Believe it or not, a lot of people are unhappy with the new design. This is fairly commonplace for redesigns in general, but users of Google products would probably do well to get used to it, if they’re not already, because I have a feeling we’ll be seeing plenty more Google+-related design changes for various products in the near future.
Google has committed to Google+. This isn’t Google Wave or Google Buzz. I think I can say with confidence that Google+ will not be gone next year. It’s changes like this Google Reader design and integration into other Google products that shows that Google+ is really just an extension of the Google account in general. It’s about the Google profile and the relationships that are connected to that (see things like Circle counts appearing in search results), and of course it’s about your identity.
So, taking it as Google being in it for the long haul with Google+, it’s understandable that Google+ get heavy integration with the social network. That said, there are plenty of justified complaints as well, and there is probably no better example of this than those from someone who actually used to work on the product.
Brian Shih, a former product manager for Google Reader, who left Google in July, wrote a rather scathing post about the redesign. He calls it a “disaster,” and says:
In the name of visual consistency, Google has updated the visual style to match Gmail, Calendar and Docs. I have nothing against visual consistency (and in fact, this something that Google should be doing), but it’s as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something.
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Reader is a product built to consume information, quickly. We designed it to be very good at that one thing. G+ is an experience built around browsing (similar to Facebook) and socializing. Taking the UI paradigm for G+ and mashing it onto Reader without any apparent regard for the underlying function is awful and it shows.
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Reader is a product built to consume information, quickly. We designed it to be very good at that one thing. G+ is an experience built around browsing (similar to Facebook) and socializing. Taking the UI paradigm for G+ and mashing it onto Reader without any apparent regard for the underlying function is awful and it shows.
He also criticizes the color scheme and the new sharing functionality, saying that it’s harder to share now.
In my opinion, sharing is still pretty easy. If you don’t want to share to Google+ (which is the easiest way to share, there are options for email and other social networks right next to it. Just go to “send to” from any post.
Still, Shih makes a great point about consuming information. To be honest, I can’t really put my finger on what it is about the design that makes it harder to do this, but it is harder – particularly when you’re browsing through feeds in list view. I think it might be a combination of the font and spacing. Whatever it is, I don’t see it as an improvement. Again, that’s just my opinion, but the redesign has been met with quite a bit of backlash.
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2 megjegyzés:
I have been pleased with the design changes made to google products lately. However Google Reader is an exception, it has become very difficult to use and it seems that I will never get used to it.
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