3 ms·

> There was a time that Google cared deeply about UX Have we been using the same Google?

by buzzerbetrayed 5mo ago

frizlab 5mo ago
Some people seem to think they cared, at some point. I’m not one of them.
- ninjalanternshk 5mo ago
  If you had been a Yahoo user when Google launched, you’d understand.
HeavyStorm 5mo ago
We have. That's why the parent said _there was a time_, implying that this is no longer true.
dwedge 5mo ago
Their search homepage was supposed to be minimal. I was at a tech talk given by Google sometime around 2012 and they said that their ad service is not under any circumstances allowed to slow down the page load - if the ads don't return before the page is ready the pager is rendered without ads. Chrome had so many great ux choices originally, such as tabs all staying the same size when you were closing them so that you could close multiple easily and only resizing after a second or two (that stopped working around a year ago). Hell there are even rumours that Chrome is called Chrome because it was a polished UX. Their original products were so smooth compared to what was there before. Search compared to altavista, mail compared to Hotmail, both compared to Yahoo!. I really don't know where your perspective comes from. GCP?
- phatfish 5mo ago
  If i remember chrome:// used to have special meaning in Firefox (and probably well before that), and was used to tweak UI settings. I always assumed this was where Google took the name from.
  - rsynnott 5mo ago
    Chrome is a now-somewhat-archaic term for GUI (or specifically the actual elements of the GUI, not the concept), and Netscape/Mozilla did use the term a lot. Google claims that their browser is called Chrome because of an association with fast cars (presumably Google was keen to market it to extremely old people, chrome not having been a particularly big thing in cars for a very long time).
    - neilv 5mo ago
      > Google claims that their browser is called Chrome because of an association with fast cars FWIW, before Google Chrome, Firefox was originally Firebird (changed for name collision reasons), and Mozilla had broken off the rest of the Netscape-ish "communications suite" into Thunderbird, both arguably named after cars. Besides the use of chrome by Netscape/Mozilla that you mention, roughly around that time I heard it used by HCI people to refer flashy GUI design for cosmetics rather than function, and specifically to changes in a particular MacOS version. I wonder whether Netscape/Mozilla jokingly then used it as a term for the GUI toolkit "trim" around the browser page. Given that this was a transition to the important stuff being on the Web page, rather than your computer. And/or whether Google did.
      - pseudalopex 5mo ago
        > FWIW, before Google Chrome, Firefox was originally Firebird (changed for name collision reasons), and Mozilla had broken off the rest of the Netscape-ish "communications suite" into Thunderbird, both arguably named after cars. Mozilla named the web program Phoenix for rebirth. A company objected. Mozilla renamed it Firebird because phoenix was a fire bird. They named the mail program Thunderbird for similarity of Firebird.
        neilv 5mo ago
        Thanks, I forgot about Phoenix.
      - Findecanor 5mo ago
rsynnott 5mo ago
Admittedly, it's a while ago. But original gmail, say, really did put a huge amount of effort into it.
krupan 5mo ago
This comment and a few others here make me feel old and sad for the people too young to remember that time. Yes, Google was an enormous breath of fresh air when it came out. 1000% better UI and features than the competition. Search was incredible. Gmail was a revelation. The whole company culture was night and day compared to the stodgy old tech companies like IBM. Just mind blowingly awesome. And then maps?? How did they even do that? The tech world felt entirely fresh and new and hopeful.
- parineum 5mo ago
  They basically revolutionized the web with the JavaScript V8 engine in chrome. Before them, JavaScript performance was so bad you had to have a really light touch with it.
  - andrekandre 5mo ago
    > JavaScript performance was so bad you had to have a really light touch with it. yep, but slowly the web is going back to js == slow imo, so many sites are so heavy its insane...
  - PunchyHamster 5mo ago
    I miss those times. It allowed for sooo many shitty practices
  - krupan 5mo ago
    The time I'm talking about was a long time before V8 and Chrome even

> There was a time that Google cared deeply about UX Have we been using the same Google?

frizlab 5mo ago

Some people seem to think they cared, at some point. I’m not one of them.

ninjalanternshk 5mo ago
If you had been a Yahoo user when Google launched, you’d understand.

HeavyStorm 5mo ago

We have. That's why the parent said _there was a time_, implying that this is no longer true.

dwedge 5mo ago

Their search homepage was supposed to be minimal. I was at a tech talk given by Google sometime around 2012 and they said that their ad service is not under any circumstances allowed to slow down the page load - if the ads don't return before the page is ready the pager is rendered without ads. Chrome had so many great ux choices originally, such as tabs all staying the same size when you were closing them so that you could close multiple easily and only resizing after a second or two (that stopped working around a year ago). Hell there are even rumours that Chrome is called Chrome because it was a polished UX. Their original products were so smooth compared to what was there before. Search compared to altavista, mail compared to Hotmail, both compared to Yahoo!. I really don't know where your perspective comes from. GCP?

phatfish 5mo ago
If i remember chrome:// used to have special meaning in Firefox (and probably well before that), and was used to tweak UI settings. I always assumed this was where Google took the name from.
- rsynnott 5mo ago
  Chrome is a now-somewhat-archaic term for GUI (or specifically the actual elements of the GUI, not the concept), and Netscape/Mozilla did use the term a lot. Google claims that their browser is called Chrome because of an association with fast cars (presumably Google was keen to market it to extremely old people, chrome not having been a particularly big thing in cars for a very long time).
  - neilv 5mo ago
    > Google claims that their browser is called Chrome because of an association with fast cars FWIW, before Google Chrome, Firefox was originally Firebird (changed for name collision reasons), and Mozilla had broken off the rest of the Netscape-ish "communications suite" into Thunderbird, both arguably named after cars. Besides the use of chrome by Netscape/Mozilla that you mention, roughly around that time I heard it used by HCI people to refer flashy GUI design for cosmetics rather than function, and specifically to changes in a particular MacOS version. I wonder whether Netscape/Mozilla jokingly then used it as a term for the GUI toolkit "trim" around the browser page. Given that this was a transition to the important stuff being on the Web page, rather than your computer. And/or whether Google did.
    - pseudalopex 5mo ago
      > FWIW, before Google Chrome, Firefox was originally Firebird (changed for name collision reasons), and Mozilla had broken off the rest of the Netscape-ish "communications suite" into Thunderbird, both arguably named after cars. Mozilla named the web program Phoenix for rebirth. A company objected. Mozilla renamed it Firebird because phoenix was a fire bird. They named the mail program Thunderbird for similarity of Firebird.
      - neilv 5mo ago
        Thanks, I forgot about Phoenix.
    - Findecanor 5mo ago

rsynnott 5mo ago

Admittedly, it's a while ago. But original gmail, say, really did put a huge amount of effort into it.

krupan 5mo ago

This comment and a few others here make me feel old and sad for the people too young to remember that time. Yes, Google was an enormous breath of fresh air when it came out. 1000% better UI and features than the competition. Search was incredible. Gmail was a revelation. The whole company culture was night and day compared to the stodgy old tech companies like IBM. Just mind blowingly awesome. And then maps?? How did they even do that? The tech world felt entirely fresh and new and hopeful.

parineum 5mo ago
They basically revolutionized the web with the JavaScript V8 engine in chrome. Before them, JavaScript performance was so bad you had to have a really light touch with it.
- andrekandre 5mo ago
  > JavaScript performance was so bad you had to have a really light touch with it. yep, but slowly the web is going back to js == slow imo, so many sites are so heavy its insane...
- PunchyHamster 5mo ago
  I miss those times. It allowed for sooo many shitty practices
- krupan 5mo ago
  The time I'm talking about was a long time before V8 and Chrome even