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Google’s look, evolved

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Re: Google’s look, evolved

#261

Post by pasbesoin »

nostrademons wrote: post #252
pasbesoin wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you offer any perspective on the whole sometimes-named "mystery meat" UI that's been rolled particularly but not only into mobile design over the past half decade? Further, more and more of this seems to have been "backported" into traditional desktop presentation design. While I will experiment around until I more or less "get it" (although I may miss finding some useful features for months), it particularly fru…

I'm curious what you mean by "mystery meat"? I assume it's the use of icons and drawers to trigger functionality rather than labels and links? That's driven by screen size - there's simply not enough screen real estate on a phone to label every button with words. It does have a legit discoverability problem, which most folks in UX acknowledge but don't know how to fix, given other constraints of the media. I've seen…

Well, a, um, "literal" example was the initial occurrence of what I've just learned is called the "hamburger" icon/menu. Which was "backported" to Google's desktop designs.

A particular instance I recall was changes to the Calendar web page presentation. Mom initially struggled a fair amount with the controls in the left bar for selecting which calendars were displayed. This was in a Google Apps environment with 20-ish people participating.

I remember when screen presentations could be somewhat cryptic -- per your description as well as other instances. But, as you point out, there was usually a manual. Now? Often it seems to be down to guessing and poking around. Or asking friends. But if you are a bit older and not constantly talking over such things with your friends, that means of edification is somewhat starved.

P.S. Thanks for the response. And as I said, I'm curious about the perspective of someone on "the other side". I'm not trying to be unduly critical, here; just, this is an issue I've consistently bumped up against, from my own perspective.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#262

Post by josteink »

kyrra wrote: post #36
mahouse wrote: post #20

I'll be the first one to say it: I liked the older better. There was literally nothing wrong with it, it did not look dated at all.

They actually give a reason why they changed it in the blog post. Saying that the old one was designed for desktops and the new one is meant to scale better (for things like watches and phones I'd guess). Edit: to add from their design blog[0], the new logo can be sent to a client in 305 bytes of compressed SVG (vs 14,000 bytes for the old logo). So it helps with lower bandwidth. The design post also mentions scaling…

> They actually give a reason why they changed it in the blog post.

This was the part where I literally thought "How do they come up with this bullshit?".

It doesn't sound genuine at all.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#263

Post by mh-cx »

I'm using an original Google Nexus 7 (2012 with latest Android) and try to view this page using an original Google browser (Chrome) and this is one of the few pages that make chrome crash. Same on my motorola razr i.

I love it when pages that talk about “cross platform“ behave this way.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#264

Post by fixermark »

27182818284 wrote: post #33
bad_user wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are automatically classifying photos. If you have photos in Google Photos, you can try it out with words such as "forest", or "dog", or "grill". It's pretty cool and scary at the same time :-)

I did not know they were doing anything other than identifying faces that you've already tagged. Grabbing the pumpkin, whatever out of the photo is just wonderful.

The technology underpinning this stuff has been brewing / percolating / developing for years [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...]

Automatic photos classification is just the most visible iteration of the tech.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#265

Post by chrismarlow9 »

DanBC wrote: post #198
hellbanner wrote: post #197

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…

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

Use it through voice. Eg, "Navigate to XXX". Easiest way I've found to use it.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#266

Post by vladdanilov »

I expected more attention to detail for a project this big. They are using the new logos in a few places now. All suffer from various problems. The one on the Google Official Blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/google-update.html) has hinting problems most noticeably on "l" symbol (zoomed version – http://i.imgur.com/1kRZB5o.png). The same with the logo on the Google Translate (https://translate.google.com/) and with the presented Google Logotype on the Google Design blog (https://design.google.com/articles/evolving-the-google-ident..., https://g-design.storage.googleapis.com/production/v5/assets...). The black SVG logo at the bottom of the last page has some unkempt figures and a leftover line.

On a positive note, the logo image (http://googleblog.blogspot.ru/2015/09/google-update.html) is well optimized with Zopfli (https://github.com/google/zopfli). However, I don't see why the new logo is smaller (from here – https://design.google.com/articles/evolving-the-google-ident...). I could bring down the size of the previous one (http://i.imgur.com/lfmoqgP.png) to 8 174 bytes (originally 14 022 bytes) vs 13 804 bytes for the new one. Of course, SVG versions are both much smaller.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#267

Post by harlanlewis »

nostrademons wrote: post #252
pasbesoin wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you offer any perspective on the whole sometimes-named "mystery meat" UI that's been rolled particularly but not only into mobile design over the past half decade? Further, more and more of this seems to have been "backported" into traditional desktop presentation design. While I will experiment around until I more or less "get it" (although I may miss finding some useful features for months), it particularly fru…

I'm curious what you mean by "mystery meat"? I assume it's the use of icons and drawers to trigger functionality rather than labels and links? That's driven by screen size - there's simply not enough screen real estate on a phone to label every button with words. It does have a legit discoverability problem, which most folks in UX acknowledge but don't know how to fix, given other constraints of the media. I've seen…

> That's driven by screen size - there's simply not enough screen real estate on a phone to label every button with words. It does have a legit discoverability problem, which most folks in UX acknowledge but don't know how to fix, given other constraints of the media.

Some of the most effective solutions to this I've seen require solutions beyond visual representation. They address the problem through dimensions independent of viewport size and space.

For example, LukeW's "Don't Divert the Train" http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1798 moves content from behind navigation and into the user's already-occurring action stream. The button is removed entirely, as is the designer's need to consider how communicative icons are for representing actions.

This requires a broader view of how features relate to each other through a design process that discovers other paths to successful behavior. Approaches like the hamburger menu, in addition to the usability issues you note, solve functional goals but have fallen out of vogue for their ineffectiveness at encouraging specific actions. Label-less icons, while attractive and convenient, suffer similar problems. As getting users successful quickly is generally an important goal (before they've internalized your app's unique visual language), the current trend of putting core functionality behind opaque symbols seems counterproductive.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#268

Post by evolve2k »

> "Google has changed a lot over the past 17 years—from the range of our products to the evolution of their look and feel. And today we’re changing things up once again"

My first thought, wait who's talking to me here?

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#269

Post by branchless »

mozumder wrote: post #245
branchless wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false comparison. Logos for clothes sit on the clothes which are themselves judged entirely on their appearance. Google's search engine has a separate function that stands on it's own two feet irrespective of a change to an 'e'. > If you don't have a good logo you don't have a good business Come on my good man, get a grip!

> This is a false comparison. Logos for clothes sit on the clothes which are themselves judged entirely on their appearance. Some do. The vast majority of designer clothes don't. People buy the brand, not the product. > Google's search engine has a separate function that stands on it's own two feet irrespective of a change to an 'e'. People bought into the Google brand identity. They were the first to eliminate all t…

Their brand is having a very good search engine. Ever think that the marketing guy is good at persuading you that the marketing guy is the most important thing?

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#270

Post by kps »

shaftway wrote: post #15
phragg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The O's were slightly tilted too, no?

They still are in the new logo. They're perfect circles, but they've been rotated to the exact same angle as the old "o"s.

Made me look!

Screenshotting the doodle, the counters are 24×26 pixels. Not perfect circles, and not tilted.

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