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Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

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Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#21

Post by vidanay »

abxytg wrote: post #18

Google also debuted a new Driving Mode on Google Maps that... entirely changes the UI of of the app and several parts of the phone interface itself. I have never had to look at my phone while driving more in my entire life. It's my fault for using the phone, but it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend as I tried to get google maps to update or display a particular UI. I truly wonder what is going on ove…

Not to mention Google Maps gives you about 1/2" x 1/2" of actual map - the rest of your screen is full of other junk.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#22

Post by riffic »

abxytg wrote: post #18

Google also debuted a new Driving Mode on Google Maps that... entirely changes the UI of of the app and several parts of the phone interface itself. I have never had to look at my phone while driving more in my entire life. It's my fault for using the phone, but it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend as I tried to get google maps to update or display a particular UI. I truly wonder what is going on ove…

> it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend

This wouldn't have been accidental, it would have been fully your own fault for negligence.

I'll fully admit this is a pedantic tangent but it's been long acknowledged that "accident" is a problematic word to describe vehicle crashes because it minimizes the agency of a driver and intentional decision making processes that lead up to a crash (for instance, using an app to navigate instead of being better acquainted with your route ahead of time):

https://laist.com/news/car-crash-accident-traffic-violence-l...

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#23

Post by cunthorpe »

jarofgreen wrote: post #15

Flip side - Google Keep. To search for a note you have to press the search box twice . First time you just get types of things - if you want to search free text you have to press again. I'd argue that UI encourages using tags over search. It's honestly my only major annoyance about Google Keep.

Reminds me of Google Maps.

Me: I want a coffee shop.

Maps: Ok let me zoom out and show you coffee shops in a 20km radius.

So you have to zoom back in and “Search this area”. But hey the Starbucks next door is not shown, it’s maddening.

Google’s core business is now ads, not search.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#24

Post by Tenoke »

jarofgreen wrote: post #15

Flip side - Google Keep. To search for a note you have to press the search box twice . First time you just get types of things - if you want to search free text you have to press again. I'd argue that UI encourages using tags over search. It's honestly my only major annoyance about Google Keep.

Isn't keep an abandoned project? I use it daily and it doesn't seem to have gotten an update in years (if ever since launch).

>It's honestly my only major annoyance about Google Keep.

I definitely have more annoyances - it can be slow, it has only minimum features, you can't change the ordering etc.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#25

Post by pkulak »

vidanay wrote: post #21
abxytg wrote: post #18

Google also debuted a new Driving Mode on Google Maps that... entirely changes the UI of of the app and several parts of the phone interface itself. I have never had to look at my phone while driving more in my entire life. It's my fault for using the phone, but it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend as I tried to get google maps to update or display a particular UI. I truly wonder what is going on ove…

Not to mention Google Maps gives you about 1/2" x 1/2" of actual map - the rest of your screen is full of other junk.

And two of the streets on the screen are named!

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#27

Post by joshstrange »

zacharycohn wrote: post #26

This would be fine if Google Drive/Docs search wasn't unusably bad

Came here to say the same thing. I thought it was a well-known "meme" that Google Docs/Drive search was trash which is hilarious (or would be if I didn't have to use it for important stuff) coming from a search company.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#28

Post by tasogare »

admax88q wrote: post #14

macOS takes the same approach with Finder however. Managing files in macOS is a huge pain if you want to keep it in some nicely organized tree. Its optimized for just searching to find what you're looking for. It presents all files in a flat list by default. Apple's primary business model is not search, so there could be some evidence that more people just prefer search over tags/folders/icons etc.

There is tons if options to find files on macOS: the find command, spotlight, search in the finder, hierarchical view in the finder. Which popular OS has a better system than that?

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#29

Post by the_lonely_road »

pydry wrote: post #19
aplummer wrote: post #3

This is assuming malice when you could assume incompetence (to whatever slight degree this stuff is). Probably these things got put in a future release, or are in the backlog still. Well meaning product designers wanted them and can't have them or some other typical big-co reason a product gets little iteration.

>typical big-co reason a product gets little iteration. That they DGAF if they're not facing competition. IE6 was the same. Threaten them with loss of market share and they'll fix these things.

I think you have that backwards. It takes a strong stomach to claim Google isn't facing competition on Google Sheets and threatening their market share would cause them to start caring. The more likely scenario is they have given up on winning any market share as serious users refuse to switch from Excel and non serious users have pads of paper and pencil, leaving Google just a tiny slice of the pie between those two groups to even fight for.

I would guess it has to do with what I have heard is the promotion path at Google. It seems you need to ship, and ship new things, if you want to be a serious contender. That leaves few engineers willing to take a look at Google Sheets issues and put together a PR to fix these things.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#30

Post by fungiblecog »

This is just the MVP culture we now have where only the very basics are implemented and nothing more. Whereas a computer used to be a power tool to maximise human capability, modern devices are now designed to subvert the user’s desires for the benefit of mega-corp by making users helpless.
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