5 ms·

This is ridiculous. With a company the size of Google, is it really that hard to simply make two totally different UIs, one optimized for mobile touchscreen de

This is ridiculous. With a company the size of Google, is it really that hard to simply make two totally different UIs, one optimized for mobile touchscreen devices and the other optimized for desktop PCs? Where did this utterly stupid idea come from that we need to have a single UI for everything? It's not like they even need to look all that different, but they do need to be tailored for the screen size and aspect ratio as well as the mode of interaction (mouse pointer+keyboard vs. touchscreen). This really shouldn't be that hard.

varjag 10y ago
G+ seems to be in its Google Reader phase now, when the behemoth infamously didn't have a couple guys to spare for the product coasting to obsolescence. It's quite possible there's not that many people working on it now.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  Its hard to dedicate people to less popular/profitable tasks when recruiting takes 6 months and expects post doc level of CS knowledge.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    This is an excellent point here; I should have thought of this myself since I even went through one of their ridiculous phone interviews. You don't need someone with post-doc CS expertise to do mundane, basic coding, and someone that advanced wouldn't want to work on the unpopular, "boring" tasks anyway.
tdkl 10y ago
From Matias Duarte, their head designer and inspired by shitshow called Metro by Microsoft.
- kagamine 10y ago
  Surprised to find out Google even employ a designer at all. They are still doing basic UX mistakes like this from the new G+ settings page: 1. Allow viewers to download my photos and videos shared on Google+ 2. Don't feature my publicly shared Google+ photos as background images on Google products and services Slider 1 is "on" for yes, slider 2 is "off" for yes. Just rephrase the second statement to a positive from a negative and both sliders will be "agree" to the left and "Disagree" to the right. Then expand one of the expander arrows in the Notifications section. The first line " Occasional updates about Google+ activity and friend suggestions" isn't a question at all, so I'm not sure if I'm agreeing or not. Most of the other statements start with "Show...", but this one is just a blank statement. No consistency at all. With Posts expanded, the top slider button looks like it will be an 'everything on' or everything off' button, but it isn't. So it seems to not have a relationship to the any of the expandable subcategories below it. The "People" expando/expander has only a single button, so no need to expand it all all, then. And so on. Google do interaction design like an engineer with an ego.
  - anon1385 10y ago
    I expect they tested the wording of those two questions to find the combination that gives them the most "engagement". Google interaction design is more scam artist than engineer.
  - tdkl 10y ago
    > Surprised to find out Google even employ a designer at all. Oh definitely and it seems they've taken over the wheel [1] and went into rage mode with Material design. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-how-larry-page-engineered-beautiful-revolution http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-ho...
jdp23 10y ago
Totally agree. One of G+'s advantages over FB when they launched was that it was better on a laptop screen. Not only haven't they built on that, they've regressed.

varjag 10y ago

G+ seems to be in its Google Reader phase now, when the behemoth infamously didn't have a couple guys to spare for the product coasting to obsolescence. It's quite possible there's not that many people working on it now.

rasz_pl 10y ago
Its hard to dedicate people to less popular/profitable tasks when recruiting takes 6 months and expects post doc level of CS knowledge.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  This is an excellent point here; I should have thought of this myself since I even went through one of their ridiculous phone interviews. You don't need someone with post-doc CS expertise to do mundane, basic coding, and someone that advanced wouldn't want to work on the unpopular, "boring" tasks anyway.

tdkl 10y ago

From Matias Duarte, their head designer and inspired by shitshow called Metro by Microsoft.

kagamine 10y ago
Surprised to find out Google even employ a designer at all. They are still doing basic UX mistakes like this from the new G+ settings page: 1. Allow viewers to download my photos and videos shared on Google+ 2. Don't feature my publicly shared Google+ photos as background images on Google products and services Slider 1 is "on" for yes, slider 2 is "off" for yes. Just rephrase the second statement to a positive from a negative and both sliders will be "agree" to the left and "Disagree" to the right. Then expand one of the expander arrows in the Notifications section. The first line " Occasional updates about Google+ activity and friend suggestions" isn't a question at all, so I'm not sure if I'm agreeing or not. Most of the other statements start with "Show...", but this one is just a blank statement. No consistency at all. With Posts expanded, the top slider button looks like it will be an 'everything on' or everything off' button, but it isn't. So it seems to not have a relationship to the any of the expandable subcategories below it. The "People" expando/expander has only a single button, so no need to expand it all all, then. And so on. Google do interaction design like an engineer with an ego.
- anon1385 10y ago
  I expect they tested the wording of those two questions to find the combination that gives them the most "engagement". Google interaction design is more scam artist than engineer.
- tdkl 10y ago
  > Surprised to find out Google even employ a designer at all. Oh definitely and it seems they've taken over the wheel [1] and went into rage mode with Material design. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-how-larry-page-engineered-beautiful-revolution http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-ho...

jdp23 10y ago

Totally agree. One of G+'s advantages over FB when they launched was that it was better on a laptop screen. Not only haven't they built on that, they've regressed.