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Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

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Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#71

Post by EForEndeavour »

gweinberg wrote: post #64
zackbloom wrote: post #47

The person writing this is confusing their personal opinion for objective UX fact. It is commonly accepted that only highly organized users use features like tags. The vast majority of people simply don't. Rather than jumping to the conclusion that this is hostile it's possible Chrome and Docs just have a wider user-base than this particular author.

I don't even think it's about organization, more aesthetic sensibilities. Why would anyone want to have special folder icons? "Because it looks nice" is the only possibility that occurs to me. I probably have over 1000 bookmarks myself, but I can't think of why I would want to "tag" a bookmark. Tags can be useful for finding new content, but if I bookmark a sit I probably know enough about it that I wouldn;t benefit…

The benefit of tags is that a single item can have multiple tags, so you're no longer constrained by having to decide on a specific folder hierarchy to organize them in. You can replace "folders" with tags entirely and still use tags as folders if you want, with the option of storing an item "in multiple folders" (give it multiple tags). Gmail has worked like this for a while: the inbox is just a filter which displays emails tagged with "inbox", which makes it even more confusing and inconsistent that Google's bookmarks and documents don't support this.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#73

Post by detaro »

RC_ITR wrote: post #33
riffic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend This wouldn't have been accidental, it would have been fully your own fault for negligence. I'll fully admit this is a pedantic tangent but it's been long acknowledged that "accident" is a problematic word to describe vehicle crashes because it minimizes the agency of a driver and intentional decision making processes that lead up to a crash (for instance, using…

This comment is not the way to win that culture war. Agree that using phones while driving is generally bad, but implying that it is irresponsible to use turn-by-turn (and suggesting the alternative of just knowing where you are) is just more likely to make people ignore the problem all together.

> but implying that it is irresponsible to use turn-by-turn

It isn't irresponsible to use turn-by-turn navigation (and I don't think GP is implying that). It's irresponsible to fiddle with the phone you are using for that purpose while driving.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#74

Post by thrashh »

yupper32 wrote: post #70
benatkin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's my fault for using the phone, but it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend

"it" did not very nearly cause 2 accidents. They're trying to avoid some of the blame, as if they're not 100% at fault.

OP could have just used that language for dramatic effect.

Don’t distract from the point.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#75

Post by mountainb »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #61
zackbloom wrote: post #47

The person writing this is confusing their personal opinion for objective UX fact. It is commonly accepted that only highly organized users use features like tags. The vast majority of people simply don't. Rather than jumping to the conclusion that this is hostile it's possible Chrome and Docs just have a wider user-base than this particular author.

People will very much use organizing features if you provide them. Whether it's groups for icons, folders for files, labels for e-mails, tags and colors for documents, or drawers for socks - most people seem to recognize that being organized is a virtue , and will attempt it to the extent it is possible and convenient. Not giving features for self-organization is a choice .

Bookmarks are shit for a variety of reasons. Far better to archive pages with images or PDFs. Link rot is so pervasive that just maintaining bookmarks is a waste of time. Tagging, sorting, and annotating files on storage you control is far more reliable.

Google is just trying to help users realize that the web is a bad source for organized information. Google sells expensive clicks to personal injury lawyers off of titanic spam plantations of SEO content —- their mission is orthogonal to the organization of information.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#76

Post by version_five »

RC_ITR wrote: post #33
riffic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend This wouldn't have been accidental, it would have been fully your own fault for negligence. I'll fully admit this is a pedantic tangent but it's been long acknowledged that "accident" is a problematic word to describe vehicle crashes because it minimizes the agency of a driver and intentional decision making processes that lead up to a crash (for instance, using…

This comment is not the way to win that culture war. Agree that using phones while driving is generally bad, but implying that it is irresponsible to use turn-by-turn (and suggesting the alternative of just knowing where you are) is just more likely to make people ignore the problem all together.

I've seen this "accident" redefinition around before, it looks to me like some silly armchair pedantry, combining the sports of redefining words and judging others. We have courts that can judge culpability / responsibility and decide if a collision was a no fault accident or something negligent, deliberate, whatever. But we also have these neo-political thugs that want to try and use language to manipulate and define what we are allowed to do, so you get these childish redefinitions.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#77

Post by abxytg »

yupper32 wrote: post #70
benatkin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's my fault for using the phone, but it very nearly caused 2 accidents for me this weekend

"it" did not very nearly cause 2 accidents. They're trying to avoid some of the blame, as if they're not 100% at fault.

> It's my fault for using the phone

I do take the blame.

I'm driving somewhere 6 hours away that I've never been with a dog in the car. Normally it's quite safe for me to do things like manage turn by turn navigation, and pick up a hands free call, or pause an audiobook, or ask the phone to reroute me to food, gas, or a rest stop.

If you are able to drive solo 6 hours to a new place in total silence without stopping for food, rest, or gas, or touching the turn by turn navigations to make an update, I'll fly you out to me and pay you $1000 a day to teach me how.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#78

Post by amf12 »

k_bx wrote: post #63

I always wondered why could you not add a note to someone else’s email in gmail to make it searchable. Would allow you to make gmail UI even simpler and in vein with article's claims too.

You can. If you open the email, there is a "note" icon in the right sidebar. If you create a new note it tags the email to the note. But this may not be exactly what you want.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#79

Post by thrashh »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #29
pydry wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>typical big-co reason a product gets little iteration. That they DGAF if they're not facing competition. IE6 was the same. Threaten them with loss of market share and they'll fix these things.

I think you have that backwards. It takes a strong stomach to claim Google isn't facing competition on Google Sheets and threatening their market share would cause them to start caring. The more likely scenario is they have given up on winning any market share as serious users refuse to switch from Excel and non serious users have pads of paper and pencil, leaving Google just a tiny slice of the pie between those two…

I don’t think competition in UX exists generally. Just look at all the products in any space out there (for example, Dell, Logitech, etc.) and how many of them would you say has a good consistent product design team?

Honestly from my experience, people just don’t care. Devs will just say it’s by design and it’s the users’ fault, product owners don’t use the product so much as develop it, and everyone else is just detached from what they’re making. In the end, no one really owns the product.

Re: Why Google's bookmark manager and Docs have purposefully bad UI

#80

Post by marcinzm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #61
zackbloom wrote: post #47

The person writing this is confusing their personal opinion for objective UX fact. It is commonly accepted that only highly organized users use features like tags. The vast majority of people simply don't. Rather than jumping to the conclusion that this is hostile it's possible Chrome and Docs just have a wider user-base than this particular author.

People will very much use organizing features if you provide them. Whether it's groups for icons, folders for files, labels for e-mails, tags and colors for documents, or drawers for socks - most people seem to recognize that being organized is a virtue , and will attempt it to the extent it is possible and convenient. Not giving features for self-organization is a choice .

Except Bookmarks and Docs have folders already so the question isn't "no organization" vs "organization" but "tags" vs "folders." This book for example cites data that the majority of users prefer hierarchical organization: https://books.google.com/books?id=EO91DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA137&lpg=...

Adding tags has a chance of causing user confusion, UI congestion and impact on existing tools (in the case of Google Drive) so it's not a free thing to do.

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