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Lessons from 14 years at Google

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Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#161

Post by gosub100 »

joduplessis wrote: post #143

> 1. The best engineers are obsessed with solving user problems. Complete bullshit. Sorry, but the reason why people use Google is because of the ecosystem + value proposition. Google Drive & Calendar are some of the most outdated pieces of SaaS software that only gets used because of the greater ecosystem they live in - and price. They (along with the other Google products) are also some of the poorest designed user…

Thats a poor characterization to choose 2 of the least talked about apps from that company. Also your response to the claim "the best engineers do X" is logically flawed. Maybe google doesn't use their "best engineers" to build out those cherry-picked examples? maybe they used them for Search or infrastructure or something else?

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#162

Post by ghaff »

hansmayer wrote: post #137
dijit wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much Ok, I mean this sincerely. You must never have used Microsoft tools. They managed to get their productivity suite into schools 30 years ago to cover UX issues, even now the biggest pain of moving away is the fact that users come out of school trained on it. That also happens to be their best UX. Azure? Teams?…

I do agree with you. Teams are a cancer and Azure UI sucks too. I do not use much MS products since essentially Win7 I have mainly used Linux as my work environment. But one thing MS used to be good at at least, was the documentation. If you are that old, you will remember each product came with extensive manuals AND there was an actual customer support. With google its like...not even that.

There was also MSDN. But it was also a different world at the time.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#163

Post by whyagaindavid »

drnick1 wrote: post #151
websiteapi wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which company's product has great UX? I'm always seeing people hating on things without showcasing examples of what they think is exemplary

None. A great UX nowadays is open source software running on your own hardware. For example, you couldn't pay me to use a "webmail" like GMail over my own IMAP server and Thunderbird.

Wow.. you are the one loving thunderbird. The ridiculous idea of removing menubar and if you enable that - it wastes valuable screenspace.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#164

Post by lkjdsklf »

hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

I think the UX issues you’re describing are less related to culture changes in companies and more just in the industry in general

UX are designed by and for people who don’t really use computers. They use mobile devices and tablets

It’s an industry wide phenomenon

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#165

Post by hansmayer »

websiteapi wrote: post #113
hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

which company's product has great UX? I'm always seeing people hating on things without showcasing examples of what they think is exemplary

Its not hating - just stating the facts. Most companies unfortunately dont have a nice UX these days, because common UX practices like not making user think (i.e. overcomplicating the UIs) and not blocking users (showing annoying popups in the middle of UI workflows) somehow became a lost art. Some products are inherently easy to use like draw.io for example. I really like the UX on Stripe, in particular their onboarding process. There is also a semi-famous e-commerce company, in the furniture space. I forgot their name (something with W?), but I ordered something once, and was really impressed by how smooth and uncomplicated the process from browsing the inventory to checkout and delivery itself was.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#166

Post by stefanfisk »

ignoramous wrote: post #117
hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

> wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse UX? Google doesn't even bother helping folks locked out of their Gmail accounts. For people who use Android (some 3bn), that's like a digital death sentence, with real-world consequences. It is almost comical that anyone would think Google is customer-focused, but might if they were being paid handsomely…

Hell, in my experience they often don’t even help ad customers that are having issues that prevent them from buying ads.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#167

Post by tsoukase »

There are many big bosses under the Google CEO that lead hordes of developers to specific targets-to-meet. Eventually they prioritise their bonuses and the individual goals deviate with every iteration. So the quality will diminish continuously.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#168

Post by p1esk »

mike_hearn wrote: post #139
hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

> If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. There was no beancounter takeover and it never was so obsessed. I worked there from 2006-2014 in engineering roles and found this statement was particularly jarring: "User obsession means spending time in support tickets, talking to users,…

Almost nobody else in engineering did this.

What you described is the job of a product manager. Are there no PMs at Google?

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#169

Post by sseagull »

unlimit wrote: post #18

I am going to file this line > If you win every debate, you’re probably accumulating silent resistance.

This is one of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team (fear of conflict, caused by absence of trust).

Highly recommend the book.

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

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#170

Post by doublerabbit »

willi59549879 wrote: post #129
doublerabbit wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mood. As someone who normally leaves after two years because the opportunity never raises to what was offered in the job spec these really don't for for me these bullet points as well wouldn't work for office culture in the EU. 15 Years worth of jobs and none gel. I'm a contractor now which feels more me. I have a contract length, don't have to deal with red tape political bullshit. Turn up, do work and leave when co…

If you can easily acquire new projects and are happy with what you do, that can be very nice. I would probably fail at selling myself

I've never needed to sell myself. $corp will advertise needing a contractor and you apply as usual. If you have the skills and experience you tend to get hired.

The only difference is you don't get job security, pension or any perks. But you do get a lump sum though. Where you can then decide what's best.

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