Kevin Fox on recent Google UX changes: from strange-to-me to just-plain-crazy

https://plus.google.com/117599103108596130864/posts/47yZLnxcnhv

by dannyr • 14 years ago

113 47 14 years ago

plus.google.com

pbz• 14 years ago

I got used to the new gmail thread display, although I agree that the old way was more suggestive, but the missing + in Chrome still bugs me.

rusua• 14 years ago

The new Gmail is worse than the last one. I have dropped a few feedback lines. A few examples:

- The decoupling of reply box and the email "cards". - The removal of colors in the names, which was very useful to guide yourself through the different actors in a email conversation.

Just to new a few. The new Gmail pretends to be better, but it just can't cut it off.

CharlieA2• 14 years ago

Search results not carrying over to Google News when you click the black header tab is something that drove me crazy for a good week until I trained myself to use the left-side menu for switching between result types.

It doesn't make sense, particularly when "News" is the ONLY tab which doesn't carry the search terms over. Try it with Images, YouTube and Maps; wonderful. I wouldn't necessarily expect convention to follow with Gmail or Documents, sure, but NEWS? Come on!

The missing + on Chrome made me think I had a screwy update.

guynamedloren2• 14 years ago

> The missing + on Chrome made me think I had a screwy update.

I thought the same. Now that I know it was intentional, it actually kind of bothers me. Seems like something is missing. Fortunately, shortcuts mean I almost never have to look up there :)

aevodor• 14 years ago

News is the only property in the list (with Google+) that has a useful homepage and no link back to the homepage from its search result pages (see https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=hello+world), which means it would very frustrating to carry queries for users who click this navigation links to go to Google News homepage. For all other products, either the homepage is useless (Images, Videos) or there's a link to the product homepage at the top of the page (in Maps, you remove results / go to Maps homepage via the maps' top-right menu).

NB: few months ago, results were carried for Docs, Gmail and Calendar. So I assume they measured the % of users who landed on the search results page for each products and directly clicked the Google logo to go the product homepage (as they expected). In the end, Google preferred to satisfy the X million users who didn't expect product A to show results for their previous query to the Y million others who did. Now, would you favor 5 very angry users or 1 million lightly confused users?

guynamedloren2• 14 years ago

I'm most confused about Google's decision to remove the links from the logos. This is a convention engrained in the interwebs and I can't come up with a single reason why they would change it. Sure maybe inexperienced users wouldn't know the functionality exists, but when has that ever been a reason to remove a feature?

I think there was a HN discussion about this recently, but I missed it. Anybody know why they made this decision?

citricsquid2• 14 years ago

This is my own personal assumption, but I think it is to push focus towards the navigation bar and encourage users to look around. If you instinctively click the logo and nothing happens you start looking around and will discover the other things listed (such as the google+ button).

CharlieA2• 14 years ago

Purely speculation, but it seems like the only reason they'd do this is to free up the space for a future use case? While it will probably annoy/stump a few people for a second or two, ultimately people will just learn not to click on the logo.

At that point, the Google logo could become... err... well they tried to turn it into an all-google-properties dropdown previously, so who knows, maybe they'll try again later?

RollAHardSix• 14 years ago

"While it will probably annoy/stump a few people for a second or two, ultimately people will just learn not to click on the logo."

No trust me, you will try and click it everyday. My former college had, and still has, a link-less logo; that didn't stop anyone from trying to click it. It was actually a routine point of conversation in the beginning web classes about just how bad of a design flaw that was because the rest of the web adds a hyperlink to logo's.

If you have a company-esque logo, it should always, always, always take you to either the landing page; or your personal account page if in a logged-in state; depending on your personal needs.

0xABADC0DA• 14 years ago

I believe this is one step in transitioning away from 'pages' to something more like apps, where they load and you interact with them through UI and state instead of links. They've already made it basically a requirement to have JavaScript enabled on their sites (for instance Google + is just a blank page without JS), and if you read the Dart leaked memo they seem deathly afraid of smartphone/tablet apps.

Seems believable to me anyway... for instance I read mail almost entirely on my phone now and never log into the gmail.com. Since I'm not using their mail app I never see their ads.

cdcox• 14 years ago

I can think of three okay reasons:

1. They are planning to get rid of it. Google has way too many non-removable elements as is, even using so called compact mode. Right now they have two or three bars that could be smashed together with a few modifications. This is doubly true if they get rid of a giant useless logo that stalks you throughout your pages.

2. People were clicking it by accident. As a heavy net user, I don't feel this, but perhaps older or tablet users (but then why not fix it for them) were clicking it and pulling themselves out of Gmail. I could see this being extremely frustrating for a user trying to click the mail or search button.

3. They wanted to shift the functionality to the black bar. This is sort of a combination of the above two. The Google logo is pretty ambiguous. When I click it do I want to reload the page? Do I want to go to the Google homepage? Do I want iGoogle (why did they ruin Reader temporarily but not fix the mess that is iGoogle)? Do I want to search with the bar next to the logo? This is compounded by the fact that it has a context based search bar next to it. I know what that bar does but the context search UI is pretty ambiguous for a first time user.

citricsquid2• 14 years ago

> First up is the 'new tab' chicklet in the Chrome tab bar. Somewhere around Chrome 16 the '+' disappeared from it, leaving a little ghost of a button that, to my mind, wouldn't be recognized for what it was by a user who hadn't already formed their mental model on earlier versions of Chrome.

I'd noticed this and it was very irritating! I assumed it was a bug and for whatever reason the image was missing, not that they had intentionally removed it. That's nonsensical to me, without the + being there it indicates... nothing. His point is exactly right.

foobarbazetc• 14 years ago

I also thought this was a bug, and that my Mac was having trouble loading the resource for the +.

WTF. :)

GvS• 14 years ago

I thought it was some kind of problem with my custom skin, so I removed it. It didn't help so I reinstalled Chrome and after that googled for some time to find fix for it.

mattmanser• 14 years ago

The weird thing for me was without the + the clickable area seemed much smaller and I felt it was fiddly.

But I happened to have my laptop and desktop open when the change happened and it's exactly the same size.

australis• 14 years ago

The clickable area may seem smaller, but the hit box for the button is actually larger than the graphic for the button (presumably to avoid the fiddly issue you were highlighting)

ianox2• 14 years ago

The lack of the '+' was annoying to me at first. I don't seem to miss it anymore though, but then I do use the keyboard a lot for opening up new tabs.

untog2• 14 years ago

We all know Chrome very well, though. If you launched it for the first time it's very unclear what that button does- and given that the only thing it does do is open a tab, why remove the +?

dhx2• 14 years ago

The + would have been removed from the Chrome UI because it reduces Google's claim to the "+" mark in their Google+ branding. Google wants people to think "Google+" when they see a button with a + on it (not "create new tab").

dhx2• 14 years ago

Relevant bug report/feedback, code review and commit references (that don't make any mention of why the change was made):

[1] https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=98264

[2] https://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=rev&revision...

[3] http://codereview.chromium.org/8271006

vasco• 14 years ago

I think of addition and I don't see that changing any time soon.

romland• 14 years ago

I don't see why that would stop them for trying. For instance, search and Google are interchangeable in many discussions. ;)

The above is a bit tongue in cheek. That said, I see where grandparent is coming from. Chrome is Google's web-browser, and these Google+ icons are very often near the top of your browser. I can see how they could come to the conclusion that this could save some confusion. Say, friend calls to help and says "Click the plus sign at the top of your browser"...

Now, I don't think it's a good (or bad) decision. But the fact that I cannot click the logotypes is annoying me to no end.

adaml_623• 14 years ago

Has anyone else been confused by the fact that in gmail when you are viewing an email there are two buttons with arrows pointing up and to the left. One takes you back to the inbox and the other replies to the email. One is curvy the other has a right angle. One is on the left and one is on the right. Neither have labels. Can I go back to the old design now please.

shingen• 14 years ago

He's spot on. The removal of the plus to create a new tab in Chrome is bad design, period.

I hadn't noticed the lack of the logo link until someone else pointed it out. Why would anyone reduce ease of navigation, particularly from an object that is going to be there anyway?

I use Gmail as my main email application, and have since they first launched it. They've started to annoy me with the interface changes. I think they've lost some of the intuitive simplicity that made Gmail great. It feels about 10% like Yahoo's extraordinarily horrific web email, and that's a big step down.

kibwen• 14 years ago

After the full roll-out of Gmail's new UI, which was seemingly obligatory, my UI reverted to the old interface within a week. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I opted-in to the new UI when it was still in beta, and then opted out after quickly becoming dissatisfied with it (I just really can't get over how laggy the mouseover animations are).

In any case, I've noticed that my Gmail querystring looks like this:

  ?ui=2&shva=1

Perhaps adding the ui=2 parameter to your own querystring will cause it to revert to the old interface?

lurker172• 14 years ago

Doesn't work for me :-(

preavy• 14 years ago

I was more annoyed by the little head to the left of the tabs in Chrome which indicates the current profile. I don't use profiles. But I've just discovered that the head goes away if you delete the sample profiles that they created when they added the feature. Duh.

jrockway• 14 years ago

I've been using the logo-without-link UI for about two months, and I no longer even think about clicking the logo. It no longer registers as something that would make sense to do.

The designs of the individual applications provide stronger action buttons than a generic "reset" button would. This encourages users to be more efficient; instead of "returning home" after reading an email, you'll click "Archive" and have less clutter in your inbox. Similarly, Google+ provides many choices for what to do next. Maybe you want to look at your circles or photos instead of your stream. The new UI makes them all equally easy.

I feel like people use the logo as a "I'm bored, show me new stuff" button, but that is pointless because the Google apps automatically update as new stuff becomes available for you. Save yourself a useless click.

I wouldn't have made this change, but it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

(As for the + going missing in Chrome... I can't even begin to explain that one.)

twelvechairs• 14 years ago

Its not just Google - most 'UI/UX experts' are actually really poor. Look at the mobile phone world for instance - it wasn't until the iphone that most people realised that every major company had overlooked the possibilities....

Company owners need not just to employ 'experts' but actually take an interest in these things themselves, which is rare. Otherwise you tend to end up with these kind of highly qualified fools.

I miss Google's early (engineer-led) minimalism...

johnx123-up• 14 years ago

Currently there's no quick link to switch to Google Groups from homepage. I don't know if they're willing to kill Usenet and Groups for G+

rralian• 14 years ago

Honestly, google's UI for many things is just awful. I recently had to help an aunt who was trying to import contacts from her old gmail account into her new gmail account. It's a simple enough task if you're on our side of the digital divide, but it's impossible for anyone who isn't "good with computers." Of course the documentation for doing this was woefully out of date and unhelpful, so I couldn't just point her to that. Even the simple step of signing out of your gmail account is totally hidden and only available when you just try clicking on things (wich "we" do, but "they" don't). To get to your contacts you click on the red word "Gmail" (obvious, huh?), and then you have to click on "more", and then "export" (export what?). Absolutely none of this would be obvious to a non-savvy user. At the least they could provide up-to-date documentation or a more useful "help" feature. Gmail is great for me as a savvy user who employs all of the keyboard shortcuts, ala vim. But I can't blame the older generation for just giving up whenever they need to do anything slightly out of the ordinary, because we're just not designing/developing products that are usable to them.

iqster• 14 years ago

What I find really shocking is how the UX of the main google search page has deteriorated for me. It gives me all sorts of crap that doesn't make any sense ... and I don't even know how to complain since all the content is personalized to me (e.g. photographs). Google's search page used to be an Internet treasure ... for me, it is now another example of how the quest for revenue growth destroys beautiful products.

defen• 14 years ago

Not just confusing...also buggy. I would say that about 1% of the time Google Instant just totally fails for me - I type a word or phrase and hit enter, and I just get an empty white box where the search results should be. To fix it I have to manually click the blue search icon.

ChrisNorstrom• 14 years ago

"You will like it! You will get used to it! I know what's best!" The designers will scream to their users.

This may be, just the beginning.

It's not just the "+" missing from the new tab button or the logo issue, it's a LOT of things. Gmail's new "blank sheet of paper" look. The annoying notifications of Google+ that follow you around. I just logged into analytics yesterday and saw the new redesign and I just... my jaw literally dropped. Who the Hell did this?! Is this is a joke? A bad dream? What did we do? Who at Google did we piss off to deserve this? More importantly what's going on in the world of design? Everywhere I look I see designs that look like the crap I used to turn out.

For a moment I even ventured to think that maybe that radioactive water from Japan finally hit the west coast in full force.

Google's new redesign combined with Kotaku, Gawker, and TechCrunch's new redesign, Ubuntu's Unity and Gnome's, and the new Yahoo mail is making 2011 + 2012 the beginning of an era of atrocious UI. Even Microsoft is joining in, by removing the start button. Maybe the designer shortage last year caused companies to hire up a lot of beginner designers.

More likely this is all because Steve Jobs passed away and now every designer in town is trying to take his place. The king of UX has died, the throne is up for grabs, and everyone's eyeing it. Desperately trying to mimic Steve's "forcefully creative" attitude and ignoring all logic and design laws, these new designers are hell bent on overly simplifying and minimizing every interface until there's nothing left. Desperate for fame and glory the designers will infiltrate every company they can find that's hiring. "You will like it! You will get used to it! I know what's best!" The designers will scream to their users.

I bet you it will get worse.

schraeds• 14 years ago

A more likely scenario: Now everyone realizes they need to take UX seriously but lack the talent, resources, and/or taste to pull it off.

untog2• 14 years ago

I just logged into analytics yesterday and saw the new redesign and I just... my jaw literally dropped. Who the Hell did this?!

I'm not just being contrarian when I say this: I like the new Analytics design. I also happen to like the new Gmail design.

I guess what I'm saying is that not everyone hates these changes- I don't need a designer to scream at me to convince me so.

GnomeChomsky• 14 years ago

My two biggest annoyances with Gmail:

One of my accounts has this bar at the top reminding me that a couple accounts are linked. It says this notice will remain for a few days, then disappear... it's been there now for 3 or 4 months.

Secondly, Gmail auto-trims signatures. This is annoying by itself, because I don't think Google should get to decide, by fiat, that signatures are passe. Worse, the trimming often trims much more than intended -- sometimes whole messages. It's totally unprofessional when e-mails to clients & partners go out sans signature, closing, and the bottom half of my e-mail.

Naturally, getting a hold of Google for help with this is a laughable Sisyphean endeavor.

kfury• 14 years ago

I agree. The auto-trimming of the signature is another good example of going to far. Gmail used to elide repeated content, and would grey the signature. Eliding it behind a click changes the emotional tone of the messages that people send to you, and that's a step further than a UX should take.

brildum• 14 years ago

The last few days, gmail has been a pain for me to use specifically because I can no longer click on the logo to return to my inbox after viewing an email thread. Navigating my mouse to the "Inbox" link in the nav menu is difficult because I have to actively distinguish "Inbox" between all the other categories that look similar, whereas I can click on the logo without thinking.

benaston• 14 years ago

Agree wholeheartedly with this post. Thing is; I have never come across a so-called user experience expert that had a single particularly insightful thing to say about a user interface.

Indeed, my experience has been that I get more insight from "lay" people than these guys.

I can't even be bothered to count the number of different items on the Google menu. Actually I just have... it's 17 items (for me), plus an "even more" item. I'd love to see the analytics for that one!

Now, you might forgive them because, well, if you have lots of products then you need a way to navigate to them... EXCEPT the millions they spend every year on making menu-based navigation completely redundant by their world-beating search.

If I want Google Maps, I will either type "maps" into Chrome's address bar, which auto-completes it, OR (as most non technies will do, I hazard a guess) I will type something (e.g "maps") directly into Google.

The unfortunate thing is that this is not just Google. It 99.9% of websites I have ever visited. OK, so most small companies do not have the resources for a dedicated UX person, but the only big-company website I can think of with a sane UX is Apple. Is it really all that hard? Actually I suspect it is - it's Conway's Law in full effect.

danabramov• 14 years ago

I like the plus label removed.

For someone who never ever used a tabbed browser, “+” doesn't mean “new tab”. It doesn't even mean ”add a thing“. It means “sum”.

Web browser is the most basic application to use this icon.

The icon just doesn't help because user has no prior knowledge of the metaphor anyway.

lurker172• 14 years ago

Kevin Fox on recent Google UX changes: from strange-to-me to just-plain-crazy

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