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Google’s look, evolved

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Re: Google’s look, evolved

#281

Post by justincormack »

branchless wrote: post #230
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what designers tell you anyway. Objective support for this hypothesis is thin on the ground. In reality logos are nowhere near the top of the list of factors that drive a buying decision. Whatever bounce effect businesses get from a new logo can usually be explained just as much by novelty as by implied psychological voodoo. Generally, I'm suspicious of management-by-logo. When I see logos being updated at vas…

I agree with you. I don't care what google's logo is. AskJeeves had a good logo but their search engine was hopeless.

askjeeves had a terrible logo

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#282

Post by xigency »

davidw wrote: post #60
raldi wrote: post #9

2008 HN discussion from when the outgoing "little blue g" favicon was introduced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211518 In it, Dustin Curtis criticizes Google (rather rightly, in my hindsight-enhanced opinion) for a Marissa-Mayeresque design process of "Make 300 logo variants with pseudorandom permutations, and then pick your favorite." Looking at those permutations now ( http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/S…

The new favicon is way better IMO. On the other hand, the main logo... I think this sums it up: "seem as much like a preschool as humanly possible". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10153449 I'm just not a fan of extremely flat designs.

Well, it's one that they had a choice from before, which they hadn't picked.

First column, fourth row down: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/SEnK37orPGI/AAAAAAAAAp...

Honestly, the block letter G on the far right, next to the lollipop, is the icon with the most character.

Actually fits their rebranding, too, but I don't think anyone at Google pays much attention.

Everyone's been seeing a lot of rainbows lately, too.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#284

Post by devbug »

hodwik wrote: post #71
roymurdock wrote: post #10

Just when I thought we might be starting to pivot away from flat design - does anyone know of a different design paradigm that is being used by smaller/fringe designers who are tired of flat/minimal UX/UI?

Flat design is easy to accomplish for designers who never learned how to draw, or do computer modeling. Unfortunately, most design programs don't actually teach these foundational skills. That means there are a lot of designers out there who are forced to work in an oversimplified print-design style to hide their incompetence. As someone who hires for this stuff, finding skilled designers is unimaginably hard. I hear…

Interesting. Are you open to training?

I've always viewed success as passionate curiosity. If the mindset is there, but not the skill, you can teach the later.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#285

Post by tajen »

tedunangst wrote: post #251
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sticking the UI over top of the map really is silly. The 10 pixels of map I can still see between the search box and the border of the screen are completely useless, but make the page considerably noisier (more edges/transitions).

I too enjoyed the side bar. It's mysterious but it made me feel like there was more real estate. The map wasn't covered with boxes, whereas in the new design the 40% left handside of the map is unusable. Also, when searching a place, it resets the zoom, it zooms until I see the inside of that place (such as, the city center), whereas I generally want to see where the city is located with a bit more context. Same for a path: it puts the origin and destination on the viewport edges, whereas I generally want to locate the route, therefore see slightly more context. Slightly enough that it's painful.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#286

Post by meatysnapper »

nostrademons wrote: post #127
raldi wrote: post #9

2008 HN discussion from when the outgoing "little blue g" favicon was introduced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211518 In it, Dustin Curtis criticizes Google (rather rightly, in my hindsight-enhanced opinion) for a Marissa-Mayeresque design process of "Make 300 logo variants with pseudorandom permutations, and then pick your favorite." Looking at those permutations now ( http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/S…

The reason they did that was so that they could build up data on the effect of each factor independently. That way, when the bigwigs get into a meeting and discuss alternative designs, they can predict "Ok, this will have $X effect on revenue but will decrease search latency by Y ms, which itself will have +$X effect on revenue." I was the first engineer on the first visual redesign that tried to change everything ab…

Design by AB testing, my favorite :(

I worked at a major tech company where every decision needed to be justified by AB testing. Our design was a series of haphazard guesses made on data that depended on a very brittle data pipeline. Needless to say, nobody thought it was a very good product, but the incredible bureaucracy and people behind the approach made it hard to fight against.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#287

Post by stevepike »

bradleyjg wrote: post #218
alooPotato wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pictogr…

Wow, this menu is so useful! I got annoyed when they removed the links to the different apps and just assumed this 9 dot thing was a part of their new account switcher design and never tried clicking on it.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#288

Post by hodwik »

triangleman wrote: post #272
hodwik wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flat design is easy to accomplish for designers who never learned how to draw, or do computer modeling. Unfortunately, most design programs don't actually teach these foundational skills. That means there are a lot of designers out there who are forced to work in an oversimplified print-design style to hide their incompetence. As someone who hires for this stuff, finding skilled designers is unimaginably hard. I hear…

Do you have an email where I could forward you a resume for a designer?

I assume by resume you mean portfolio?

richard [|)07] laborde [@7] gmale

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#289

Post by hodwik »

triangleman wrote: post #272
hodwik wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flat design is easy to accomplish for designers who never learned how to draw, or do computer modeling. Unfortunately, most design programs don't actually teach these foundational skills. That means there are a lot of designers out there who are forced to work in an oversimplified print-design style to hide their incompetence. As someone who hires for this stuff, finding skilled designers is unimaginably hard. I hear…

Do you have an email where I could forward you a resume for a designer?

richard [|)07] laborde [@7] gmale

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#290

Post by optimusclimb »

hodwik wrote: post #187
optimusclimb wrote: post #159

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.

Twice the median for "the city" overall? Including waitresses, garbage men, bank tellers, etc?

If a skilled surgeon (or someone 5+ years into their career at Goldman, etc) makes 4 times the median of your city, what does the median have to do with what they're worth?

Sorry, not trying to be rude, but whenever I hear people saying they "can't find anyone", they still counter that they're offering enough...and yet they still can't fill the position. It doesn't make any sense.

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