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Google making meaningless changes in the direction of minimalism like always. I find the google search of today no more usable or intuitive than that of 10 year

Google making meaningless changes in the direction of minimalism like always. I find the google search of today no more usable or intuitive than that of 10 years ago. Minimalism is such a plague. It assumes people can't deal with the mildest hint of non-mission-critical information on the screen, which is false, or at least it used to be; if it catches on too much people's minds might get so rotted that they get confused navigating a web page with more than two buttons. Arguments about "visual noise" are such bumpkis. We've been good at dealing with visual noise forever, before computers, before civilization.

dfxm12 13y ago
I find the google search of today no more usable or intuitive than that of 10 years ago. Do you find it any less usable, though? We've been good at dealing with visual noise forever, before computers, before civilization. Then we should be good at dealing with Google results without underlines too, right?
- jimmaswell 13y ago
  Its usability has gone down a bit. http://teacheralanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2004.jpg http://teacheralanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2004.j... Now some of those links are hidden behind that vague square button thing at the top-right. It took me a while at first to figure out that's supposed to be like a phone's app screen and thus that's where you find the rest of the apps. It was better as a text link that said "More applications" or something. The current square thing doesn't even invite me to try clicking on it; it looks nothing like a button. The lack of underlines doesn't really impact the usability at all except that it's an unneeded change that some are going to find jarring. Looking at google results myself now, it feels "off". That's a lot more "distracting" than the presence of admittedly not really necessary underlines. But change for its own sake, especially in UI, does more harm than good often.

dfxm12 13y ago

I find the google search of today no more usable or intuitive than that of 10 years ago. Do you find it any less usable, though? We've been good at dealing with visual noise forever, before computers, before civilization. Then we should be good at dealing with Google results without underlines too, right?

jimmaswell 13y ago
Its usability has gone down a bit. http://teacheralanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2004.jpg http://teacheralanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2004.j... Now some of those links are hidden behind that vague square button thing at the top-right. It took me a while at first to figure out that's supposed to be like a phone's app screen and thus that's where you find the rest of the apps. It was better as a text link that said "More applications" or something. The current square thing doesn't even invite me to try clicking on it; it looks nothing like a button. The lack of underlines doesn't really impact the usability at all except that it's an unneeded change that some are going to find jarring. Looking at google results myself now, it feels "off". That's a lot more "distracting" than the presence of admittedly not really necessary underlines. But change for its own sake, especially in UI, does more harm than good often.