So let's go with web page then.

ten cards.

Not sure what that means right now.

like.

Yeah, I guess I'd need to dig a bit further into understanding, what those are.

in terms of language.

It set us to English us, which is close enough.

but we're gonna go for English uk so we can either describe or we want to make simply by typing in this box.

Or we can use some of the example prompts now, presumably.

Well, I don't know, but it would have been nice if these example prompts, were relevant to the options I selected as part of the onboarding.

I don't know if that is the case.

They all seem a little bit random.

although in fairness they do have a personal site for a product designer, so that feels like a suitable option.

And if none of these are relevant, then I'm guessing I can click shuffle and we can see a few more options, which is cool.

right, I'm going to go for this one.

A personal site for a product designer.

Nice.

So it's pre filled in the text box with that prompt.

Remove the rest of them and let's generate an outline.

Okay, so that didn't take long at all.

it's given us 10 sections here.

Left some placeholder.

Your name.

I mean you should know my name.

It did ask me for my first name and my surname earlier.

So maybe that's something they could have pulled through here.

Yeah, I mean to be fair the outline's pretty good.

So presumably if we're happy with that and I think we can come in here and we can make edits of our own as well.

which is cool.

And then we can add in other sections just by hovering over, which is nice.

That works well.

And then we can add more cards if we need to.

So that's simple, really straightforward.

And then looks like there's some additional settings down here as well.

So we can add more text or reduce the amount of text and visuals obviously important for designers.

So we can customize the visuals with either pre made themes here.

Click view more.

I'm guessing some of these might be paid as well.

In fairness, the previews are really nice over here on the right.

Just give me like a flavor of what I can expect as we're panning through some of these.

So let's go with this one.

Click save.

By default we're looking at AI images.

Sure, why not?

Let's try it.

there are plenty of other options here.

To be honest.

AI model.

Not particularly bothered.

whatever it thinks is best.

And then illustrations.

Art style let's go with 3D again.

I like the fact that we can use a reference here if we want to.

and then we've got some extra keywords in here as well.

so let's add a couple of those.

So some options.

Let's make it bold, minimal.

Okay, so it looks like we're all set then.

Hopefully this will generate something relevant now in terms of just setting up Visuals what might have been quite nice.

Appreciate we can choose from set themes, but if I've already got a website and I wanted to test this out, maybe I wanted to create a presentation, maybe I could have added my own URL in there from my website and then it could pull through, the graphics, the colors, maybe the font.

And that would have just saved me the hassle of having set up the visuals for myself.

I don't know if that's an option if you get further into the product or not.

But that could work quite well.

okay, I think we're all set.

Let's click Generate and see what it comes up with.

Okay, so it looks like it's done.

it was working through that in real time.

So it's finished generating and we've created our first gamma.

we've got some tooltips, bottom right.

There's only three of them.

So it looks like it's going to guide us through this experience to make any edits or changes if we want to share it.

So I like that.

Let's click Show Me.

So it talks about the structure using cards.

Great.

Every card is made up of editable blocks and now it looks like we're ready to go.

So this is what it's produced.

Obviously.

Got our onboarding, checklist, bottom right.

Let's dismiss that if we can.

Yeah, I think it looks alright given I give it very little context to be fair.

I just wish we'd been able to get to this point sooner and not have to jump through all of the hoops we had to go through earlier.

This is a, clearly a very capable and very powerful tool.

I can see, you know, we've got all kinds of themes we can select.

Sure.

There's multiple ways we can share our new gamma.

We've got a, toolbar on the right to make very specific edits, adding all kinds of other multimedia and embedding options.

So it's a really comprehensive tool and a really good alternative to something like canva.

Although I would say is the UX is a little bit hit and miss.

All right, guys, I'm going to leave it there.

Let me know your thoughts are on Gamma.

Cheers.