Google is getting left behind due to horrible UI/UX • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by cbozeman » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

fwip wrote: post #109

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…

Could you expand on: "Stay in your lane, how dare you criticize our designers. This makes them feel unsafe at work?" Your quote seems a little bit like a disingenuous paraphrasing of real issues, but I try not to dismiss things just because they're surprising to my world view. I would be interested in seeing what kind of feedback (internal? external?) prompted this sort of response.

The translation of that is: "We're Google and we have literally billions of users, therefore we can't be wrong. Shut the fuck up and go back to your cubicle. Your opinion doesn't matter because I have more seniority than you, even though I work in an industry that largely tosses aside such ridiculous convention and had historically lauded and elevated risk takers and rule breakers."

In other words, Google has become thoroughly bureaucratic, which means it will inevitably stagnate and die... it'll just be a very slow death.

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

#162

Post by bobyfyfy » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

lr1970 wrote: post #58

anonygler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the last decade of improvements at GSuite aren't for you. They're to satisfy made up requirements by Government and Enterprise IT departments, with the rest of the energy sucked out by European Regulations. Data location and retention policies, privacy, logging, data export, legal, etc etc.

Everything you mentioned has nothing to do with UI/UX.

I believe that is the point. Google isn't updating for UI/UX reasons.

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

#163

Post by r00fus » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

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…

My major GDocs/Sheets frustration is that doing a paste-without-formatting in Mac/Firefox silently fails.

It works in Mac Chrome. No workaround that I can find.

This is a regression from say, 2 years ago. I used to be psyched that I could use GDocs for work but now I hate that I'm forced to use it for work.

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

#164

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

0x53 wrote: post #96

jeffbee wrote: post #74

The criticism of the Gmail desktop web interface seems insubstantial. There's a screenshot with some boxes drawn over it, but what's actually wrong with it? Ask yourself also whether the desktop web interface of gmail is the most important one, or if its audience has been surpassed by that of the Android or iOS apps.

I think the point of the screenshot was to highlight that there are a lot of buttons, but no labels or any way to know what they do.

OK, I can kinda see that for the stuff at the top. However, most of the icons at the top correspond to a labeled item in the left sidebar, and each has a tooltip as well. I agree this isn't the best but I do not readily imagine a better way, either.

As for the stuff on the message level, left-pointing arrow has meant "reply" since the very first graphical MUA, the star is universal design language across Google properties including Chrome, and the three vertical dots for more actions is very common within and without Google.

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

#165

Post by Andrex » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

absolutelyrad wrote: post #16

I'd add that material UI is one of the worst things to come out of Google, and their implementation in GCP, Gmail etc. I absolutely hate it, and it looks cheap. Even Windows 10 interface looks better. Even though Material UI is functional, there is something off about it. Something is weird about it, and I can't tell what. Maybe there's a word for it. It feels/looks cheap, like designed for the lowest common denomina…

> Even Windows 10 interface looks better.

Whoah whoah whoah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

To start with, which part of the Windows 10 UI are you specifically referencing? It's quite the hodgepodge.

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

#166

Post by harha » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

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…

Had a similar experience, “data” is used where it seems useful to explain an already made decision. Criticism is hostile and un-googley when it doesn’t fit the narrative. At the end of the day for the sake of the promo it’s not worth arguing.

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

#167

Post by Silhouette » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

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 assumed for weeks that the original Material Design launch video was parody. I'm a Brit, and sometimes American comedy just doesn't click with me.

I can still remember the feeling of surprise, followed by something more like horror, as I realised they were actually being serious, and that with their weight behind it, this mess of glaring flaws that numerous critics had picked up on from day one was likely to dominate a lot of UI work for the next several years. And sure enough, many of those flaws are still there today, hardly changed.

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

#168

Post by excitive » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

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…

It’s been shocking to me how much Material Design has been worshipped in the design community and nobody has dared to pick out even the basic flaws in the design system, not even asking to go as far as saying that plain ‘boxes’ do not represent any ‘material’ and drop shadows are outdated.

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

#169

Post by throwaway8441 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

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…

> We did a user study and they liked it, so it must be good.

I didn't see much of the first two, but I did see this one. I've worked for G as well as for a "fruity" FAANG company, and the difference between how they approach product and UI design is stark. At Pineapple, the HI lead, often working closely with the eng DRI, simply declares: "This design is best for users. We know this because we are professionals, have good taste, and [sometimes] there is research to support it." Maybe they'll measure it later as an afterthought. Unless a higher-up intervenes, the product is then designed that way, and often succeeds. If it is a failure, the responsibility lies on one or two (at most) leads.

The Google way is totally different. UX and product management works together to brainstorm potential designs, but there is a lot of uncertainty. All the alternatives go into a slide deck where comments pour in. The comments don't really resolve anything, they just add more uncertainty. Meetings are had where more people weigh in, including directors and VPs if it's a big enough project. Nobody can prove which design is best, and we cannot launch something that isn't backed by measurement, therefore we must conduct a thorough UX research study. This leads to a low-risk compromise design with a slate of minor unknowns still left that must be A/B tested with real users in order to know which way is correct. Oh, and Legal has to weigh in. Finally the product is launched but we're still nervous and don't know whether the design is right, so it's launched with dozens of flags to turn off various things in case we're wrong. In the end, nobody can point to any one person responsible, and nobody in the entire process had to stick their neck out and make a judgment call.

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

#170

Post by nawgz » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

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…

> this is a byproduct of too-sensitive people allowing feelings to become what you get judged by

You know, a word of advice - I've never heard someone who calls others "sensitive" or "snowflakes" also be capable of a good faith argument about the offensiveness / professionalism / etc of a topic.