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Lessons from 14 years at Google

addyosmani.com

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Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#251

Post by multjoy »

mike_hearn wrote: post #139
hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

> If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. There was no beancounter takeover and it never was so obsessed. I worked there from 2006-2014 in engineering roles and found this statement was particularly jarring: "User obsession means spending time in support tickets, talking to users,…

It is an almost universal fact that dealing with retail customers is something that is left to the lowest paid, lowest status workers and often outsourced and now increasingly left to LLM chatbots.

While you obviously can't have highly paid engineers tied up dealing with user support tickets, there is a lot to be said for at least some exposure to the coal face.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#252

Post by liveoneggs »

martinpw wrote: post #244
avidiax wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every previous job I've had has a similar pattern. The engineer is not supposed to engage directly with the customer. I think there are multiple reasons for this, but they are mostly overlapping with preserving internal power structures. PM's don't want anecdotal user evidence that their vision of the product is incomplete. Engineering managers don't want user feedback to undermine perception of quality and derail "i…

Engineers have a perception that most other roles are lesser and if only they were allowed to be in charge things would go better. I certainly used to be this way. When I was an engineer I used to regularly engage directly with customers, and it was great to be able to talk with them one to one, address their specific issues and feel I was making a difference, particularly on a large product with many customers where…

every customer complaint is N customers lost who don't say anything

"the biggest impact" isn't knowable so a bird in hand is worth more than whatever might be in the bush

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#253

Post by [deleted] »

hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

[deleted]

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#254

Post by hansmayer »

Aurornis wrote: post #116
hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

The short answer is that the UI isn’t optimized for users like you. I haven’t worked for Google specifically, but at this scale everything gets tested and optimized. I would guess they know power users like you are frustrated, but they know you’ll figure it out anyway. So the UX is optimized for a simpler target audience and possibly even for simpler help documents, not to ensure power users can get things done as qu…

The specific feature in question...there is nothing "power" about it. It was a non-feature for decades essentially, I dont recall ever not being able to simply change an e-mail address by moving the cursor and typing in something else. How on earth is this something tested and optimised, for whom exactly?

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#255

Post by alemanek »

embedding-shape wrote: post #233
techsystems wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Osmani worked as a "developer evangelist" (at Google) for as long as I can remember, not as a developer Oh

That's not a fair reading, he's as much of a developer as anyone else. But he wasn't (AFAIK) working on user-facing products specifically.

I think it is more the point that the users for his job were external developers. The role is inherently user facing and user focused. I don’t think anyone was trying to say he wasn’t a developer just that his job wasn’t to directly develop products

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#256

Post by hansmayer »

dijit wrote: post #237
hansmayer wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree with you. Teams are a cancer and Azure UI sucks too. I do not use much MS products since essentially Win7 I have mainly used Linux as my work environment. But one thing MS used to be good at at least, was the documentation. If you are that old, you will remember each product came with extensive manuals AND there was an actual customer support. With google its like...not even that.

> If you are that old, you will remember each product came with extensive manuals AND there was an actual customer support. But even then, contemporaries outclassed Microsoft by a lot. It was culture back then to provide printed user manuals, I still have some from Sun Microsystems because it was the best resource I found to learn how storage appliances should work and the technical trade-offs of them.

Fair enough, everyone delivered software in boxes and with 500 page manuals. I still maintain MS did invest a lot in the quality of their documentation and they cared about developers - otherwise the Petzold series would have never happened (or the MS Press for that matter).

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#257

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

Is there a big tech company that actually has good UX, besides maybe Apple?

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#259

Post by naijaboiler »

bigcloud1299 wrote: post #133

15 years in leadership worked at 3 jobs lead major transformations at retail where nearly 100B of revenue goes through what i built. Ran $55-$100M in a yearly budget… over 300 FTEs and 3x contractors under my or my budget,…largest retailer in google at that time…my work influenced GCP roadmap, Datastax roadmap, … much more all behind the scenes…. besides your capabilities and ability that had to be there to get you i…

we are human being interacting with other human beings. what you call "kissing ass" is just learning to influence and work with other humans. It is by far the most useful skill to have in workplace. But don't worry. continue your disdain of it, includeing calling it negative names, and watch your career stagnate.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#260

Post by naijaboiler »

jimmyl02 wrote: post #32

Usually there are nuggets of wisdom in lists shared like this but I feel like every lesson shared here has immense value. > "remain skeptical of your own certainty" > "Model curiosity, and you get a team that actually learns." These are two lessons that typically require battle scars to learn. For such big ideas to be summed into two sentences is pretty remarkable and puts to words lessons I wish I knew how to share.…

same usually, i read this and see this some flawed or hackneyed tripe. But these ones are actually true and anyone who has had a long career and led people and product will resonate with many of them.
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