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Introducing the new Google+

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Re: Introducing the new Google+

#221

Post by dredmorbius »

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.

Google have been tremendously coy about what their success metrics for G+ are, though they've played highly disengenuous all-but-utterly-fake numbers games in playing up "engagement" since the very beginning.

I'd argue that the issue isn't numbers, but relevance. G+ is lousy in many ways but has a few small areas of success, notably its Notifications mechanic, a community which, for me, works fairly well, and a search which while pathetically under-featured is comprehensive and fast.

Winning the numbers game for social vs. Facebook in its current incarnation is a fool's errand. Numerous people have pointed this out, including ex-Googlers pointing at the "Interest Graph" (though suggestions for following / pursuing this date to the first few months of G+).

If Google does grab the Cosmo crowd, that's fine, so long as it doesn't also chase off the Nature/PLOS crowd in the process. Unfortunately, Google's proven more than happy to sling absolute snot (as in the G+ "What Snot" feature ... oh, no, that's "What's Hot").

Power users learn how to disable that instantly.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#222

Post by nilkn »

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…

This is actually part of why my recent switch from Android to iOS was so refreshing. While material design looks great on some level, it seems to be so remarkably wasteful of space. Google+ actually feels claustrophobic to me in a way: there's so much content, and yet you can see so little of it at a time. It creates a feeling of being constantly lost.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#223

Post by bhaumik »

XJOKOLAT wrote: post #190
tapp wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The card layout is generally big no-no in design community. Interesting. Could you provide any links/citations for this? I ask because it feels like practically every designer I talk with these days wants to force a card layout onto everything (even text-oriented sites) and I'd love to hear the other side.

+1 for a damned list ... I mean look at the front of hacker news. Speed. Read.

HN isn't considered great design by majority of users outside this community.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#224

Post by dredmorbius »

frik wrote: post #217
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.

That sucks from both ends. YouTube doesn't want to see G+'s comments. G+ users don't want their threads overwhelmed by YT comments.

And, frankly, I've got less than zero interest in my activities on YouTube being public in any regard. I've created a randomly generated name for my latest Android device and even there I cannot compile lists of vidoes for my own use without making them public. At least not on YouTube itself.

So I don't do that.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#225

Post by bhaumik »

XJOKOLAT wrote: post #190
tapp wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The card layout is generally big no-no in design community. Interesting. Could you provide any links/citations for this? I ask because it feels like practically every designer I talk with these days wants to force a card layout onto everything (even text-oriented sites) and I'd love to hear the other side.

+1 for a damned list ... I mean look at the front of hacker news. Speed. Read.

Great UX but the UI isn't as appealing to everyone outside the HN community.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#226

Post by krapp »

bhaumik wrote: post #223
XJOKOLAT wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for a damned list ... I mean look at the front of hacker news. Speed. Read.

HN isn't considered great design by majority of users outside this community.

It isn't necessarily considered great design inside either, judging by how popular Hacker News plugins and readers are.

But a pretty strong argument can be made that, for sites focused primarily on text and reading, simple layouts may sometimes sometimes be better than complex ones.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#227

Post by VikingCoder »

bronson wrote: post #22

Charise Strandberg via Google+ Daniel Brinneman shared this via Google+ Antonio Valdés via Google+ I see Google+'s commenting is still drowned out by sharing notifications. Google, there's a reason everyone turned off trackbacks ten years ago. It's just noise for anyone reading that page to filter out.

When I see my friend's comments on content, that's awesome.

I'm always surprised more people don't see how good this is.

When I browse Play.Google.Com, I see my friend's comments and ratings. That's invaluable to me.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#228

Post by dredmorbius »

There's a meta-level of this roll-out that I find quite striking.

1. Google have previewed this as an optional experience

2. Which users can roll back from. Unlike earlier major releases, it's not dumped all-at-once, and it's not a "if you try it there's no going back" option (as CoverPhotos were a few years back).

2. The changes were undertaken with user-involvement. Google are loudly touting that they solicited input from users, even visiting them at home, to come up with the new design. Mind, I wasn't part of this, but that appears to be a striking change from previous roll-outs, which were very much "we know best" events.

Last December we saw a sneak preview of the New Google+ Development Process: a substantial change to the Notifications mechanism ... which was all but universally panned. I wrote a long and piquant post about how damned important G+'s Notifications mechanism was to the site (it's among the few parts of the service which are really quite compelling). Mucking with that is dangerous business.

In less than 24 hours, Google reversed the push.

I was absolutely stunned. Said so.

https://plus.google.com/+BalajiSrinivasan/posts/Wntg5XoEHmb

I'm not sure how the changes here will look, I'm using the Android client, not desktop, for the present. I suspect I'll have some sharp criticisms (I usually do). But I'm seeing some encouraging signs in the process.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#230

Post by r00fus »

RyanZAG wrote: post #215
vilhelm_s wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

Somewhat counterintuitive... I mean Google knows better than relying on stills for what is interactive content, right?
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