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There should be a publication archiving the superficially thoughtful, hate-filled tirades that occur in reaction to every change that happens to public facing t

There should be a publication archiving the superficially thoughtful, hate-filled tirades that occur in reaction to every change that happens to public facing things. Then, when we create something, we can look through the archives and see the volume of ire directed at what we've come to love, and draw a relaxed breath realizing you really can't please everyone.

2arrs2ells 15y ago
A Google search for "Facebook outrage" is enough for me to remember that lesson.
VMG 15y ago
Not only that, but there will always be more critics than people who like it. I enjoy the new design but don't have the urge to constantly rave about it.
airlocksoftware 15y ago
There's a certain class of people for whom any change to something they are familiar with is automatically negative. I imagine that in 20 years, they'll be the market for phones with a physical dialer.
- cousin_it 15y ago
  Haha, your argument is of a rare breed: it's self-negating. If the people belonging to your "certain class" automatically grow to enjoy what's familiar to them, then their first reaction to a new UI is the most unbiased information you're gonna get!
- JabavuAdams 15y ago
  The real problem is that it's a lot easier to dismiss criticism than to sift through it to figure out what's valid and what's not. Yeah, it's just "those people", because everything new is automatically better...
pbz 15y ago
While I understand where you're coming from, I feel his criticism is well founded. There is noticeably less contrast and delineation. It also does take more to discover the interface - you have to actually hover over buttons. While you could argue that one would learn the buttons in time, the delineation issue won't go away. There's a reason they put a thin line around posts in G+
- ricardobeat 15y ago
  The "delineation" is a non-issue to me. I think this short article on the use of whitespace gets to the point: http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/whitespace-113/ http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/whitespace-113/ The discoverability of the interface is always a trade-off. They probably have enough data to assume that users will in fact learn this interface from daily use. I preferred text too.
  - pbz 15y ago
    Delineation and white space are two related but different concepts. One is talking about some way of separating different parts of an interface, through lines or contrast (i.e. different colors). The other is talking about avoiding clutter, avoiding related items from stepping on each other. In a way, white space should be used for closely related elements, while delineation (there may be a better term for this) to allow you to separate larger items. If you look at the page you linked, the yellow/white contrast clearly delineates where the content column starts/ends.
    - ricardobeat 15y ago
      The end goal is to convey the separation - that is achieved by both. The whole point of the article is that whitespace can be a (more) effective separator. just noticed they haven't rolled out these changes to everyone, I still have an outline and text buttons: http://cl.ly/2X1r2G322r241K3M2Z0U http://cl.ly/2X1r2G322r241K3M2Z0U People should also note that the "classic" theme is still available. I like the "dense" version of the new theme, though I don't use the web interface much anymore.
dylangs1030 15y ago
I actually opened this article expecting to see well founded criticism of the new Gmail interface...what I was presented with, instead, was quasi-humorous distaste for the new design, which the author admits is partly due to "people not wanting to change". That said, I'm sure there is well founded criticism of the new GUI, and I'm not criticizing the author's style. I'm making a point that a lot of the "Facebook rage" we see going on in different platforms is more like pouting and humorous discontent. It blows over quickly when people adjust, and rarely impacts the true practicality of a service. For example, how many people (and this is an honest question) would sort their mail by subject and use the other features the author mentioned aren't supported in Gmail? Personally (and I can't justify it, it's entirely personal), I use Gmail, I love it, and I don't notice much of a difference. I also love to use Thunderbird, but not for a dislike of Gmail, but because it's right on my desktop. It's that simple. I feel that if something bigger were going on in the web, this wouldn't get as much blog attention.
Bud 15y ago
Superficially thoughtful? I grant you, that kind of stuff happens a lot, but in my opinion, that isn't what happened here. This guy makes a lot of solid points: -There IS a lot more wasted space in the new interface. Bad. -The new button designs ARE a lot less clear and DO take up more space. Bad. -The information density, crucially, is much lower, without any corresponding gains to make up for it. Bad.
- jphackworth 15y ago
  It would still be nice to be come back, say, a year later, and see if the UI concerns still hold up. There were a lot of solid complaints about the Facebook news feed right when it launched, too.
- ChrisCooper 15y ago
  Just playing the devil's advocate here, but would you not say Google's search homepage has a lot of "wasted space"? I don't think one can always make such a quick judgment about whether space is a bad thing or not.
  - Bud 15y ago
    I would not say that, no. Google's search homepage does not have a primary function that is similar in any way to Gmail's primary function. The Gmail homepage, of course, should be showing you as much data as possible; as many emails as possible with enough contextual data and UI to read/delete/sort them.
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    Google's search homepage isn't an information-dense medium. It's a fucking search dialog. It should be clear and simple. Now: the search results pages should be informationally dense. And for the most part are (though I'm finding recent changes to be net negative). Note that search engines which have gone in the direction of packing a shit-ton of distractions onto their homepages in a desperate move to chase "monitization" lose out -- look at Yahoo and Aol, virtually clones of one another at this point, as well as synonyms for Internet failure.
- 15y ago
ubernostrum 15y ago
Except this was neither hate-filled nor superficial. The toolbar buttons, for example are a great example of a major usability mistake: what we used to call "mystery meat navigation" back in the day, because it was difficult or even impossible to know in advance what would happen if you clicked a given button.
- stanleydrew 15y ago
  Incidentally this is exactly how I feel about every iPhone UI I've seen. A bunch of cute icons, but no clue as to how they will behave.
- floris 15y ago
  If anything the icons would make it more suitable for "heavy use" because once you get used to them they are an improvement to the old text, defeating the point of this superficial article even more.
  - stiff 15y ago
    It's not only that they have changed texts to icons, but also that the icons are really ugly, they do not communicate well the purpose of the buttons and that they are all grey blobs that are hardly distinguishable, I actually find it hard to get used to them for this reason. Also, as a general point, you can get used to almost anything interface-wise by using something for a very long time, but does this mean we should tolerate bad design?
  - ubernostrum 15y ago
    Except, you know, that goes against basic principles of usability. Forcing a user to stop and think about "what does this icon do" -- and yes, even your "heavy" users are going to run into this -- just to make something look pretty is basically always a bad idea.
  - JabavuAdams 15y ago
    > If anything the icons would make it more suitable No, this is incorrect. I'm a heavy user of Gmail, and I still can't find the damn new refresh button. How many weeks should it take for me to get used to this so-called "improvement". I preferred it when it was text. I just don't see the new spiral icon thingie as "refresh". Another way to look at it is if you make an improvement to something I don't care about, it's not an improvement. Especially, if it makes my job harder. You need to actually measure what users do, not generalize from unsupported assertions.

2arrs2ells 15y ago

A Google search for "Facebook outrage" is enough for me to remember that lesson.

VMG 15y ago

Not only that, but there will always be more critics than people who like it. I enjoy the new design but don't have the urge to constantly rave about it.

airlocksoftware 15y ago

There's a certain class of people for whom any change to something they are familiar with is automatically negative. I imagine that in 20 years, they'll be the market for phones with a physical dialer.

cousin_it 15y ago
Haha, your argument is of a rare breed: it's self-negating. If the people belonging to your "certain class" automatically grow to enjoy what's familiar to them, then their first reaction to a new UI is the most unbiased information you're gonna get!
JabavuAdams 15y ago
The real problem is that it's a lot easier to dismiss criticism than to sift through it to figure out what's valid and what's not. Yeah, it's just "those people", because everything new is automatically better...

pbz 15y ago

While I understand where you're coming from, I feel his criticism is well founded. There is noticeably less contrast and delineation. It also does take more to discover the interface - you have to actually hover over buttons. While you could argue that one would learn the buttons in time, the delineation issue won't go away. There's a reason they put a thin line around posts in G+

ricardobeat 15y ago
The "delineation" is a non-issue to me. I think this short article on the use of whitespace gets to the point: http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/whitespace-113/ http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/whitespace-113/ The discoverability of the interface is always a trade-off. They probably have enough data to assume that users will in fact learn this interface from daily use. I preferred text too.
- pbz 15y ago
  Delineation and white space are two related but different concepts. One is talking about some way of separating different parts of an interface, through lines or contrast (i.e. different colors). The other is talking about avoiding clutter, avoiding related items from stepping on each other. In a way, white space should be used for closely related elements, while delineation (there may be a better term for this) to allow you to separate larger items. If you look at the page you linked, the yellow/white contrast clearly delineates where the content column starts/ends.
  - ricardobeat 15y ago
    The end goal is to convey the separation - that is achieved by both. The whole point of the article is that whitespace can be a (more) effective separator. just noticed they haven't rolled out these changes to everyone, I still have an outline and text buttons: http://cl.ly/2X1r2G322r241K3M2Z0U http://cl.ly/2X1r2G322r241K3M2Z0U People should also note that the "classic" theme is still available. I like the "dense" version of the new theme, though I don't use the web interface much anymore.

dylangs1030 15y ago

I actually opened this article expecting to see well founded criticism of the new Gmail interface...what I was presented with, instead, was quasi-humorous distaste for the new design, which the author admits is partly due to "people not wanting to change". That said, I'm sure there is well founded criticism of the new GUI, and I'm not criticizing the author's style. I'm making a point that a lot of the "Facebook rage" we see going on in different platforms is more like pouting and humorous discontent. It blows over quickly when people adjust, and rarely impacts the true practicality of a service. For example, how many people (and this is an honest question) would sort their mail by subject and use the other features the author mentioned aren't supported in Gmail? Personally (and I can't justify it, it's entirely personal), I use Gmail, I love it, and I don't notice much of a difference. I also love to use Thunderbird, but not for a dislike of Gmail, but because it's right on my desktop. It's that simple. I feel that if something bigger were going on in the web, this wouldn't get as much blog attention.

Bud 15y ago

Superficially thoughtful? I grant you, that kind of stuff happens a lot, but in my opinion, that isn't what happened here. This guy makes a lot of solid points: -There IS a lot more wasted space in the new interface. Bad. -The new button designs ARE a lot less clear and DO take up more space. Bad. -The information density, crucially, is much lower, without any corresponding gains to make up for it. Bad.

jphackworth 15y ago
It would still be nice to be come back, say, a year later, and see if the UI concerns still hold up. There were a lot of solid complaints about the Facebook news feed right when it launched, too.
ChrisCooper 15y ago
Just playing the devil's advocate here, but would you not say Google's search homepage has a lot of "wasted space"? I don't think one can always make such a quick judgment about whether space is a bad thing or not.
- Bud 15y ago
  I would not say that, no. Google's search homepage does not have a primary function that is similar in any way to Gmail's primary function. The Gmail homepage, of course, should be showing you as much data as possible; as many emails as possible with enough contextual data and UI to read/delete/sort them.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  Google's search homepage isn't an information-dense medium. It's a fucking search dialog. It should be clear and simple. Now: the search results pages should be informationally dense. And for the most part are (though I'm finding recent changes to be net negative). Note that search engines which have gone in the direction of packing a shit-ton of distractions onto their homepages in a desperate move to chase "monitization" lose out -- look at Yahoo and Aol, virtually clones of one another at this point, as well as synonyms for Internet failure.
15y ago

ubernostrum 15y ago

Except this was neither hate-filled nor superficial. The toolbar buttons, for example are a great example of a major usability mistake: what we used to call "mystery meat navigation" back in the day, because it was difficult or even impossible to know in advance what would happen if you clicked a given button.

stanleydrew 15y ago
Incidentally this is exactly how I feel about every iPhone UI I've seen. A bunch of cute icons, but no clue as to how they will behave.
floris 15y ago
If anything the icons would make it more suitable for "heavy use" because once you get used to them they are an improvement to the old text, defeating the point of this superficial article even more.
- stiff 15y ago
  It's not only that they have changed texts to icons, but also that the icons are really ugly, they do not communicate well the purpose of the buttons and that they are all grey blobs that are hardly distinguishable, I actually find it hard to get used to them for this reason. Also, as a general point, you can get used to almost anything interface-wise by using something for a very long time, but does this mean we should tolerate bad design?
- ubernostrum 15y ago
  Except, you know, that goes against basic principles of usability. Forcing a user to stop and think about "what does this icon do" -- and yes, even your "heavy" users are going to run into this -- just to make something look pretty is basically always a bad idea.
- JabavuAdams 15y ago
  > If anything the icons would make it more suitable No, this is incorrect. I'm a heavy user of Gmail, and I still can't find the damn new refresh button. How many weeks should it take for me to get used to this so-called "improvement". I preferred it when it was text. I just don't see the new spiral icon thingie as "refresh". Another way to look at it is if you make an improvement to something I don't care about, it's not an improvement. Especially, if it makes my job harder. You need to actually measure what users do, not generalize from unsupported assertions.