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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

#231

Post by setr »

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…

With google maps at least, there’s been a decent number of sudden UI/UX changes that completely revamp the layout and features (often towards something less useful) — which indicates to me that there’s not that much of a struggle internally with the idea

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

#232

Post by zentiggr »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #154
standardUser wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I could give a rat's ass about dark mode or other themes.

I want "oldest first" back. Like almost every other mail client. Everywhere.

Sigh.

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

#233

Post by wcarron »

jorams wrote: post #143
wcarron wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually just began the process of migrating away from Google about two weeks ago. I chose FastMail for my new email provider. It's $5/mo, but honestly, I'm fine paying that, solely to get Google out of my emails. I find their UI to be simple and clear. I enjoy the notes/calendar features that come with the email. Their mobile app works fine on my android phone, and the push notifications from the Fastmail calendar…

Note that FastMail allows you to add ~600 aliases to your account, choosing from a large list of domains. I'd advise anyone to use their own domain, but those aliases can be a godsend.

Huh, I didn't know about that. I knew I could use my own domainl; but I'm not really motivated to do so. the fastmail domain suits me well enough. I always have the option to use my own domain later on, anyway.

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

#234

Post by wcarron »

ryantgtg wrote: post #224
wcarron wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually just began the process of migrating away from Google about two weeks ago. I chose FastMail for my new email provider. It's $5/mo, but honestly, I'm fine paying that, solely to get Google out of my emails. I find their UI to be simple and clear. I enjoy the notes/calendar features that come with the email. Their mobile app works fine on my android phone, and the push notifications from the Fastmail calendar…

My NYTimes sub goes to my gmail, and then it forwards to my fastmail (I rarely need to check my gmail). I was unable to sign up for an Etsy account with Fastmail. They only acknowledge the majors. But I was able to sign up with gmail and then promptly change it to fastmail. Really sophisticated opsec on their part.

So they validate the email on create, but not on update? Hah! Thanks for the laugh

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

#235

Post by mekster »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #191
mekster wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

Thanks for mentioning. I tried but there are some deficiencies.

- Apple Map : Better street view than Google. The scenes look more natural and having a higher point of view is much better but the point of interest is quite unfocused and their map app acts quite weirdly and very laggy under 3D and almost unusable. Funny their UI guideline always says not to block UI process but they can't do that themselves.

- Bing map : Map is very good. Point of interest is fairly placed but their satellite view is very rough in Japan. Searching is weird. If I search for "California" I get taken to some location in Columbia with that name... And not sure how they don't support Android? I get redirected to their search site when I visit maps.

- HERE map : I suppose this is US only? I checked a Japanese location and there's 1 big road in a major city and nothing else...

- MapQuest : Not really competing...

All in all, there are a few better things here and there for other maps, but nothing really beats the overall quality of Google maps at this point.

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

#236

Post by jonex »

notacoward wrote: post #105
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…

> Engineers are also sandbagged with "we need more data" until a risk-taking idea gets snuffed out of existence. Not at Google, but what I saw was worse than that. It was "we need more data" over and over and, on each round , I could watch other people's riskier changes just fly by without a shred of evidence that they even did what they were claimed to (let alone that they were beneficial). "Need more data" is not a…

I think sometimes "need more data" has a similar connotation as "citation needed". It's a way to dismiss an idea you don't believe in without being fully dismissive. In other words, it can be a way of saying "I don't think it's obvious that your idea will float, but I'm willing to accept it if you can provide evidence for it".

Of course there's a risk for bias here, you'll be more inclined to trust a close team mate than someone with just as good arguments outside your team which can lead to unlucky territorial behavior, even when intentions are good. But at least it leaves an opening for challenge that "nah, I think it won't work and I own the code, sorry" does not.

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

#237

Post by ChrisArchitect »

pretty ridiculous short sighted article. "Materialize or whatever". C'mon. If you don't know anything about it shut up. Material did huge things for usability and uniformity across the google landscape.

Over on Analytics, you're not reading stuff and clicking upgrade/migrate whatever and then complaining. Lame man. Yeah, it's complicated, maybe too much for casual users like yourself but it's also complicated for power users who are doing all sorts of things at different levels with it.

And this idea that EOL-ing products that everyone on here complains about every single week is all based on magical speculation that it affects 'large swathes of people... perhaps not billions, but I would hazard to say millions'. You're in a bubble man, not that many ppl were affected by Reader shutdown. Inbox. Etc. The Inbox features made their way into Gmail as the one Googler describes features evolve in smaller steps. And everyone moved on from Reader but RSS never died as a tech anyways so geezus, follow some twitter streams or sign up to some newsletters and get with it.

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

#238

Post by danudey »

mrweasel wrote: post #55
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…

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…

In fairness, the "Can't write desktop applications" issue doesn't seem to be restricted to Google. The Microsoft Teams app for iOS is fine, nothing special but it works. The Microsoft Teams app for Microsoft Windows is just complete and utter garbage. It's laggy, it's missing features that the mobile clients have, and it's just kind of a mess all around.

In case anyone was wondering why Apple is going with the "iOS/iPadOS apps on the desktop" route, it's because this is so incredibly common; great, first-class mobile apps and nearly unusable, garbage Electron-based desktop apps.

Edit: Plus, in regards to Google, something about Chromebooks. A good desktop app on a Chromebook is just a web app that works well in Chrome. Why make a desktop app for what they seem to think is just an outdated computing metaphor using APIs they don't control?

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

#239

Post by Jtsummers »

xg15 wrote: post #225
Jtsummers wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if engagement is measured by time in the system, then a bad UI/UX can help that measure. If things move around inside an app frequently enough, I'm forced to spend more time using it because I on longer know how (Google Finance changed yet again a few weeks ago on me). If they hold an outsized share of the market + momentum from people having used their services for (now) 20+ years, then they can get away with…

This sounds cynical, but I wonder if this is actually the case to some extent. If you only look at engagement metrics, then those engagement metrics will be optimised, no matter how. Cobra effect and all that.

The measure becomes the goal.

It happens all the time as organizations "mature".

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

#240

Post by danudey »

asciident wrote: post #100
sofixa wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Electron is a nice option these days. Slack and VS Code are first-in-class applications, and while there's a slight performance hit compared to native, it's still a better experience than web (otherwise, people would have stuck with slack.com)

Counterpoint: Electron is a terrible option these days, and while I'd be okay with a "performance hit", it's actually UI lagginess that I can't deal with (and makes it a horrible frustration to deal with).
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