They can't get data on what goes through peoples heads before clicking an action, only if it was clicked or not.

They still use their mighty data to show me ads for things I've literally just bought, I do sometimes wonder if all data is even.

As a tech enthusiast, I occasionally get surveys to possibly sign up to try out a new version of a Google UI. I've never actually done it because the time windows don't usually work out, but signing up for these user studies is definitely something I ended up in by being in the tech crowd.

But I also have done a lot of tech support for senior citizens, who don't have the innate ability to stumble through bad UI like a lot of us millenial-types do. I feel like Google is talking to the wrong people.

I suspect that if Google UI designers spent some time in senior citizen communities watching people use their email, almost everything about how Google designs web pages would be thrown away.