Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
danielmiessler.com
Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
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Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#2It feels like Google has never really truly cared about UI. They seem to grok UX, but the aesthetics always drift towards the geekier side of user interface design.
This isn't to say they don't have lots of user interface designers, or that they don't get branding. It's that they lack a modern creative direction vision that connects those two functions.
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#3You can't just take a screenshot of a 15-year-old product and note that nobody would put together a UI that way if they were starting from scratch. Of course they wouldn't, they would do something "clean" and "elegant" and "modern" and, above all, "simple". Those buttons are there because they do things that someone somewhere needs or really wants.
You know how people here typically praise Microsoft for their backwards compatibility? Yeah, well, old things that don't reinvent themselves grow warts. Old things that do reinvent themselves do so in part to limit themselves from past constraints. No free lunches.
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#4This is one of the most content-vacant articles I've seen on HN lately.
- "Google Is Getting Left Behind Due to Horrible UI/UX": provides exactly zero statistics relating to declining Google usage.
- "What happened to Google Docs? Why does it not look and behave more like Notion, or Quip, or any of the other alternatives that made progress in the last 5-10 years?": provides zero screenshots or even textual descriptions of whatever it is these competitors have that Google should just copy.
- "How can you let Google Docs get completely obsoleted by startups?" I guess the words "completely" and "obsoleted" have no meaning?
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#5Besides the terrible UX I’d say Google is getting left behind due to the virtually zero improvement in its apps over the last decade.
Started using Google Drive for work in around 2011 and stopped last year when I moved to a Microsoft-based company. In that time it didn’t seem like there were any major improvements in functionality to the core Drive, Docs and Sheets (and poor, forgotten Draw) apps. In fact most changes made things worse.
Drive’s search is so poor that it’s often easier to get a colleague to resend the invite to a doc than it is find the thing via search.
Docs is pretty much stagnant, with the only noticeable new feature being the section navigator on the side.
Gmail went from being a stunning demonstration of the possibilities of web technologies to a bloated, over-JavaScripted hog that takes ages to load.
Chat services came and went but none of them were particularly better than their predecessors. Just a slightly different arrangement of deckchairs.
It’s amazing that Google have left room for competitors like Airtable, Notion and Miro to both flourish and fulfil some of Google docs’ early promise.
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#6I usually think these "Google is the worst" posts are over the top, but I genuinely find Gmail's mobile interface bewildering. There are two three-dot/ellipsis icons when you read an email and after using mobile Gmail for years I have no idea which actions are in which. "Move to Inbox": upper icon. "Add star": lower icon. "Mark important": upper icon. "Mark unread": lower icon. I'm sure there's some explanation or at least mnemonic but I'm lost.
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#7I tried reading this article about terrible UI/UX but a giant subscription box obscured the content. Irony.
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#8I think it seems more like Google doesn’t care about UX because they don’t prioritize/reward work on a product once it doesn’t grow in user numbers.
They do care in the early stages when there’s an opportunity for quick growth (and promotions for those involved)
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#9The new version of Gmail is still horrible. Every day, I'll do things too fast, and it will pop alerts because some ajax request or promise hasn't resolved completely.
I expected that things would get better eventually, but that has not been the case.
Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX
#10I usually think these "Google is the worst" posts are over the top, but I genuinely find Gmail's mobile interface bewildering. There are two three-dot/ellipsis icons when you read an email and after using mobile Gmail for years I have no idea which actions are in which. "Move to Inbox": upper icon. "Add star": lower icon. "Mark important": upper icon. "Mark unread": lower icon. I'm sure there's some explanation or at…
They are SO over the top. Every single interface is fine. Never have I not been able to figure something out at WORST with a quick Google search.
HN has a few reactions that I will never understand. The idea that they are being "tracked" against their will, that Google has bad UI and that Bitcoin is worthless.
I just chalk it up to smart people thinking they should be smart about everything.