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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

#31

Post by ceejayoz »

anonygler wrote: post #22
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…

That's because the last decade of improvements at GSuite aren't for you. They're to satisfy made up requirements by Government and Enterprise IT departments, with the rest of the energy sucked out by European Regulations. Data location and retention policies, privacy, logging, data export, legal, etc etc.

The GDPR didn't require Gmail to become slow, or Google to provide multiple confusingly competing video call products.

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

#32

Post by inetknght »

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.

Sure you can. Empower your users instead of taking features away. Make it modular with the default modules being the old interface. Make reporting spam actually useful instead of feeling like it gets ignored. Make it easier to manage a list of _thousands_ of filters. Provide better IMAP integration instead of the half-implemented crap that it is right now. Hell, just make it so that I can encrypt my emails.

Serious blowback happens when you break something for some segment of your users. You don't have to break things to provide new features.

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

#33

Post by agytvfr »

One thing I have always thought is odd, is that a multinational company that has ~billions of users would have a single UI. At Google or Facebook scale, it would seems like having a more localized UI per region would make more sense. It isn't like they don't have the money to do this, and most of the service is behind an API/server-side, so having a different front-end better localized to, say, Arabic users, doesn't seem like it would place an undue burden on them.

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

#34

Post by cblconfederate »

pcj-github wrote: post #29
danso wrote: post #4

This is one of the most content-vacant articles I've seen on HN lately. - "Google Is Getting Left Behind Due to Horrible UI/UX" : provides exactly zero statistics relating to declining Google usage. - "What happened to Google Docs? Why does it not look and behave more like Notion, or Quip, or any of the other alternatives that made progress in the last 5-10 years?" : provides zero screenshots or even textual descript…

Yes I'm getting pretty bored of these kinds of posts that offer no real ideas (this was just a rant) in order to drive traffic to their paid newsletter.

They are meant to be convo openers, and it works. People rejected banner advertising, so advertising adapted

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

#36

Post by me551ah »

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…

Facebook is exactly in the same boat , but they have redesigned the user interface multiple times over the years. Even after so many years, Facebook still feels current.

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

#37

Post by tpmx »

I think this sudden performance improvement of many services after the outage earlier today is indicative of how Google lost its way:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25416812

It's very hard for me to find a good explanation for why this isn't the normal performance.

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

#38

Post by ehvatum »

absolutelyrad wrote: post #16

I'd add that material UI is one of the worst things to come out of Google, and their implementation in GCP, Gmail etc. I absolutely hate it, and it looks cheap. Even Windows 10 interface looks better. Even though Material UI is functional, there is something off about it. Something is weird about it, and I can't tell what. Maybe there's a word for it. It feels/looks cheap, like designed for the lowest common denomina…

I think I can explain. The original google interface was a text box hanging in white space. Mind-blowing. Let's use this as our design language.

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

#39

Post by 0x_rs »

Google Drive UI makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Even on non-mobile devices obvious actions and behaviours are made impossible. Want to open a new tab for every folder in Drive? Tough luck, you can't use middle click nor "Open in new tab" since it's some poorly made abomination without respect for the user. So you need to go back, but it's a large folder and will never load folders in one go, so you have to scroll down again and spend 5 seconds for the animations to end and load the next dozen elements. Just one of the many things personally annoying me, and it's not limited to it alone but all Google services, they are definitely among the worst I've ever had to deal with when it comes to usability.

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

#40

Post by inglor_cz »

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…

"This makes them feel unsafe at work."

This is modern office equivalent of nuking the opponent in war.

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