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Introducing the new Google+

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Re: Introducing the new Google+

#211

Post by subsection1h »

macintux wrote: post #124
efuquen wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were many well established search engines readily available when they launched search to.

There were exactly zero good search engines at the time, however. Google was exponentially better than anything else from day 1.

I recall that I held off on switching to Google from AltaVista because the former didn't initially support searching for multiple phrases using the OR operator (e.g., "first phrase" OR "second phrase"). Am I misremembering? If not, then Google was worse than AltaVista on day 1, day 2, and many days that followed.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#212

Post by wahsd »

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…

It's not just G+, it's all across Google assets. The white-space drives me nuts. I'm convinced that along with the basic color palate Google thinks it's customers are 4 year olds or something.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#213

Post by rhizome »

mikeash wrote: post #150
moonchrome wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ >You dumbass. You thought you needed media queries to be responsive, but no. Responsive means that it responds to whatever motherfucking screensize it's viewed on. This site doesn't care if you're on an iMac or a motherfucking Tamagotchi. Except that it's really hard to read on a wide screen. I get it - it's a satire - but it goes too far and fails to make a convincing point because…

Why not make your window narrower?

Someday you may encounter a person who has trouble zeroing in on a 4px resize handle.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#214

Post by snaky »

astral303 wrote: post #86
andrenotgiant wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always surprises me that Google's world-class UX and Product teams would allow such a huge expectation vs reality misalignment. So many Youtube videos, so many blogger posts have this issue

Well, then it isn't world-class then.

It depends on many things actually, especially the goals, the leadership and the social dynamics inside the team. E.g. some feature X may be chosen among alternatives due the world-class UX professional John's desire to outdo world-class UX professional Jane while Jane is on vacation.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#215

Post by RyanZAG »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #173
sytelus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It definitely looks better when viewed as a screenshot or in a graphic design presentation. Of course actual usability is far worse, but nobody cares about that. Only how shiny it is. The people making the decisions on which design to go for are given screenshot or mockup presentations in 5 minutes and asked to choose which design to go for. They will always go for the shiniest one, and you end up with stuff like this.

There's some comment about the low attention span we force on executives by making them take 1000s of decisions per day that they aren't even experts in and rewarding them for it in all this.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#216

Post by ocean3 »

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 do like the interface. I usually just scan the contents hence the card layout works fine. But don't like card interface for sites like hackernews/reddit. There i am mainly interested in user comments.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#217

Post by frik »

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…

Please split YouTube comments from Google+. The YouTube comments used to be a traditional comment system, amd was a good source for infos related to the video. When the merged it with Google+ the comment quality tanked. Nowadays you read a lot of "hey my friends have a look at this video" with replies from friends. A very bad decision and user experience.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#218

Post by dredmorbius »

markdown wrote: post #184
sytelus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Pinterest.

A site I hate, avoid like the plague, and block via /etc/hosts where possible.

But thanks for the example.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#219

Post by [deleted] »

markdown wrote: post #184
sytelus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Pinterest.

[deleted]

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#220

Post by nailer »

wahsd wrote: post #212
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…

It's not just G+, it's all across Google assets. The white-space drives me nuts. I'm convinced that along with the basic color palate Google thinks it's customers are 4 year olds or something.

I personally prefer it than Facebooks super dense 'UNIX window manager from 2003' look.
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