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Lessons from 14 years at Google

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Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#151

Post by drnick1 »

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

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.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#152

Post by joduplessis »

websiteapi wrote: post #150
joduplessis wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are quickly catching up. If you were Yahoo a few years before Google it would sound the same.

the writing was already on the road w.r.t to user mindshare among normies. I see no evidence of the same happening with fast mail. why would anyone switch from gmail to fast mail other than privacy, which regular people couldn't care less about?

Privacy, as well as overall product experience. Btw, I didn't just mention Fastmail.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#153

Post by imiric »

riazrizvi wrote: post #126

This is a good list. Original, evidence to me that the author is the real deal.

There's hardly anything original here. These are regurgitated points you'd see in any article of this type. In fact, your favorite LLM can give you the same "lessons" from its training data.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#154

Post by Bombthecat »

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…

It's not just Google, the UX is degrading in... Well everything. I think it's because companies are in a duopole, monopole etc position.

They only do what the numbers tell them. Nothing else and UX just does not matter anymore.

It's like those gacha which make billions. Terrible games, almost zero depth, but people spend thousands in them. Not because they are good, but because they don't have much choice ( similar game without gacha) and part the game loop is made for addiction and build around numbers.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#155

Post by ghaff »

willi59549879 wrote: post #114
samiv wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people who ship crappy software didn't ship it and would let someone else ship something better instead. It really sucks when the first mover / incumbent is some crappy half assed solution. But unfortunately we live in a world where quality is largely irrelevant and other USPs are more important. For example these little weekend projects that become successful despite their distinct lack of quality Linux kerne…

how does the Linux kernel lack quality?

It did in the early days, especially up until 2.4 which was generally considered the first enterprise-ready kernel version. (You can argue about whether the old "enterprise-capable" definitions still applied but they were a benchmark for a lot of people.) Of course, lots of ancillary stuff too in userspace and outside the kernel related to filesystems and the like.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#156

Post by whyagaindavid »

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…

This is definitely an edge case. Most UI/UX from Google is very consistent and just works. Otherwise they won't be in this market.

Only UI/UX issue is that most experienced users want to not adapt to change. It is like people always telling Windows 7 is the best. Don't keep reinventing.

Another one that irks me is every UI/UX dev assumes people have 2 x 4K monitors and menu items overflow.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#157

Post by websiteapi »

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.

why would a great UX be tied to the source being open or not?

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#158

Post by Supermancho »

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

For the all the necessary complexity and race-to-the-bottom features, I am a fan of Jetbrains. I like using Uber, Twitch (wrote a plugin for it one weekend to integrate with chrome), Netflix, Discord. There are plenty of companies that manage to be enjoyable to end users and expose apis without the inscrutable abstractions and terminology I encounter using google products. It feels the same as working with Oracle.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#159

Post by joduplessis »

j3s wrote: post #96

feels LLM assisted, at the very least. > The skill isn’t being right. It’s entering discussions to align on the problem > clarity isn’t a style preference - it’s operational risk reduction > The punchline isn’t “never innovate.” It’s “innovate only where you’re uniquely paid to innovate > This isn’t strictly about self-promotion. It’s about making the value chain legible to everyone > The problem isn’t that engineers…

oh shit. actually, yea

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#160

Post by danielscrubs »

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

I would say basically everything that has won a an Apple Design Award before 2020.

Things for macOS for example.

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