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Google backtracks on search results design

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Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#181

Post by NeedMoreTea »

falcor84 wrote: post #101
t223 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not willing to pay anything. The internet was built on good will, fun, and generally good intent. Now that it’s a mechanism of commerce it’s attracted the worst of the worst who have no ethics. Ethics courses will be taught in response to bad actors, not in anticipation of. I’m aware the cats out of the bag and all of the high paid engineers need to make a living somehow. I just don’t think it’s about the consume…

>The internet was built on good will, fun, and generally good intent. The main catalyst for the internet was the fear of nuclear war, as exemplified in this influential RAND paper from 1960 [0], which led to the investment in ARPANET. I'm not disputing good will and good intent, but I don't think fun had much to do with it. [0] http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P1995....

By the time you get to the opening up of the internet to mere non-defence mortals, there was plenty of fun.

There was a beautiful sweet spot between the earliest ISPs around 1990, and the end of fun once the effects of the mid 90s ending of NSF's ban on commercial activity fully kicked in. Probably late 90s/millennium as the first dot com boom turned into full on idiotic bubble.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#182

Post by agloeregrets »

baddox wrote: post #3

I’ve been on the test for this design since October 4, 2019, so I’ve actually gotten used to it! But it’s probably a good thing for them to backtrack. I wonder what went wrong in their clearly lengthy experiment about how this would perform.

This design is very successful technically for them and I’m sure it increased Ad click through.

The issue was cultural. The articles saying “okay this is too far on making Ads hard to see” and the super hilariously ironic fact that they launched this on the exact day that Basecamp went in front of congress to explain how Google is abusing running ads on trademarks, where this design make it much much worse.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#183

Post by read_if_gay_ »

pdimitar wrote: post #179

That website refused to open in my uMatrix-enabled Firefox, and didn't open properly on mobile Safari (1BlockerX adblocker). Only desktop Safari (with the same adblocker) opened it. So here's another link: http://archive.is/aRU3O

that website also contains borderline malicious js making the back button nonfunctional (at least on ios safari). funny considering they felt the need to specifically point out how evil googles strategies are.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#184

Post by glenneroo »

burnJS wrote: post #30

They backtracked for now, but they'll try something else in the next year or so. Their goal is obvious.

It's even more obvious thanks to Jerry2's "mostly comprehensive history of Google's ad shading and labeling"[0]: https://i.imgur.com/0RxdzBE.png

Anyone want to guess what their next devious attempt to confuse users into clicking more ads?

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108338

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#185

Post by wffurr »

jonny383 wrote: post #94
dragonwriter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay I didnt see that. But why is this necessary? Probably because URL copy or share (the two icons besides edit than the new UI provides) are more common interactions than URL editing, and are (without a keyboard and with a traditional text edit control for the URL bar) higher friction; this streamlines the common usecases at the cost of adding an extra tap for URL editing.

The old version opened with the text fully selected. You could either type a query and overwrite the text, edit the url, or tap and hold to get... Low and behold, copy and share. The only thing they have added is confusion and behavorial conditioning. I see no benefits of the "new" way.

So what you are saying is the most common actions, copy and share, were behind a confusing an easy to mess up long press gesture.

A whole lot of people in this thread have never watched a normal person use a smartphone in a UX study.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#186

Post by SquareWheel »

xiphias2 wrote: post #65
LaserToy wrote: post #54

I use google a lot, but I can’t escape the thought that every time I really need to find something (a book which title I barely remember, a product based on the job it does) I just can’t do it using google and that most of my queries are mostly key value lookups. And yes, ads are annoying. Double ads in YouTube are annoying. f you google.

At least in Youtube I can (and do) pay to make ads go away, which I'm happy to do, as I get a great service in return. I just wish that I could do the same for Google search.

I'd bet that Contributor will work there.

https://contributor.google.com

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#187

Post by blondin »

stevula wrote: post #41
jonny383 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I opened Chrome on a friends phone (first time on Chrome mobile in years) and was shocked to see the url bar is no longer editable. It just gave me a weird context menu with a copy icon. I guess they really want to funnel everyone through search...

It’s editable for me on iOS. I would probably stop using it if they removed the ability to manually edit the address bar.

same. must be an android thing.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#188

Post by simias »

blackrock wrote: post #121

Can you also tell Google to fix the image search page? The new design is stupid. I prefer the previous design. The new design splits the page vertically, when you click on a picture. And its purpose, which is quite confusing, is to follow a second track of searches related to that picture. But that just makes the usage confusing. I want to click on the picture in order to see it in magnification mode, to have it fill…

I feel your pain, I mostly use duckduckgo these days so I'm not exposed to this behaviour too often but sometimes I don't find what I'm looking for and check Google instead. It's really frustrating.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#189

Post by notyourday »

harshitaneja wrote: post #130
blackrock wrote: post #121

Can you also tell Google to fix the image search page? The new design is stupid. I prefer the previous design. The new design splits the page vertically, when you click on a picture. And its purpose, which is quite confusing, is to follow a second track of searches related to that picture. But that just makes the usage confusing. I want to click on the picture in order to see it in magnification mode, to have it fill…

Google was sued by Getty and had to make the change. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...

I'm not a fan of Google but the solution to the Getty problem for Google is to drop all links to Getty domains from the index. Getty is a relic of the past power that still has not adapted to the Internet.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#190

Post by jlokier »

makomk wrote: post #132
saghm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes, Virginia, I have and use a Bluetooth clipboard I'm assuming from context that your mean keyboard, but the idea sounds kind of cool so I have to ask: any chance this is a term for a a bluetooth device solely designed to facilitate copy-pasting between other devices?

There's no such Bluetooth device that I know of, but KDE Connect used to allow cross-device copy and paste between Android and desktop over WiFi until Google killed that feature off by disabling the clipboard access it needed.

That sounds so useful. I've wanted that so many times!

In practice, I end up manually typing in long URLs on my laptop that people send me over SMS or whatever, and manually typing in long, high-entropy passwords on my phone when I would rather copy-paste them from my laptop's password database.

(Not that I'm running KDE. But the feature sounds great.)

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