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Google’s look, evolved

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Re: Google’s look, evolved

#421

Post by ryandrake »

raldi wrote: post #321
ryandrake wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, making decisions based on wishy-washy difficult-to-quantify human traits like "genius" and "sense of taste" seems unnecessarily risky, compared to making them based on measurements from repeatable tests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee

I'm not advocating design by committee. I'm advocating justification with data. The designers should propose candidate designs. But the decision about which one to go with (or whether to redesign at all) should be supported by whether going with it furthers the business's goals.

You point out the need to pick the right measurement, and I agree, but it could be as simple as "What's the effect on conversion?" It has to be something! You can't just say "We're re-designing because I'm a HMI genius."

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#422

Post by 72deluxe »

qq66 wrote: post #206
DanBC wrote: 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).

a. Bring back the sidebar.

b. On Android, add a menu option to download maps - "OK MAPS" is not obvious, easy to remember or in any way sensible in the slightest.

c. Make 3D mode work smoothly on an Android tablet. I have the LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition and it is jerky, stuttery and slow in 3D mode. Compared to Apple maps on the base model iPad3 next to it, it is poor indeed.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#423

Post by kuschku »

plonh wrote: post #397
kuschku wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (and all my friends) switched to here.com maps after Google has horribly old (2005) data, has a horrible UI, and is generally unusable. In many cities in my region whole districts are completely missing from the maps[1], MapMaker is not available, and in general it’s just a huge mess. Even worse: It loads so slowly (compared to here.com or bing.com or openstreetmap.org) that sometimes it takes several minutes to lo…

Apropros of the other Google thread today, the here.com link completely fails: it shows an full screen ad for the mobile app, with no way to get to the map.

For me it works just fine.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#424

Post by 72deluxe »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #417
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…

Also they recently removed the ability to save images directly from Google Image Search in Chrome on Android. In what world does removing functionality make life better for anyone?

This appears to be an irritating trend. Look at the gedit redesign on GNOME3 and see how the removal of all buttons and features is heralded as a GOOD thing?!?!?!

I understand the "let's not confuse the user" approach but simplifying everything down to have zero features reduces the computer to a useless tool, as all the features have gone. It's like a Swiss army knife where they decided that all the blades and options were too fiddly and confusing so they just give you a spork instead.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#425

Post by 72deluxe »

inthewoods wrote: post #312
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…

When you say gmail.com has gotten worse, do you mean the overall quality of the application or the user interface design? You say the first but the examples you mention sound like bugs.

The priority inbox thankfully can be turned off. It was trying to solve a problem that didn't exist - the ability to sort messages. The tagging of incoming mail with tags sorted that problem, and search made finding mail a moot point too.

I disabled priority inbox on browser and mobile devices and it's very usable again, so thanks to whoever kept that as an option.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#426

Post by 72deluxe »

ozmbie wrote: post #333
abalos wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> including building a special variant of our full-color logo that is only 305 bytes, compared to our existing logo at ~14,000 bytes. That's huge for low-bandwidth users.

It doesn't really matter, because most of the top search results you click on will probably include 1MB of ad tracking javascript anyway.

Sad but true!

Here, the sad response to slow web page load times on mobile is normally "just get a modern internet connection!" or "use 4G" etc. but if we had desktop apps that took forever to load, you'd hear complaints pretty soon. A response of "get a faster computer" isn't accepted there, and accepting all this boatload of javascript isn't good either.

I can't remember the link but the average page size has been skyrocketing the past few years, which I think is sad. All that network traffic, electricity usage and CPU processing just for the same jQuery code to be flung across the Internet a billion times.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#427

Post by 72deluxe »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #362

This makes me sad, much like how Microsoft's logo change made me sad. Microsoft's italic bold lettering was iconic. It was the logo the company had used for the longest time, the logo that adorned their best (and their worst) products. It was a logo that everyone had seen, everyone knew, that was incredibly recognisable. And then they threw that all away, and created intentional brand confusion by swapping their logo…

I had not noticed that about Microsoft but it is a very good point! Thanks for mentioning it.

The tilted monochrome pane of glass is truly funny.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#428

Post by bhandziuk »

danielbln wrote: post #411
lysium wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly functionality that was available in earlier versions, but I cannot find it anymore (or is it gone?): - goo.gl-Link to this map - Terrain-mode - collapse white search box w/o loosing all entered data - enter 'from:xxx to:yyy' for navigation - extra stops (routing) The best thing about maps that I really love (and why I am willing to fight with the UI) is the address recognition: I can put almost anything i…

- goo.gl-Link to this map: burger menu, share, short link - extra stops: once you've set up a basic route, a little plus appears under neath the red target marker in the dialog box, however, this does not seem to work with public transport routing No idea about the other ones. Personally, I'm slightly miffed about the fact at some point the keywords "home" and "work" stopped working, or that Gmaps sometimes accepts E…

"Home" seems to be ok but "home" just gives me Home Depot results. Though if it's a Thursday or for some reason cloudier than normal "Home" will also give me Home Depot results.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#429

Post by meerita »

ulfw wrote: post #408
meerita wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't be a problem. In science, everything must be tested and proved if you want to know the truth or the effectiveness of an theory. Design is a science, so it can be measured and developed by tests of all kinds, even emotionals.

That's a pretty one-sided statement. One could easily argue the opposite, that good design is an art form, not a science.

Art is a science too. One different thing is that some artists don't care about the facts. Everything can be explained with numbers.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#430

Post by hellbanner »

qq66 wrote: post #206
DanBC wrote: 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).

* Disable that "feature" which rotates the map to show directions based on which way I'm facing. Why? Because a) I know my directions and b) GPS is frequently OFF and it rotates all screwy.

* Remember which city I'm in and index search results FIRST against my historical results and SECOND against local results and LASTLY against the world database at large. It's very frustrating re-opening google maps app, tying in something I queried for 10 minutes before and it starts auto-completing to somewhere across an ocean or two.

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