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Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

danielmiessler.com

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Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#151

Post by ocdtrekkie »

eivarv wrote: post #141
anonygler wrote: post #17

As a former Googler, Google has been utterly hostile to self critcism on this front. Responses to any criticism of Google's UI falls in the following buckets: - Well I think it looks great. - Stay in your lane, how dare you criticize our designers. This makes them feel unsafe at work. (Whatever the fuck that means) - We did a user study and they liked it, so it must be good. Fundamentally, Googlers are afraid to make…

If you ever wonder "why the fuck can't I tell where one piece of the UI ends and the other begins" When Material Design was first launched to the public, I was astonished of just how bad some of it was – and how Google, with all its experts and resources, had managed to ignore so much basic HCI. I wasn't able to recognize and distinguish different types of widgets from one another, and the design language broke with…

I had to adjust the contrast on my monitors to see the boundaries of Google+ posts and UI elements, because light gray on lighter gray has been Google's favorite UI pattern for ages...

Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#152

Post by golemiprague »

anonygler wrote: post #17

As a former Googler, Google has been utterly hostile to self critcism on this front. Responses to any criticism of Google's UI falls in the following buckets: - Well I think it looks great. - Stay in your lane, how dare you criticize our designers. This makes them feel unsafe at work. (Whatever the fuck that means) - We did a user study and they liked it, so it must be good. Fundamentally, Googlers are afraid to make…

The problem is that for the sake of diversity they stack the graphic department with women because they can't find enough women engineers. Women are more sensitive and also not very good with initiating changes so you get stuck with two problems.

The only solution is to bring more men into those UI/UX roles if they want any change to happen but even that might not help because Google is just too big now and it is hard to do those changes in such a big organisation.

The usual way big companies deal with those issues is to let a startup do this job, startups are not confined by big company politics and diversity requirements so they can just employ mainly men and do the job. But that is good for a whole product, not sure how they can apply it for a design change.

Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#153

Post by harha »

fakedang wrote: post #63
harha wrote: post #8

I 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)

Doesn't explain the poor UX for its existing / inbuilt apps such as Google, Gmail, Drive, etc.

You will have to compare them to their contemporaries, for instance moving from Hotmail and GMX to Gmail was great, not only for the free storage but also for it‘s simple UX.

Ironically the lack of display advertising and advertorials was one of the greatest features, little did we all know.

Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#154

Post by ocdtrekkie »

standardUser wrote: post #121
anonygler wrote: post #17

As a former Googler, Google has been utterly hostile to self critcism on this front. Responses to any criticism of Google's UI falls in the following buckets: - Well I think it looks great. - Stay in your lane, how dare you criticize our designers. This makes them feel unsafe at work. (Whatever the fuck that means) - We did a user study and they liked it, so it must be good. Fundamentally, Googlers are afraid to make…

What I've always found odd is the lack of options across Google applications. It's one thing to play it safe, but another to deny basic modifications that are usually standard. Things as simple as changing color options are so often absent.

I think it's worth noting, just because it's kinda crazy: Gmail's desktop UI has and continues to support themes, including dark ones, for like... over a decade. It managed to survive all of their redesigns, while none of their apps had any dark modes at all.

Cheers to the one dude somewhere inside the labyrinth who managed to fight for that feature all these years...

Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#156

Post by aplummer »

kepler1 wrote: post #108
inglor_cz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This makes them feel unsafe at work." This is modern office equivalent of nuking the opponent in war.

Hey, this is a byproduct of too-sensitive people (and I have to admit liberal enablers) allowing feelings to become what you get judged by, or legitimized to take offense based on. And any offense is legitimate, because it's all relative. You cannot question anyone's taking offense. Any legitimate criticism of someone's work turns into a personal attack, or worse, "bullying". This is not a reasonable position to take…

> admit liberal enablers...

> Any legitimate criticism of someone's work turns into a personal attack, or worse, "bullying". This is not a reasonable position to take, and will come back to bite liberal people, either in work, government, or policy.

You are erroneously conflating liberal ideology (the western world except the USA) and sensitivity. In nordic countries, people are significantly less sensitive, and more liberal for example.

Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#157

Post by twblalock »

deckard1 wrote: post #148
Lutzb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Google Mail was invite only, it was a revelation of what a web mail client could be. Fast, forward thinking in the way mails were presented. Then it became a monstrosity that I can no longer recommend to anyone. Suddenly Google Inbox came along. Fast, simple, focused packed with useful new features like mail grouping and content extraction. And it was killed off after roughly two years without any of the feature…

> it was a revelation of what a web mail client could be you and I have a different recollection of what Gmail was at the time. Their sole differentiator was unlimited storage. Oh, and they were Google. Google has relied on their reputation in search to carry most of their products since the early 2000s, right up until Google Plus when things started to fall apart for them and people started to realize that Google is…

> you and I have a different recollection of what Gmail was at the time. Their sole differentiator was unlimited storage. Oh, and they were Google.

It also introduced, and led to the broad adoption of, a few really nice features: truly effective spam filtering, conversation threading that actually works, and tags instead of folders (e.g. a message can have more than one tag, but it can only be in one folder).

At the time, Gmail offered such a good web-based email client that many people abandoned desktop clients for it.

Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#158

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mekster wrote: post #83
mattkevan wrote: post #5

Besides 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 chang…

I agree there are many poor UI under Google's products, the map is still uncontested and still amazingly good including Google Earth.

Have you used other maps?

I see this opinion a lot, but Apple Maps is pretty great now. Bing Maps is excellent. HERE Maps has been a big one I relied on for a number of years too.

I mean, their web UI is slow, but MapQuest... actually still does it's job pretty darn well too. I used their API for a program I wrote.

Re: Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX

#159

Post by indymike »

inglor_cz wrote: post #40
anonygler wrote: post #17

As a former Googler, Google has been utterly hostile to self critcism on this front. Responses to any criticism of Google's UI falls in the following buckets: - Well I think it looks great. - Stay in your lane, how dare you criticize our designers. This makes them feel unsafe at work. (Whatever the fuck that means) - We did a user study and they liked it, so it must be good. Fundamentally, Googlers are afraid to make…

"This makes them feel unsafe at work." This is modern office equivalent of nuking the opponent in war.

Perhaps the designers in question are not understanding how much people dislike their work? Sounds like a difficult conversation needs to be had about accepting feedback, and making customers happy.
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