4 ms·

I'm not one who hates on new things just because they're change, but I hate this already. Windows 95 brought us the Start Menu. This is a Google Start Menu. It

I'm not one who hates on new things just because they're change, but I hate this already. Windows 95 brought us the Start Menu. This is a Google Start Menu. It's based on hierarchical menus that are fiddly to navigate, especially if any terms are long and you have to stay in a narrow row to not have it undo your last movement. You have to move to the top, select something, move down, then if there's a sub-menu, move right. Why not make it e.g. a 3x3 grid so I have to move less with fewer errors and the blocks can be bigger, and you can add more default icons without it scrolling halfway down the screen? Besides, everyone knows clicking the logo takes you to the root page. Why are Google retraining all future users to expect an X-bar on our websites? Now, they can't trust what will happen when clicking that. It could be a menu, it could take you off the page, what will it do? And it still chooses the dumbest things as my defaults. Youtube? I've never, ever clicked on Youtube from there. Ever. Why show it to me? Give me Calendar, which is now on the sub-menu. Don't show me Search because I've never clicked on that, I just hit ctrl-t and type a phrase in a new window. [edit] and Reader is hidden but + is everywhere? Someone isn't measuring clicks, I'm thinking. Win95, I blame you. [edit2] at least let me drag and drop stuff like I could in 1995, so I can rearrange the defaults.

leak 15y ago
I'm with you on every point. I'll even go as far as to say that they don't want you to use the menu. I'm just throwing this out there, but I think they want people to stay on the search screen. They want you to search for everything to get to something. Reader? Search for Reader. Gmail? Search for Gmail. If you use search more, they have more opportunity to make money from ads. I'm not sure how much they care about any other product so this could be why every other product is now harder to get to.
- wahnfrieden 15y ago
  It's not a terrible idea. How many of us use Alfred or Quicksilver or the like?
  - leak 15y ago
    Exactly
leak 15y ago
I'm with you on every point. I'll even go as far as to say that they don't want you to use the menu. I'm just throwing this out there, but I think they want people to stay on the search screen. They want you to search for everything to get to something. Reader? Search for Reader. Gmail? Search for Gmail. If you use search more, they have more opportunity to make money from ads. I'm not sure how much they care about any other product so this could be why every other product is now harder to get to.
lloeki 15y ago
> Besides, everyone knows clicking the logo takes you to the root page You might not need to click, maybe it's a hover, so clicking still works. Admittedly, having the hover might reduce the clicking discoverability since it actually makes it less obvious. I suppose it's a mockup but it shows Mail in the list when the current web app is actually Mail. Maybe the items will dynamically change order according to your habits. You know, like those Word 97 menus. Contrary to the Start button it fails to use an infinite size target since you can't ram the mouse in the top-left corner and expect it to work. That Google logo is quite a big target and each item is actually bigger than previously so it might still be an improvement according to Fitts's law compared to the previous bar, but navigating down a nested popup menu sure is no improvement. PS: originally the Windows taskbar failed at Fitts's law by having some inactive 2px padding which prevented a click to actually land after ramming the mouse. I can't recall when that was fixed.
bh42222 15y ago
And it still chooses the dumbest things as my defaults. Youtube? I've never, ever clicked on Youtube from there. Ever. But I bet most people who visit do exactly that. A long time ago Google was all about people like us, but this has not been true for a while.
- shazow 15y ago
  But today we live in the age of personalization; I think we can do better.
  - libraryatnight 15y ago
    I'd love it if more UIs were as customizable as in games. Specifically MMOs/WoW. I haven't played in a good many years, but one thing I loved in that game was customizing the pulp out of the UI. I assume that's asking a bit much, though.
    - arvinjoar 15y ago
      Most of the modifications you can do to your WoW UI is done through addons. With user-scripts/extensions you could probably modify your Google UI as much as you'd like.

leak 15y ago

I'm with you on every point. I'll even go as far as to say that they don't want you to use the menu. I'm just throwing this out there, but I think they want people to stay on the search screen. They want you to search for everything to get to something. Reader? Search for Reader. Gmail? Search for Gmail. If you use search more, they have more opportunity to make money from ads. I'm not sure how much they care about any other product so this could be why every other product is now harder to get to.

wahnfrieden 15y ago
It's not a terrible idea. How many of us use Alfred or Quicksilver or the like?
- leak 15y ago
  Exactly

leak 15y ago

lloeki 15y ago

> Besides, everyone knows clicking the logo takes you to the root page You might not need to click, maybe it's a hover, so clicking still works. Admittedly, having the hover might reduce the clicking discoverability since it actually makes it less obvious. I suppose it's a mockup but it shows Mail in the list when the current web app is actually Mail. Maybe the items will dynamically change order according to your habits. You know, like those Word 97 menus. Contrary to the Start button it fails to use an infinite size target since you can't ram the mouse in the top-left corner and expect it to work. That Google logo is quite a big target and each item is actually bigger than previously so it might still be an improvement according to Fitts's law compared to the previous bar, but navigating down a nested popup menu sure is no improvement. PS: originally the Windows taskbar failed at Fitts's law by having some inactive 2px padding which prevented a click to actually land after ramming the mouse. I can't recall when that was fixed.

bh42222 15y ago

And it still chooses the dumbest things as my defaults. Youtube? I've never, ever clicked on Youtube from there. Ever. But I bet most people who visit do exactly that. A long time ago Google was all about people like us, but this has not been true for a while.

shazow 15y ago
But today we live in the age of personalization; I think we can do better.
- libraryatnight 15y ago
  I'd love it if more UIs were as customizable as in games. Specifically MMOs/WoW. I haven't played in a good many years, but one thing I loved in that game was customizing the pulp out of the UI. I assume that's asking a bit much, though.
  - arvinjoar 15y ago
    Most of the modifications you can do to your WoW UI is done through addons. With user-scripts/extensions you could probably modify your Google UI as much as you'd like.