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Prepare yourselves for even more whitespace and even larger typefaces. It's the Material Design Way. (Let's not forget the current Gmail had a big design updat

by berg01 8y ago

Prepare yourselves for even more whitespace and even larger typefaces. It's the Material Design Way. (Let's not forget the current Gmail had a big design update that added lots of whitespace a few years ago.) That update from a reader who witnessed a Googler dogfooding the new UI was interesting: '“It was a hybrid of Gmail and Inbox,” he told me. “The left-side column was more like inbox.google.com and the right side was an enlarged version of Gmail.' Let's just hope they don't repeat the Google News redesign; forcing the content column to be fixed width. I'm looking at the new Material Design Google News right on a 40" 4k screen, the column with actual news items is like 30% of the width of the screen: https://imgur.com/a/EQY8Q https://imgur.com/a/EQY8Q Edit: Eeek. I just tried inbox.google.com. It behaves pretty much like the new Google News in terms of layout. I think this is what we can expect.

addicted 8y ago
Google News has become unusable for me. It used to be great to find a variety of sources about a certain topic. But now it’s become really hard to browse beyond the 2-3 articles that are privileged. I guess it fits in with the Google Search motivations of becoming an answer engine, instead of a search engine by providing a single specific answer instead of a breadth of resources to explore on your own.
- baud147258 8y ago
  I totaly agree. I started to use bing news at the time. Even if they don't offer multiple sources for each story, they offer sources that are more diverse (ie, not just the biggest news provider).
colemannugent 8y ago
Yeah, my biggest fear is that they will take away the "compact" display settings in favor of something more design'y. The first thing I do on any new phone is make the text size as small as possible so I don't have to scroll so damn much.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  > Yeah, my biggest fear is that they will take away the "compact" display settings in favor of something more design'y. Reminds me how happy I should be to have a designer on my team who isn't obsessed with removing every nifty feature. He'll be replaced soon and the new designer seems to be great too: I know she's already tried to get a basic dev environment up and running which is something I really don't expect from the designer camp.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  These redesigns always scare me because the come with a loss of functionality I distinctly remember when Google Maps underwent Material Redesign. I traveled around Scotland for over a week pre materialization and Google Maps was a fantastic tool for navigation. Post materialization I went on a trip to Ireland and it was a train wreck. The scale was gone so your navigator was unable to give you helpful instructions like "the next turn is in 300 yards". Eventually they added it back, first only when zooming and later with an option to make it persist always. The old Google Maps had inertial compensation so if you lost a GPS lock briefly it would continue to update your travel along a route using your last recorded speed. This was useful when driving in the mountains or city. Now if you momentarily lose your GPS lock it just freezes your position on the route until it reacquires a lock. It's incredibly frustrating because there's no indicator so you have no idea when glancing at the screen driving down the street. I can't tell you how many turns I've missed because of this. The old Google Maps had some rejection logic so if you were following a route and GPS reported your position radically different from the last update it would be ignored. Now if you're driving through areas with sketchy GPS you jump around and Maps is constantly calculating a new route. They removed elevation data which complicates trip planning. It's not so much a problem with driving, though it can be. For hiking though it's a pain because you can't see how difficult the terrain is going to be.
  - mustacheemperor 8y ago
    I definitely can second the feeling that Google Maps has gotten "dumber" over time. My city has a major highway that runs over municipal streets and Maps always thinks I've somehow warped from the highway to the street when I drive over it, recalculating and telling me to take a left from the freeway. I'm going 60 and have been on the interstate for the last 20 minutes, how could I suddenly be on the a surface street? I don't understand how I should be comfortable with Google collecting vast amounts of data about my travel habits if it can't even make the experience marginally better with them. And the Maps webapp still doesn't have a compass. The most popular online map in 2018 can't show you magnetic north, which I guess is because you can't rotate the map at all. That feature was cut in some distant redesign.[0] [0]http://guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31194&p=199273 http://guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31194&p=199273
TremendousJudge 8y ago
i'm betting they remove the chat
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  That would reduce the number of chat options at Google, which seems out of character. I suspect they may introduce a brand new, convenient Gmail Chat or the like just unique to the Gmail client.
setquk 8y ago
This worry makes me glad I am with FastMail now. They seem to have the information density spot on.
- berg01 8y ago
  Maybe the modern-time Google geniuses will eventually launch "G Suite Pro", "with groundbreaking information density"? Of course for $5/user/month extra. Oh and they will also get an exclusive dark app skin to show that they are Pro Users, and not, like, casuals.
- balladeer 8y ago
  The reason I like mailbox.org is that they basically like to be the host and leave you to read your mail the way you want it even though they do have a web UI - Open-Xchange. Not my favourite, but I don't find it jarring whatever few time I've to use it. Otherwise it's just IMAP for me. Also, they have a very different take on 2FA. 2FA access is PIN+OTP and even though someone figures out PIN and OTP the OTP always changes and PIN is useless w/o it and one can access IMAP with the normal password.
jasonvorhe 8y ago
So, it's basically what I've been waiting for.
- berg01 8y ago
  Do you have an unusual eye condition?
tbrock 8y ago
Ooh I strongly dislike that effect on large monitors. It’s basically a waste where we distill the design down the lowest common denominator for 1024x768 screens (or whatever is current). Facebook does the same thing. I don’t know why companies prefer the fixed width design. The original timeline design was SO compelling with photos filling the entire width of the screen.
atom_arranger 8y ago
If it was wider the measure would not be optimal and it would look bad and be harder to read. If they increased the text size and image size to make up for it then the amount of items per page would go down. I don't see what they could do that would work very well on larger screens aside from adding more columns.

by berg01 8y ago

addicted 8y ago

Google News has become unusable for me. It used to be great to find a variety of sources about a certain topic. But now it’s become really hard to browse beyond the 2-3 articles that are privileged. I guess it fits in with the Google Search motivations of becoming an answer engine, instead of a search engine by providing a single specific answer instead of a breadth of resources to explore on your own.

baud147258 8y ago
I totaly agree. I started to use bing news at the time. Even if they don't offer multiple sources for each story, they offer sources that are more diverse (ie, not just the biggest news provider).

colemannugent 8y ago

Yeah, my biggest fear is that they will take away the "compact" display settings in favor of something more design'y. The first thing I do on any new phone is make the text size as small as possible so I don't have to scroll so damn much.

reitanqild 8y ago
> Yeah, my biggest fear is that they will take away the "compact" display settings in favor of something more design'y. Reminds me how happy I should be to have a designer on my team who isn't obsessed with removing every nifty feature. He'll be replaced soon and the new designer seems to be great too: I know she's already tried to get a basic dev environment up and running which is something I really don't expect from the designer camp.
cptskippy 8y ago
These redesigns always scare me because the come with a loss of functionality I distinctly remember when Google Maps underwent Material Redesign. I traveled around Scotland for over a week pre materialization and Google Maps was a fantastic tool for navigation. Post materialization I went on a trip to Ireland and it was a train wreck. The scale was gone so your navigator was unable to give you helpful instructions like "the next turn is in 300 yards". Eventually they added it back, first only when zooming and later with an option to make it persist always. The old Google Maps had inertial compensation so if you lost a GPS lock briefly it would continue to update your travel along a route using your last recorded speed. This was useful when driving in the mountains or city. Now if you momentarily lose your GPS lock it just freezes your position on the route until it reacquires a lock. It's incredibly frustrating because there's no indicator so you have no idea when glancing at the screen driving down the street. I can't tell you how many turns I've missed because of this. The old Google Maps had some rejection logic so if you were following a route and GPS reported your position radically different from the last update it would be ignored. Now if you're driving through areas with sketchy GPS you jump around and Maps is constantly calculating a new route. They removed elevation data which complicates trip planning. It's not so much a problem with driving, though it can be. For hiking though it's a pain because you can't see how difficult the terrain is going to be.
- mustacheemperor 8y ago
  I definitely can second the feeling that Google Maps has gotten "dumber" over time. My city has a major highway that runs over municipal streets and Maps always thinks I've somehow warped from the highway to the street when I drive over it, recalculating and telling me to take a left from the freeway. I'm going 60 and have been on the interstate for the last 20 minutes, how could I suddenly be on the a surface street? I don't understand how I should be comfortable with Google collecting vast amounts of data about my travel habits if it can't even make the experience marginally better with them. And the Maps webapp still doesn't have a compass. The most popular online map in 2018 can't show you magnetic north, which I guess is because you can't rotate the map at all. That feature was cut in some distant redesign.[0] [0]http://guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31194&p=199273 http://guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31194&p=199273

TremendousJudge 8y ago

i'm betting they remove the chat

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
That would reduce the number of chat options at Google, which seems out of character. I suspect they may introduce a brand new, convenient Gmail Chat or the like just unique to the Gmail client.

setquk 8y ago

This worry makes me glad I am with FastMail now. They seem to have the information density spot on.

berg01 8y ago
Maybe the modern-time Google geniuses will eventually launch "G Suite Pro", "with groundbreaking information density"? Of course for $5/user/month extra. Oh and they will also get an exclusive dark app skin to show that they are Pro Users, and not, like, casuals.
balladeer 8y ago
The reason I like mailbox.org is that they basically like to be the host and leave you to read your mail the way you want it even though they do have a web UI - Open-Xchange. Not my favourite, but I don't find it jarring whatever few time I've to use it. Otherwise it's just IMAP for me. Also, they have a very different take on 2FA. 2FA access is PIN+OTP and even though someone figures out PIN and OTP the OTP always changes and PIN is useless w/o it and one can access IMAP with the normal password.

jasonvorhe 8y ago

So, it's basically what I've been waiting for.

berg01 8y ago
Do you have an unusual eye condition?

tbrock 8y ago

Ooh I strongly dislike that effect on large monitors. It’s basically a waste where we distill the design down the lowest common denominator for 1024x768 screens (or whatever is current). Facebook does the same thing. I don’t know why companies prefer the fixed width design. The original timeline design was SO compelling with photos filling the entire width of the screen.

atom_arranger 8y ago

If it was wider the measure would not be optimal and it would look bad and be harder to read. If they increased the text size and image size to make up for it then the amount of items per page would go down. I don't see what they could do that would work very well on larger screens aside from adding more columns.