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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

#191

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mekster wrote: post #176
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a reason to switch when they don't have street view and 3D modeling?

I think you just made my point for me: Nearly all of the ones I mentioned have both street view and 3D models of buildings. (I'd really discourage using MapQuest's web UI, mind you.)

If you had used anything but Google, you'd realize everyone else has these features too.

Bear in mind, Bing Maps powers a world-scale reproduction of the world for Flight Simulator... you thought that didn't have 3D models of buildings? It does have to fill in a lot of missing data, but it does start on a very good foundation.

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

#192

Post by bluGill »

sofixa wrote: post #81
mrweasel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One major mistake Google also makes is assuming that everything is web, it's not. Google have world class engineers, they have the ability to develop infrastructure that scales globally, yet they apparently can't write desktop application. A few days ago I tried to install Google Chat, for work. There's no download buttons to be found, you're just logged into Chat directly and is greeted by a "You need Chrome to down…

> What struck me about all this is that Google doesn't actually have the ability to develop real desktop application. That's really weird, why wouldn't they want to have the best performing, most powerful applications possible on the desktops? Because they can't. Google as an organisation doesn't have the mental capacity and patience to do real desktop programs. Because it's a waste of very expensive time to develop…

> Because it's a waste of very expensive time to develop native desktop apps in 3 different platforms?

Facebook gave up on the one app and does native apps for the major phones for a reason: native is faster, ultimately more powerful and you have more control to fix bugs.

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

#193

Post by mrweasel »

sofixa wrote: post #81
mrweasel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One major mistake Google also makes is assuming that everything is web, it's not. Google have world class engineers, they have the ability to develop infrastructure that scales globally, yet they apparently can't write desktop application. A few days ago I tried to install Google Chat, for work. There's no download buttons to be found, you're just logged into Chat directly and is greeted by a "You need Chrome to down…

> What struck me about all this is that Google doesn't actually have the ability to develop real desktop application. That's really weird, why wouldn't they want to have the best performing, most powerful applications possible on the desktops? Because they can't. Google as an organisation doesn't have the mental capacity and patience to do real desktop programs. Because it's a waste of very expensive time to develop…

Is it really that expensive though? Again, take Chat, how many developers would that really require? My guess is three to five for each platform. One skilled Mac developer would be enough to be honest, but let's say five for redundancy and speed. I fairly sure Google have more than 15 developers on the PWA.

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

#194

Post by forgot-my-pw »

me551ah wrote: post #36
mdwelsh wrote: post #14

I used to work at Google, as an engineering director on the Chrome Mobile team. While I agree that the UX of many Google products needs fixing, it's not just a simple matter of "Google, you are made out of money. Fix your fucking interfaces." The article misses a really important point that you can't just revamp the UX for a product used by billions of users without some pretty serious blowback. Startups like Notion…

Facebook is exactly in the same boat , but they have redesigned the user interface multiple times over the years. Even after so many years, Facebook still feels current.

Facebook breaks things so often. I used to be quite active in Facebook marketplace as a seller and every week there will be a broken feature that does not get fixed until months after. Be it something small like missing link to photo gallery not working at all.

Sure, they have newer UI, but the stability of their features is poor.

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

#195

Post by stingraycharles »

caminocorner wrote: post #181
mdwelsh wrote: post #14

I used to work at Google, as an engineering director on the Chrome Mobile team. While I agree that the UX of many Google products needs fixing, it's not just a simple matter of "Google, you are made out of money. Fix your fucking interfaces." The article misses a really important point that you can't just revamp the UX for a product used by billions of users without some pretty serious blowback. Startups like Notion…

> you can't just revamp the UX for a product used by billions of users without some pretty serious blowback. Of course there is, therre's always someone who will be upset. The problem is they've kept making it worse and worse to unanimous dissent, despite any research or the well paid "very good UX designers, UX researchers, product managers, and engineers."

Exactly. What happened, especially with Gmail, is that over time it consistently got worse and worse and worse. It went with small changes, but overall they all add up.

Now, we’re asking to make these changes go into a better direction. Surely we’re not asking for a massive overhaul in one big chunk, but many incremental changes, just like Google and any large organization for that matter has been doing for dozens of years.

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

#196

Post by temikus »

barkingcat wrote: post #23
mdwelsh wrote: post #14

I used to work at Google, as an engineering director on the Chrome Mobile team. While I agree that the UX of many Google products needs fixing, it's not just a simple matter of "Google, you are made out of money. Fix your fucking interfaces." The article misses a really important point that you can't just revamp the UX for a product used by billions of users without some pretty serious blowback. Startups like Notion…

I think while yes, UI changes does take a lot of care, I think it is a matter of "Google, you are made out of money. Fix your fucking interfaces." If one of the richest companies on the planet can't pay to hire good designers, and just pay to buyout a whole ecosystem (ie what they did with AMP), then no one can. Rather, I think your points aside, it's a matter of executive direction and attention. Google executives d…

“making design mocks that will never see the light of day”

This seems accurate. I worked with UX teams on Cloud a lot. They _are_ brilliant. But every time the lifecycle seems to be:

1) They come out with fantastic mocks. 2) They run this by some internal committee and the design gets degraded. 3) Repeat step 2 10-20 times. 4) The final result is tiny incremental changes that look like the original UI was slightly re-shaped. 5) Rinse, repeat.

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

#197

Post by cbozeman »

mirthflat83 wrote: post #180
exogeny wrote: post #65

A lifetime ago, I worked for Yahoo! well after Google had won the war. That office was full of talented, thoughtful, and energetic PMs...and a middle-management layer so thick that nothing ever got done. You'd propose new ideas, new products, new interfaces and it would just get so bogged down in the process. And invariably those talented people would leave for greener pastures, leaving behind those who were just the…

Honestly, Facebook’s UX and UI are great.

I'm ambivalent about the new layout they've introduced... I call it the 'mobilization' of the desktop web. I'm not overly fond of it, but I guess it eliminates a lot of the dead space that was present at high resolutions (1440p / 2160p).

I do like the fact I can have a "dark mode".

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

#198

Post by coffeeling »

Google's new icons are literally camouflaged. They have simple shapes, but the color changes break the shapes into indiscriminate masses of stuff.

That's exactly what animals and the military do to disguise themselves: They break their own shape and outline so it can't be snap-recognized as being distinct from the environment.

Google's new icons do exactly that, except that app icons should be snap-recognizable. Now they're a herd of zebras where you can't tell where one begins and another ends.

Someone ran a colorblindness filter on them. Predictably, they looked better because turning everything non-blue into yellow made the shapes more coherent.

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

#199

Post by 1970-01-01 »

Google.com however still looks and works almost exactly as it did 20 years ago. I don't know of any other site that has done that. I must give them credit for keeping the flame of simplicity lit and not giving into churning ads on the world's #1 Alexa ranked site.

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

#200

Post by coffeeling »

mdwelsh wrote: post #14

I used to work at Google, as an engineering director on the Chrome Mobile team. While I agree that the UX of many Google products needs fixing, it's not just a simple matter of "Google, you are made out of money. Fix your fucking interfaces." The article misses a really important point that you can't just revamp the UX for a product used by billions of users without some pretty serious blowback. Startups like Notion…

Notion's userbase is also largely high-IQ techies obsessed with new, fancy, trendy stuff. They'd hate no change more than constant change.
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