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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

#271

Post by mikelanza »

robertlagrant wrote: post #125
mikelanza wrote: post #102

The most fundamental problem at Google, of which bad UX/UI is one symptom, is that product management has no real power there. Engineering has all the power there, and basically does whatever it likes. It takes product management research as "input" for its decisions, but does not share power with product management. Strong, competent product management balances user needs, marketplace conditions (competing and compl…

So did Engineering change all the icons to look almost identical?

No, poor product management from neglected product managers did that. You might not be very excited to design icons as your primary job, either, if you thought your job was to manage the entire product.

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

#272

Post by davidwf »

polishdude20 wrote: post #52
Lutzb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Google Mail was invite only, it was a revelation of what a web mail client could be. Fast, forward thinking in the way mails were presented. Then it became a monstrosity that I can no longer recommend to anyone. Suddenly Google Inbox came along. Fast, simple, focused packed with useful new features like mail grouping and content extraction. And it was killed off after roughly two years without any of the feature…

What sort of email client would you recommend instead?

I moved to MailMate this year -- native client + the GMail shortcurts that are burned into my fingers. :-)

https://freron.com/

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

#273

Post by ta009876 »

nawgz wrote: post #170
kepler1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, this is a byproduct of too-sensitive people (and I have to admit liberal enablers) allowing feelings to become what you get judged by, or legitimized to take offense based on. And any offense is legitimate, because it's all relative. You cannot question anyone's taking offense. Any legitimate criticism of someone's work turns into a personal attack, or worse, "bullying". This is not a reasonable position to take…

> this is a byproduct of too-sensitive people allowing feelings to become what you get judged by You know, a word of advice - I've never heard someone who calls others "sensitive" or "snowflakes" also be capable of a good faith argument about the offensiveness / professionalism / etc of a topic.

You know, a word of advice - I've never hear someone who calls others "good/bad faith" also be capable of a good faith argument about the offensiveness/ professionalism/ etc of a topic.

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

#274

Post by tarboreus »

tacker2000 wrote: post #263
harshalizee wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google has very good UX designers, UX researchers, product managers, and engineers. Google has great engineers/employees that their hiring process has naturally selected for a particular types of people. This doesn't necessarily mean good. From what I've seen, Google engineers are amazing at solving hard system/foundational problems but absolutely terrible at making good products. If you were to create a JIRA ticket…

>Gmail was snappy, quick and and had possibly the best UX in any mail client. Now it takes >20 secs on a broadband connection to give me a white-washed mess of a page with no real discerning advantage over the plain html version. Spot on. As soon as i started seeing the “a new version of gmail is coming soon, click here to try it” banner, i knew that the end of my great gmail experience was nigh. It’s funny because i…

They also did this with Google Voice before they axed it. The original Gmail was such a tight app, I still quite miss it. Next thing they're going to make it harder to get your emails in and out and I'll be done with them.

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

#275

Post by tarboreus »

jitl wrote: post #221
astrange wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they even know it’s bad? Google has approximately no way to report issues in anything. I assume they have telemetry for some things. Whenever I sign into Hangouts I have to report hundreds of porn spam chats I’ve been added to - they should be seeing that. Aren’t doing anything about it though.

I find feedback buttons on most Google properties actually

They seem to be hooked up to a digital circular file. I've submitted probably ten of these and never gotten a follow up. Their forums where you can request help and note issues are infuriating, they have some low level person come in and annoy the asker with canned responses and irrelevances. Google is where customer service goes to die, then have its body exhumed and desecrated.

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

#276

Post by zenexer »

tarboreus wrote: post #274
tacker2000 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gmail was snappy, quick and and had possibly the best UX in any mail client. Now it takes >20 secs on a broadband connection to give me a white-washed mess of a page with no real discerning advantage over the plain html version. Spot on. As soon as i started seeing the “a new version of gmail is coming soon, click here to try it” banner, i knew that the end of my great gmail experience was nigh. It’s funny because i…

They also did this with Google Voice before they axed it. The original Gmail was such a tight app, I still quite miss it. Next thing they're going to make it harder to get your emails in and out and I'll be done with them.

Google Voice is back. They forced everyone off of Voice and over to Hangouts; now, they’re forcing everyone back.

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

#277

Post by pas »

egsmi wrote: post #91
remus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still threads on hacker news today bemoaning the ribbon UI and harking back to the good old days of drop down menus, and how great it was to be a power user back then. If you're after an example of a UI change with minimal blowback then I think this is a poor example!

I didn't say anything about minimizing blow back. I agreed that there will be blow back. But life moves on.

Exactly. Every Facebook design change was decried loudly. Then no one really gave a single faint fuck about it in a few weeks.

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

#278

Post by crispyambulance »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #173
crispyambulance wrote: post #116

> How can you run Gmail on an interface that’s tangibly worse than anything else out there? Like what? > How can you let Google Docs get completely obsoleted by startups? What startups? It's perfectly fine to critique Google UI/UX as "horrible", but if one going to do that, there needs to some examples of UI/UX which are excellent for those kinds of applications. So, who does noteworthy UI/UX ?

It's not free, but basically, after you use Fastmail to browse email, Gmail feels geriatric and broken. A loading bar to pull up your email account? Pages of emails? What on earth? Gmail feels today like the web mail on my cPanel hosting felt like when I switched to Gmail.

Thanks, did not know about Fastmail, admittedly, I've not looked around for a long time. I've been using gmail since the early days.

Gmail has been "fine" for my needs, but now that I think about it, the filter and label dialogs have always been a pain in the ass. They've been more or less the same since the beginning, one would think that Google would freshen this stuff up-- but no. Moreover, gmail has become more aggressive about "categorizing" stuff on my behalf.

Will check it out. I think a key thing for me will be stability and the ability to transition my shit to another provider if needed.

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

#279

Post by vibrolax »

marcosdumay wrote: post #41
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 Somehow, that doesn't stop companies from breaking they UX, only from fixing it. Most of the Google software started with good usability (gmail, drive, search, maps). It got horrendous by changing.

They started with good usability, because that was a primary goal before financial considerations became more important.

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

#280

Post by allarm »

asciident wrote: post #265
danudey wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Isn't that just your opinion, versus the fact that it's the most popular IDE out there, so the plurality of programmers find that it's good enough?

Isn’t that just their opinion? I know many developers using Emacs because it’s insanely powerful and lightning fast, unlike modern IDEs.
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