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Introducing the new Google+

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241–250 of 300 posts

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for a damned list ... I mean look at the front of hacker news. Speed. Read.

HN isn't considered great design by majority of users outside this community.

It's not great graphic design, true. But I'll take it over garbage like grandparent's screenshot any day.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#242
post #95

Shame, the single anti-feature that prevents me from joining is still in place: >Join Google+ by creating your public profile I don't want a Public Profile. I don't need my gmail account to have a public profile. I don't need search engines, randos, nobodies, everybody to have access to my profile. Why does Google mandate Public Profiles? I don't understand. Facebook does not mandate Public profiles (if you visit my…

There is a hidden option to create a totally private profile.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2015/05/how-to-make-your-google-acc...

You have to set your audience settings to "No one".

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#243

How good are the discussions on Google+? I hesitate to share my identity and data with Google, but I'm also on a never-ending (that might turn out to be literally true) quest to find sophisticated, intelligent discussion of politics and policy.

There's no threading - even Facebook has a couple of levelslevels. G+ is just flat.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#245
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't necessarily considered great design inside either, judging by how popular Hacker News plugins and readers are. But a pretty strong argument can be made that, for sites focused primarily on text and reading, simple layouts may sometimes sometimes be better than complex ones.

HN is kept this way on purpose. That the GenPop doesn't like it is a feature, not a bug. As for designing sites focused on reading, I wholeheartedly agree with this: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com .

Almost. I agree more with this: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is kept this way on purpose. That the GenPop doesn't like it is a feature, not a bug. As for designing sites focused on reading, I wholeheartedly agree with this: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com .

Almost. I agree more with this: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/

This is great! Together, they form a perfect design philosophy!

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google+ used to be single column! Then one day they switched to the two-column card layout, the content was exactly the same but suddenly you needed to scroll up and down to be able to read both columns. (i.e. when you finish reading an item in one column you have to scroll back up to get to the beginning of the next item in the other column). I really wonder why they decided to change it.

It definitely looks better when viewed as a screenshot or in a graphic design presentation. Of course actual usability is far worse, but nobody cares about that. Only how shiny it is. The people making the decisions on which design to go for are given screenshot or mockup presentations in 5 minutes and asked to choose which design to go for. They will always go for the shiniest one, and you end up with stuff like thi…

... you honestly think Google has no analytics on whether or not design changes affect UX? And that they'd stick with a significantly worse-performing page?

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#248
post #57

Collections is kind of like Pinterest. Communities is kind of like Reddit. Plus was kind of like Facebook. Buzz was kind of like Twitter. They really need to stop imitating and start innovating. At this point I don't even think they know who they're targeting they're just trying to do a little bit of everything but they don't do it well enough for me to want to use it.

Pinterest is kind of like delicious, reddit is kind of like forums, facebook is kind of like myspace, twitter is kind of like irc. There's nothing new. Iteration on a good idea is not a bad thing.

Reddit is not kind of like forums, it's almost Usenet ported to the web.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for a damned list ... I mean look at the front of hacker news. Speed. Read.

HN isn't considered great design by majority of users outside this community.

The problems I've got with HN would with one exception be best addressed with less design.

It assumes fixed screen / viewport widths and font sizes. Foreground / background contrast is poor. The more code: collapsable subthreads.

Otherwise, it's a basic text-heavy design for a text-heavy site.

Re: Introducing the new Google+

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The card layout is generally big no-no in design community. I disagree-- it would appear to be exactly the opposite if you look at current design trends (checkout dribbble.com), cards look to be a very big yes-yes in the design community. I believe googles implementation of the cards within Google+ very poor UX. If they made each card the same height so your eyes can move about the page more orderly it might make G…

Trending design ≠ efficient design. Lot of me-too designers try to copy what's on popular websites even though it's clearly a wrong approach and that's how bad designs become viral (Jumbotrones is another example which has become viral but has measurably lower engagement metrics). Also many designer falls in to side-by-side measurement trap while what they should be measuring is users engagement metrics. Card layout…

Pinterest?

Design is only a part of the experience, most of the value comes from usefulness.

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