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Introducing the new Google+

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Re: Introducing the new Google+

#171

Post by danols »

foxylad wrote: post #154
danols wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you become a power user of any Google product you are on deep water and are setting yourself up to be disappointed when they pull the rug under your feet retiring features or even products that you have learned to depend on. Never depend on a Google product or feature unless you are in the 80% regular user category.

One of the challenges of being a power user is accepting you're going to hit the boundaries of whatever product from whatever company it is. And "Google pulling the rug from under your feet"... please let's stop this ridiculous meme. Any company is entitled to withdraw a free service, and if you don't agree then go right ahead and develop a replacement for Reader. After five years of development and hosting costs wit…

Sure they are obviously free to do what ever they want with their products and maybe "pulling the rug under your feet" is a bit dramatic but it is true that they are pulling features left and right (not only Reader) that unless it is used by the 80% enough is under hard scrutiny. But if the top 20% which is also the people that are going to help you innovate are getting tired of getting used to a product working in a certain way and then it no longer does they will be wary of being too dependent on products from that company.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#172

Post by vubuntu »

NN88 wrote: post #166
rogerbinns wrote: post #16

Google seem to keep making worse the thing that matters most to me. What I want is to conveniently read. I want to see content, from a variety of sources. I want density. I want to catch up and be aware. It was like that in the earlier days. Every update kept reducing the amount of visible content, and severe reductions in density. Here is a screenshot of my screen - http://i.imgur.com/fM2WIVf.png (1920x1200) - almos…

if they bring back google reader, i'm golden

I moved to digg reader and it is pretty good.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#173

Post by vilhelm_s »

sytelus wrote: post #170
rogerbinns wrote: post #16

Google seem to keep making worse the thing that matters most to me. What I want is to conveniently read. I want to see content, from a variety of sources. I want density. I want to catch up and be aware. It was like that in the earlier days. Every update kept reducing the amount of visible content, and severe reductions in density. Here is a screenshot of my screen - http://i.imgur.com/fM2WIVf.png (1920x1200) - almos…

I think the biggest issue is the design. The card layout is generally big no-no in design community. It presents too many choices for the reader for where to focus. Users don't like to make choices because it represents friction in consumption. The FB layout is one item at a time with small column so eyes doesn't have to scan right to left too much. If user doesn't like item you just move on. The ranking of posts is…

But Google+ used to be single column! Then one day they switched to the two-column card layout, the content was exactly the same but suddenly you needed to scroll up and down to be able to read both columns. (i.e. when you finish reading an item in one column you have to scroll back up to get to the beginning of the next item in the other column).

I really wonder why they decided to change it.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#174

Post by soared »

agumonkey wrote: post #63
rogerbinns wrote: post #16

Google seem to keep making worse the thing that matters most to me. What I want is to conveniently read. I want to see content, from a variety of sources. I want density. I want to catch up and be aware. It was like that in the earlier days. Every update kept reducing the amount of visible content, and severe reductions in density. Here is a screenshot of my screen - http://i.imgur.com/fM2WIVf.png (1920x1200) - almos…

Since the web has gone into distributed application / magazine, density has dropped. http://imgur.com/MRnd81J http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://justinjackson.ca/words.html TBC

Please tell me you are kidding with that first image. Seriously. Not a single website actually looks like that.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#176

Post by aikah »

A service that has no identity, which a bunch of copy of other services glued together. I didn't want to use Google+ , i'm not going to use Google ++ and get a different product every 2 years because it still doesn't know what it wants to be.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#177

Post by ajmurmann »

bitwize wrote: post #97
yoodenvranx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new reddit mobile page has the same problem. On the old http://i.reddit.com I usually get 1-3 more links per page than on the new http://m.reddit.com Who actually thinks that all that padding and those stupid navbars are a good idea? On mobile my screen estate is very valuable and I don't want to waste it on unnecessary things.

Designers from San Francisco, that's who. Current design trends favor "negative space", so text has to be spaced widely, with huge margins and hairsbreadth-thin fonts.

You forgot to mention the very low cost, especially for font because we gotta hide that pesky content that we have to show after all.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#178

Post by Spoom »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #43
toyg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a Google thing. Recently there was a HN thread on devmag.io -- they have the same problem. I measured it: in the same space HN gives me 18 stories, Devmag.io gives me barely 2. Unfortunately, I think Google people know and they just don't care. They don't want people who know what RSS is, people who care about information density; they are going after the Pinterest crowd, the sort of people who read Cos…

The new reddit mobile page has the same problem. On the old http://i.reddit.com I usually get 1-3 more links per page than on the new http://m.reddit.com Who actually thinks that all that padding and those stupid navbars are a good idea? On mobile my screen estate is very valuable and I don't want to waste it on unnecessary things.

I love i.reddit. When they take that away (and I expect they eventually will), I will probably use reddit a lot less.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#179

Post by sirtastic »

sytelus wrote: post #170
rogerbinns wrote: post #16

Google seem to keep making worse the thing that matters most to me. What I want is to conveniently read. I want to see content, from a variety of sources. I want density. I want to catch up and be aware. It was like that in the earlier days. Every update kept reducing the amount of visible content, and severe reductions in density. Here is a screenshot of my screen - http://i.imgur.com/fM2WIVf.png (1920x1200) - almos…

I think the biggest issue is the design. The card layout is generally big no-no in design community. It presents too many choices for the reader for where to focus. Users don't like to make choices because it represents friction in consumption. The FB layout is one item at a time with small column so eyes doesn't have to scan right to left too much. If user doesn't like item you just move on. The ranking of posts is…

> The card layout is generally big no-no in design community.

I disagree-- it would appear to be exactly the opposite if you look at current design trends (checkout dribbble.com), cards look to be a very big yes-yes in the design community. I believe googles implementation of the cards within Google+ very poor UX. If they made each card the same height so your eyes can move about the page more orderly it might make Google+ more palatable. You are right in that it is very hard to digest the content with that design.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#180

Post by ajmurmann »

vijayr wrote: post #78
toyg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a Google thing. Recently there was a HN thread on devmag.io -- they have the same problem. I measured it: in the same space HN gives me 18 stories, Devmag.io gives me barely 2. Unfortunately, I think Google people know and they just don't care. They don't want people who know what RSS is, people who care about information density; they are going after the Pinterest crowd, the sort of people who read Cos…

Pinterest crowd, the sort of people who read Cosmopolitan, watch reality shows That crowd is way bigger than the crowd that hangs out at places like HN. So it would make sense for G+ to go after them, no? This is a numbers game.

I don't think it's either or. I obviously read hacker news, but I'm also very passionate about ceramics especially Japanese and Korean ceramics and Pinterest is a treasure trove for images of work other people have done as well as new techniques. For contrast: I don't have a Facebook account.
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