14 DAY TRIAL // I've often heard others just start swearing out of the blue while working on their computers. They just jump up from their chairs and start cursing, as if they've just got out of a fight and they're all black and blue. And it always is the same reason, not one of them reacts like that unless they have sent a very important email without the attachment that was absolutely necessary. Bummer, I know, and there's not much to do about it, other than apologize in a second mail, to which attaching the missing file is compulsory.
Paul Bucheit, a former employee at Google and Gmail co-creator, argued earlier this year that all actions in email should have an "undo" option, very much like it does in most interfaces, reverting the last action the user has performed. It is absolutely necessary in almost every application, because of the speed that is required of us and that drove us to "do first, think later", as Philipp Lenssen of blogoscoped.com said.
The way Paul envisioned this function is that it would provide you with about 10 seconds of delay time between the moment you press that "Send" and the moment the message is actually out of your drafts folder and already sent, enough time to realize whether you had made a mistake and "recall" the mail into the editing panel. Rather useful addition, I think, it's really a shame he wasn't around with the Gmail team to make it happen.
Perhaps adding the option to turn it off would also be welcomed, as there are many people who use Gmail to actually chat as they would do with an IM client, because they want the conversation to be fully recorded and there in the inbox. I'm thinking they would disagree with the ten second delay, but for the rest of the world and even for them, in other circumstances it would prove to be a life saver.