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Google’s look, evolved

googleblog.blogspot.com

211–220 of 447 posts

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#211
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Months at a time? Try paying more.

We've offered a salary twice the median for our city, plus benefits, paid transportation, 401k matching and 3-year enrollment to our profit sharing plan. It's not a pay issue as best as I can tell.

[deleted]

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#212
I can almost feel the awkward vibe that went into not directly comparing search results over the years. It would have made the demise of real organic search too obvious.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#213
post #125
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, anytime there is a logo change there is a bunch of marketing talk about why. It's all bullshit. At the end of the day it was because someone wanted to make their mark and got a chance to do it. A tweaked logo won't affect Google's outcome one iota. And it will be slightly changed in another couple of years by some new VP who wants to shake things up and get that next promotion.

> A tweaked logo won't affect Google's outcome one iota. Ah, but it will. When you're a company like Google, with hundreds of millions of users a day, it's only a matter of time that something like an outdated logo will start to lose you customers. People make sub-conscious inferences about your product based on appearance. If you start looking like that thing everyone used to use, they'll start looking for alternati…

Google's logo is so important to keeping users around that they frequently replace it with a silly animation about a current event.

This redesign was for Google executives, not Google users.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#214
post #206
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google maps is incredibly frustrating to use. I can't understand what user testing they do.

What changes would you make to Google Maps, with a basic set of assumptions? (let's say, you can't dramatically increase the cost, you can't hurt Google revenue sources, and you have a team of ~20 engineers to work on the changes).

I'd change it back to the way it was prior to the redesigns.

It used to work fine. The big problem with the current version is the almost complete absence of legible affordances.

There are all kinds of buttons with logos on them that do stuff. But until you learn what they do, their functions are mysterious.

Basic things like Traffic used to be obvious, one-click features. Now they're hidden in the burger menu, so at best they're two clicks away, and at worst a non-trivial percentage of users has no idea they exist. (Etc.)

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#215

Google's userinterface, in gmail.com, at least, has gotten progressively worse, and worse, and worse, and worse since its inception in my experience and everyone I've asked about this. ... don't know what else to say. I question if their designers use their own products. Latest bugs worth mentioning: Chrome still has an issue that can cause microphone to not work in Hangouts. Gmail.com has added a "Your plug-in googl…

Everyone at Google uses gmail.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#216
The new Web UI for Google Play Music is horrendous. Sure, it looks nice, but the older interface was much simpler and easier to use (not to mention more responsive).

On the new logo... just went to google.com for the first time today. Ugh, no. I winced when I saw it.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New favicon? https://www.google.com/favicon.ico - is still the old one.

Wondering the same. If it has changed, then ISP cache will take some time to reflect.

If your ISP is caching HTTPS requests, you have a problem.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#218

Google's userinterface, in gmail.com, at least, has gotten progressively worse, and worse, and worse, and worse since its inception in my experience and everyone I've asked about this. ... don't know what else to say. I question if their designers use their own products. Latest bugs worth mentioning: Chrome still has an issue that can cause microphone to not work in Hangouts. Gmail.com has added a "Your plug-in googl…

I'm curious, do you have any specifical examples of things that got worse? I.e. density, new compose moles? Why are they worse for you specifically.

The nine dot menu instead of a small header row was a terrible change. First because it is an extra click every time for a commonly used task and second because no one had any clue what the hell nine dots were supposed to mean. A friend of mine that worked at google told me the official name is "app drawer". I have no idea how that's supposed to look like a drawer.

More generally the entire move from words to pictograms looks to me like a regression to a technology that was superseded by a superior one 5000 years ago.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#219
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New favicon? https://www.google.com/favicon.ico - is still the old one.

The new one probably not populated to all their location yet, but adding a random query string does the trick. https://www.google.com/favicon.ico?newlogo (I'm seeing a four-colors capitalize G.)

I don't think that works very well as a favicon - I see a "c" first and then my eyes have to force it into a G.

Thank you for linking it, hadn't reached my interwebs yet.

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