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This is so much a problem. I get that Google is trying to be fuzzy to serve users that are not computer literate and may phrase their queries awkwardly, but by

by anyfoo 4y ago

This is so much a problem. I get that Google is trying to be fuzzy to serve users that are not computer literate and may phrase their queries awkwardly, but by now it seems that they have completely overshot that target. Google's search engine seems to assume that every user is 3 years old, and never interested in anything detailed, but instead trying to learn basic human tasks. This does not only not work when searching for very specific technical terms (that Google likes to replace/expand with superficially similar but completely irrelevant terms). I get that that's probably a minority of searches. But I think it's even worse for more common searches, since now the sphere of SEO spam that you will be inundated with in your results is drastically expanded, with additional spam that only matches because Google did not take your search terms more literally! And then "verbatim mode" takes way too many clicks to activate (every single time), and is mutually exclusive with setting time constraints (e.g. search results for "last month"). I understand why more and more of my queries auto-suggest "reddit" as the last term. By now, you rather have to hope that a human has asked a similar question on reddit, and that other humans happened to know the answer, instead of searching for yourself. It used to be the opposite.

wildrhythms 4y ago
YES EXACTLY and this transcends Google too, so many products need a "I know what I'm doing" switch for power users. I despise this mass infantilization of UIs happening right now. I develop web apps and work closely with UX and I'm always trying to push this particular envelope... unfortunately it's managers and "visionary" bosses who want one unified design seemingly made for a child.
- Jach 4y ago
  Every so often you'll see another story of a kid who did something bad with their parent's account linked to paying for things. The last one I saw was a 2 year old who got like 30 burgers delivered by using some app on his mom's phone. Literally a UX so intuitive children can use it just fine. Designing for or at least in mind of multiple personas can help; Microsoft used to design things with 3 in mind. But bosses can see anything extra as too much work, not worth it, and if not kill it outright at least deprioritize and delay it indefinitely to the same effect. Another trick is to sneak stuff in under FUD about ADA lawsuits; at the very least you can ship a nice set of keyboard shortcuts for power users to 'discover'.

by anyfoo 4y ago

wildrhythms 4y ago

YES EXACTLY and this transcends Google too, so many products need a "I know what I'm doing" switch for power users. I despise this mass infantilization of UIs happening right now. I develop web apps and work closely with UX and I'm always trying to push this particular envelope... unfortunately it's managers and "visionary" bosses who want one unified design seemingly made for a child.

Jach 4y ago
Every so often you'll see another story of a kid who did something bad with their parent's account linked to paying for things. The last one I saw was a 2 year old who got like 30 burgers delivered by using some app on his mom's phone. Literally a UX so intuitive children can use it just fine. Designing for or at least in mind of multiple personas can help; Microsoft used to design things with 3 in mind. But bosses can see anything extra as too much work, not worth it, and if not kill it outright at least deprioritize and delay it indefinitely to the same effect. Another trick is to sneak stuff in under FUD about ADA lawsuits; at the very least you can ship a nice set of keyboard shortcuts for power users to 'discover'.