6 ms·

I won't lie, I'm starting to become a google fanboy again thanks to the beautiful google material design experience. Hats off to the team behind this new calend

by d0m 12y ago

I won't lie, I'm starting to become a google fanboy again thanks to the beautiful google material design experience. Hats off to the team behind this new calendar app.

oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
It's interesting how, as Apple's design sensibility gets more and more questionable with the recent changes to iOS and OSX, google appears to be finally paying due respect to good design and really putting the work in. And it's paying off, big time.
- fidotron 12y ago
  In the sense that it's annoying a lot of Android users, it certainly is paying off. What the current Android leadership simply don't understand is that there were a lot of Android users that bought Android devices because they didn't like iOS, not because they couldn't afford it. iOS 7 caused a critical mass of my iPhone using network to want to switch to Android, and now with Lollipop the reverse is happening, since if people wanted the iOS experience they might as well get the real thing. Design fascism works when you're in a niche, but will never be mass market. Windows Phone is similarly lauded in design circles but mysteriously fails to sell, and this is why. The crowds praising all these "improvements" are the sort of people that actually thought Windows Mobile was not only tolerable, but a good idea. My gut is Google think this is the only way to get iOS users to switch, and they aren't too concerned about existing users, but the side effect of this is that all of the major smartphone OSs have reached the same level of out-of-touch ness that we had prior to the original iPhone coming along.
  - gtaylor 12y ago
    > My gut is Google think this is the only way to get iOS users to switch Huh? I've been an Android user since the days of the Moto Droid, and I really like the design direction they're taking. It's clean, it's not full of crappy, drastic gradients and obscene amounts of clutter. Some of the menus/lists are organized better now, which I greatly appreciate. The Music app is actually bearable now. The Gmail app is better than ever for my usage cases. The only thing that annoys me is the new Message app removing the ability to swipe convos off when you are "done" with them. But that's a small little annoyance to get all of the other goodies. I'm sure there are others that hate it, but it's not like everyone does. I'm more satisfied with my phone now than I've ever been.
  - tree_of_item 12y ago
    What exactly don't you like about the new design direction? You mentioned people wanting to switch because of Lollipop/material/"design facism", but I'm not sure why.
    - fidotron 12y ago
      Almost everything. The colours, the flatness, the overreliance on animation to reveal cues that have been hidden by removing too many of the useful aspects of colours and depth. Material design is a company led attempt to create a fad a la Metro. They'll keep trying for about 18 months before they create a new one where it's back to bevels again. Just don't expect any of the non-Google apps to follow it, in the same way that all previous efforts went wrong. Incidentally the number of U-turns by Google on this stuff is incredible. We were previously told explicitly not to attempt doing physical analogues of motion etc. as those didn't map to the app navigation model . . . but now that's exactly what they want. What really grates though is just how the developer experience for all this stuff seems to be going backwards.
  - davidcgl 12y ago
    > In the sense that it's annoying a lot of Android users, it certainly is paying off. Do you have any data to back this up? From what I can tell, a majority of Lollipop reviews trend positive. > there were a lot of Android users that bought Android devices because they didn't like iOS Again, is this your presumption or do you have any source to back this up? > iOS 7 caused a critical mass of my iPhone using network to want to switch to Android, and now with Lollipop the reverse is happening A critical mass of my Android using network welcome and love the refreshing new look. Does that prove anything though? No, because my network doesn't include ~1 billion other Android users [1]. Design is a pretty subjective field, and what appeals to you doesn't necessarily appeal to others. You never really know what the majority camp is without an extensive study. What really gets me is when people start projecting their opinions as facts. [1] http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/25/google-io-2014-by-the-numbers/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/25/google-io-2014-by-the-num...
- shakethemonkey 12y ago
  How can you say this. Have you even looked at Hangouts?
  - andybak 12y ago
    I'm not sure if the problem with Hangouts is UX per se. Can you be more specific so we can have a decent discussion on this?
    - shakethemonkey 12y ago
      Many complaints only some of which come to mind immediately. Presence/status -- can't set it. Will I annoy this other person if I send a message? In busy hangouts requires that I scrollback to new messages, having to remember the last message I read. Can't search. One pile of people, big mistake -- no opt-out of this. Can't segregate people into different attention classes. (Just because I have 1000 people in a g+ circle doesn't mean i want them all to be able to freely message me, or even see my status). These are all UX issues. [Android client. Never looked at the iOS client]
      - 72deluxe 12y ago
        Is it really true that you can't set your status/presence in it STILL? I only ask because I have been on Google Talk since Vic Gundotra announced the new Hangouts at Google IO 2013 with much fanfare, yet failed to mention that this basic feature was missing. It's so elementary in an IM application - even MSN Messenger had it! If this is still missing, it's stupid.
        koyote 12y ago
        I don't think it's 'missing', it's more like they opted out of having it. Hangouts is going towards integration with SMS and is supposed to work the same way (i.e. you send a message to someone regardless of their status). Whether this is a good thing or not, I don't know. But it sort of makes sense in a way. IM seems to be the only form of online messaging where you decide whether to message/call someone based on their status. If you call someone, you have no idea if they are available or not, same with SMS or email. I also often see the case where a user will perpetually set himself to 'Away' or 'Busy' as he 'never' wants to be messaged, defeating the whole purpose of a messaging service in the first place.
- eridius 12y ago
  > Apple's design sensibility gets more and more questionable What do you mean by this? With iOS 7, there was a big outcry, because they changed the aesthetics of the OS pretty significantly, but that was a one-time event (and also highly subjective). But this is the first time I've heard anyone imply that Apple is trending towards having worse design. If anything, with the removal of skeuomorphism, Apple's design is more consistent than ever. > google appears to be finally paying due respect to good design and really putting the work in. My impression upon watching the video was that it looks very much like a 3rd-party iOS app. I am glad to see Google putting effort into their design. Although I don't agree with all of their choices (for example, I think the "Schedule View" image really is kind of awful, because it adds a lot of visual clutter and inconsistency, making it harder to scan the information quickly).
  - EGreg 12y ago
    I'll come out and say it. With iOS 7, Apple took a step backward and started letting others lead. Microsoft debuted late in the game with an also-ran platform, and suddenly everyone had a flat boxy design. Meanwhile Apple had lost Steve Jobs and fired Scott Forstall, the two people who were pro skeumorphism and would have never allowed Apple to go down that path. A lot of people liked the skeumorphic designs. It made the technology feel polished, beautiful and natural. Not to mention textures work way better than transparent colors when you're watching, say, a video with a white background so you can't even see the controls. Oh and hey, try swiping up from the bottom in the Camera app - Whoops! And what's with the puke neon green for status bars during phonecalls that you can hardly read white text on? What's with the complete breakage of the browser UI with a subsequent "minimal-ui" apology all of which is then reverted back in iOS 8? For that matter, sending group messages in apps is still horribly broken since iOS 7. And iOS 8.1 was a disaster and was recalled quickly. Yeah, Apple's design changed, and not for the better.
    - eridius 12y ago
      > With iOS 7, Apple took a step backward and started letting others lead. What do you mean by that? iOS 7 saw the introduction of a new design, with new design language, created entirely by Apple rather than mimicking other companies. Superficially it may appear more similar to other companies because of the loss of skeuomorphism, but once you look past the fact that it's flatter than before, it's still quite distinct from Microsoft and Google and everyone else. So given all that, what does "letting others lead" mean? > suddenly everyone had a flat boxy design Apple's design is flatter than before, but it's not flat. If anything, the blur and parallax create an even deeper design than it was when it was skeuomorphic. Microsoft is definitely going with the very flat design. Google's new design language I haven't looked at very much, but I think it's safe to say it's relatively flat as well, though probably not as flat as Microsoft. > Meanwhile Apple had lost Steve Jobs and fired Scott Forstall, the two people who were pro skeumorphism and would have never allowed Apple to go down that path I find it rather distasteful to invoke the memory of Steve to try and make a point like this. Did you know Steve personally? I doubt it. Similarly, I doubt you can predict what he would have done. Steve was rather (in)famous for his ability to change his mind and do things he'd previously said would never happen. Without Forestall, I think it's quite possible that Jony could have convinced Steve to go with the new design. As for Forestall, yes, he would have never let this happen. But that's usually considered to be a point against Forestall, not a point for him. The Mac / iOS dev community, and the wider tech press, generally had the opinion that Apple kept going with skeuomorphism for much longer than they should have, and that it was Forestall's fault, and that the ousting of Forestall was a change for the good. So I find it quite odd to see you implying that Forestall's ousting was a bad move. > A lot of people liked the skeumorphic designs. Who are these people? Serious question here. Skeuomorphism is generally considered a good thing to have when introducing new interaction metaphors. It allows people to recognize the widget and instinctively know how to manipulate it. See a button? Push it. A slider? Slide it. Etc. But skeuomorphism is also considered to hold back design and be visually clunky and distracting once users have learned to feel natural with the interaction. This can be seen time and time again in the evolution of GUI platforms. Take for example Mac OS X. The original OS X was full of skeuomorphic touches, such as the very blobby shadowed buttons. And successive versions of OS X slowly kept reducing it, removing the visual distractions, removing the excess skeuomorphism. It was a slow evolution, but if you go back and look at screenshots of OS X 10.0, and try to imagine a new platform introducing that look today, it should be obvious that it would be widely ridiculed. The iPhone introduced a brand new interaction metaphor to the general population. Yes, the technology existed before, but almost exclusively stylus-based, mimicking desktop OS interaction, and only used by a fraction of the population. The iPhone was, almost everyone, their first experience with handheld touchscreen devices (and many of those hadn't used stylus-based devices either). Beyond the novelty of actually touching the screen, Apple also had to come up with new gesture-based interactions that they had to teach users. In this context, skeuomorphism is very useful. It makes it obvious to users what can be tapped or dragged or swiped. But as the years went by, and as every other smartphone manufacturer immediately started copying Apple, the skeuomorphism became a hindrance. People didn't need the visual affordance to tell what was a tappable button anymore, or to understand that the colored navigation bar at the top was a distinct UI element from the content below it. Skeuomorphism outlasted its utility, and thus, once the last holdout (Forestall) was gone, it was excised from the OS. You can certainly argue they went to far in some cases. For example, the navigation bar buttons lost their borders and just became text. Was that a mistake? Well, that's a highly subjective question. But from a usability perspective, it certainly seems like it wasn't, since everyone has already learned that content on the left and right edges of the navigation bar is tappable. > Not to mention textures work way better than transparent colors when you're watching, say, a video with a white background so you can't even see the controls. What are you talking about? The OS-provided video controls are displayed on top of a neutral grey background (with blur). This is easily readable no matter the video content. The only video player that comes to mind that might have this issue is the YouTube app, which uses custom controls (which has no relation to the OS design). > Oh and hey, try swiping up from the bottom in the Camera app - Whoops! Whoops? What whoops? It behaves exactly like I thought it would; the little arrow control shows up indicating that a second swipe will pull up Control Center. That's exactly what I expected to happen, since the Camera app hides the status bar. And in the Camera Roll it brings up Control Center with a single swipe, since the status bar is visible there. What are you seeing that elicited the "whoops"? > And what's with the puke neon green for status bars during phonecalls that you can hardly read white text on? I hope you aren't seeing "puke green", because if so you might need your eyes checked. As for reading text, that's fairly hyperbolic. White text isn't as readable as it is on a black background, but it's still quite readable. I just tried it out, and the text was just as readable on that green background as it is across most of the OS. Besides, what are you actually trying to read on it? The only text on it besides the status bar is "Touch to return to call". > What's with the complete breakage of the browser UI with a subsequent "minimal-ui" apology all of which is then reverted back in iOS 8? I have no idea what you're referring to here. Can you elaborate? > For that matter, sending group messages in apps is still horribly broken since iOS 7. I don't know what you're talking about here either. It works fine for me and everyone I know (and we use group messages a lot). > And iOS 8.1 was a disaster and was recalled quickly. What are you talking about? Perhaps you're referring to 8.0.1, which was replaced a day later by 8.0.2? The issue with 8.0.1 has not even the slightest shred of relation to design.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  It may be the case for some of the Google apps but the lack of coherent design in many many many of the Play Store apps leaves a lot to be desired, and almost tarnishes the platform a bit.
  - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
    This is a common problem that plagues every modern windowing environment. In my own experience, OSX suffers from this the least, but even there, inconsistencies between apps are pretty common.

by d0m 12y ago

I won't lie, I'm starting to become a google fanboy again thanks to the beautiful google material design experience. Hats off to the team behind this new calendar app.

oneeyedpigeon 12y ago

It's interesting how, as Apple's design sensibility gets more and more questionable with the recent changes to iOS and OSX, google appears to be finally paying due respect to good design and really putting the work in. And it's paying off, big time.

fidotron 12y ago
In the sense that it's annoying a lot of Android users, it certainly is paying off. What the current Android leadership simply don't understand is that there were a lot of Android users that bought Android devices because they didn't like iOS, not because they couldn't afford it. iOS 7 caused a critical mass of my iPhone using network to want to switch to Android, and now with Lollipop the reverse is happening, since if people wanted the iOS experience they might as well get the real thing. Design fascism works when you're in a niche, but will never be mass market. Windows Phone is similarly lauded in design circles but mysteriously fails to sell, and this is why. The crowds praising all these "improvements" are the sort of people that actually thought Windows Mobile was not only tolerable, but a good idea. My gut is Google think this is the only way to get iOS users to switch, and they aren't too concerned about existing users, but the side effect of this is that all of the major smartphone OSs have reached the same level of out-of-touch ness that we had prior to the original iPhone coming along.
- gtaylor 12y ago
  > My gut is Google think this is the only way to get iOS users to switch Huh? I've been an Android user since the days of the Moto Droid, and I really like the design direction they're taking. It's clean, it's not full of crappy, drastic gradients and obscene amounts of clutter. Some of the menus/lists are organized better now, which I greatly appreciate. The Music app is actually bearable now. The Gmail app is better than ever for my usage cases. The only thing that annoys me is the new Message app removing the ability to swipe convos off when you are "done" with them. But that's a small little annoyance to get all of the other goodies. I'm sure there are others that hate it, but it's not like everyone does. I'm more satisfied with my phone now than I've ever been.
- tree_of_item 12y ago
  What exactly don't you like about the new design direction? You mentioned people wanting to switch because of Lollipop/material/"design facism", but I'm not sure why.
  - fidotron 12y ago
    Almost everything. The colours, the flatness, the overreliance on animation to reveal cues that have been hidden by removing too many of the useful aspects of colours and depth. Material design is a company led attempt to create a fad a la Metro. They'll keep trying for about 18 months before they create a new one where it's back to bevels again. Just don't expect any of the non-Google apps to follow it, in the same way that all previous efforts went wrong. Incidentally the number of U-turns by Google on this stuff is incredible. We were previously told explicitly not to attempt doing physical analogues of motion etc. as those didn't map to the app navigation model . . . but now that's exactly what they want. What really grates though is just how the developer experience for all this stuff seems to be going backwards.
- davidcgl 12y ago
  > In the sense that it's annoying a lot of Android users, it certainly is paying off. Do you have any data to back this up? From what I can tell, a majority of Lollipop reviews trend positive. > there were a lot of Android users that bought Android devices because they didn't like iOS Again, is this your presumption or do you have any source to back this up? > iOS 7 caused a critical mass of my iPhone using network to want to switch to Android, and now with Lollipop the reverse is happening A critical mass of my Android using network welcome and love the refreshing new look. Does that prove anything though? No, because my network doesn't include ~1 billion other Android users [1]. Design is a pretty subjective field, and what appeals to you doesn't necessarily appeal to others. You never really know what the majority camp is without an extensive study. What really gets me is when people start projecting their opinions as facts. [1] http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/25/google-io-2014-by-the-numbers/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/25/google-io-2014-by-the-num...
shakethemonkey 12y ago
How can you say this. Have you even looked at Hangouts?
- andybak 12y ago
  I'm not sure if the problem with Hangouts is UX per se. Can you be more specific so we can have a decent discussion on this?
  - shakethemonkey 12y ago
    Many complaints only some of which come to mind immediately. Presence/status -- can't set it. Will I annoy this other person if I send a message? In busy hangouts requires that I scrollback to new messages, having to remember the last message I read. Can't search. One pile of people, big mistake -- no opt-out of this. Can't segregate people into different attention classes. (Just because I have 1000 people in a g+ circle doesn't mean i want them all to be able to freely message me, or even see my status). These are all UX issues. [Android client. Never looked at the iOS client]
    - 72deluxe 12y ago
      Is it really true that you can't set your status/presence in it STILL? I only ask because I have been on Google Talk since Vic Gundotra announced the new Hangouts at Google IO 2013 with much fanfare, yet failed to mention that this basic feature was missing. It's so elementary in an IM application - even MSN Messenger had it! If this is still missing, it's stupid.
      - koyote 12y ago
        I don't think it's 'missing', it's more like they opted out of having it. Hangouts is going towards integration with SMS and is supposed to work the same way (i.e. you send a message to someone regardless of their status). Whether this is a good thing or not, I don't know. But it sort of makes sense in a way. IM seems to be the only form of online messaging where you decide whether to message/call someone based on their status. If you call someone, you have no idea if they are available or not, same with SMS or email. I also often see the case where a user will perpetually set himself to 'Away' or 'Busy' as he 'never' wants to be messaged, defeating the whole purpose of a messaging service in the first place.
eridius 12y ago
> Apple's design sensibility gets more and more questionable What do you mean by this? With iOS 7, there was a big outcry, because they changed the aesthetics of the OS pretty significantly, but that was a one-time event (and also highly subjective). But this is the first time I've heard anyone imply that Apple is trending towards having worse design. If anything, with the removal of skeuomorphism, Apple's design is more consistent than ever. > google appears to be finally paying due respect to good design and really putting the work in. My impression upon watching the video was that it looks very much like a 3rd-party iOS app. I am glad to see Google putting effort into their design. Although I don't agree with all of their choices (for example, I think the "Schedule View" image really is kind of awful, because it adds a lot of visual clutter and inconsistency, making it harder to scan the information quickly).
- EGreg 12y ago
  I'll come out and say it. With iOS 7, Apple took a step backward and started letting others lead. Microsoft debuted late in the game with an also-ran platform, and suddenly everyone had a flat boxy design. Meanwhile Apple had lost Steve Jobs and fired Scott Forstall, the two people who were pro skeumorphism and would have never allowed Apple to go down that path. A lot of people liked the skeumorphic designs. It made the technology feel polished, beautiful and natural. Not to mention textures work way better than transparent colors when you're watching, say, a video with a white background so you can't even see the controls. Oh and hey, try swiping up from the bottom in the Camera app - Whoops! And what's with the puke neon green for status bars during phonecalls that you can hardly read white text on? What's with the complete breakage of the browser UI with a subsequent "minimal-ui" apology all of which is then reverted back in iOS 8? For that matter, sending group messages in apps is still horribly broken since iOS 7. And iOS 8.1 was a disaster and was recalled quickly. Yeah, Apple's design changed, and not for the better.
  - eridius 12y ago
    > With iOS 7, Apple took a step backward and started letting others lead. What do you mean by that? iOS 7 saw the introduction of a new design, with new design language, created entirely by Apple rather than mimicking other companies. Superficially it may appear more similar to other companies because of the loss of skeuomorphism, but once you look past the fact that it's flatter than before, it's still quite distinct from Microsoft and Google and everyone else. So given all that, what does "letting others lead" mean? > suddenly everyone had a flat boxy design Apple's design is flatter than before, but it's not flat. If anything, the blur and parallax create an even deeper design than it was when it was skeuomorphic. Microsoft is definitely going with the very flat design. Google's new design language I haven't looked at very much, but I think it's safe to say it's relatively flat as well, though probably not as flat as Microsoft. > Meanwhile Apple had lost Steve Jobs and fired Scott Forstall, the two people who were pro skeumorphism and would have never allowed Apple to go down that path I find it rather distasteful to invoke the memory of Steve to try and make a point like this. Did you know Steve personally? I doubt it. Similarly, I doubt you can predict what he would have done. Steve was rather (in)famous for his ability to change his mind and do things he'd previously said would never happen. Without Forestall, I think it's quite possible that Jony could have convinced Steve to go with the new design. As for Forestall, yes, he would have never let this happen. But that's usually considered to be a point against Forestall, not a point for him. The Mac / iOS dev community, and the wider tech press, generally had the opinion that Apple kept going with skeuomorphism for much longer than they should have, and that it was Forestall's fault, and that the ousting of Forestall was a change for the good. So I find it quite odd to see you implying that Forestall's ousting was a bad move. > A lot of people liked the skeumorphic designs. Who are these people? Serious question here. Skeuomorphism is generally considered a good thing to have when introducing new interaction metaphors. It allows people to recognize the widget and instinctively know how to manipulate it. See a button? Push it. A slider? Slide it. Etc. But skeuomorphism is also considered to hold back design and be visually clunky and distracting once users have learned to feel natural with the interaction. This can be seen time and time again in the evolution of GUI platforms. Take for example Mac OS X. The original OS X was full of skeuomorphic touches, such as the very blobby shadowed buttons. And successive versions of OS X slowly kept reducing it, removing the visual distractions, removing the excess skeuomorphism. It was a slow evolution, but if you go back and look at screenshots of OS X 10.0, and try to imagine a new platform introducing that look today, it should be obvious that it would be widely ridiculed. The iPhone introduced a brand new interaction metaphor to the general population. Yes, the technology existed before, but almost exclusively stylus-based, mimicking desktop OS interaction, and only used by a fraction of the population. The iPhone was, almost everyone, their first experience with handheld touchscreen devices (and many of those hadn't used stylus-based devices either). Beyond the novelty of actually touching the screen, Apple also had to come up with new gesture-based interactions that they had to teach users. In this context, skeuomorphism is very useful. It makes it obvious to users what can be tapped or dragged or swiped. But as the years went by, and as every other smartphone manufacturer immediately started copying Apple, the skeuomorphism became a hindrance. People didn't need the visual affordance to tell what was a tappable button anymore, or to understand that the colored navigation bar at the top was a distinct UI element from the content below it. Skeuomorphism outlasted its utility, and thus, once the last holdout (Forestall) was gone, it was excised from the OS. You can certainly argue they went to far in some cases. For example, the navigation bar buttons lost their borders and just became text. Was that a mistake? Well, that's a highly subjective question. But from a usability perspective, it certainly seems like it wasn't, since everyone has already learned that content on the left and right edges of the navigation bar is tappable. > Not to mention textures work way better than transparent colors when you're watching, say, a video with a white background so you can't even see the controls. What are you talking about? The OS-provided video controls are displayed on top of a neutral grey background (with blur). This is easily readable no matter the video content. The only video player that comes to mind that might have this issue is the YouTube app, which uses custom controls (which has no relation to the OS design). > Oh and hey, try swiping up from the bottom in the Camera app - Whoops! Whoops? What whoops? It behaves exactly like I thought it would; the little arrow control shows up indicating that a second swipe will pull up Control Center. That's exactly what I expected to happen, since the Camera app hides the status bar. And in the Camera Roll it brings up Control Center with a single swipe, since the status bar is visible there. What are you seeing that elicited the "whoops"? > And what's with the puke neon green for status bars during phonecalls that you can hardly read white text on? I hope you aren't seeing "puke green", because if so you might need your eyes checked. As for reading text, that's fairly hyperbolic. White text isn't as readable as it is on a black background, but it's still quite readable. I just tried it out, and the text was just as readable on that green background as it is across most of the OS. Besides, what are you actually trying to read on it? The only text on it besides the status bar is "Touch to return to call". > What's with the complete breakage of the browser UI with a subsequent "minimal-ui" apology all of which is then reverted back in iOS 8? I have no idea what you're referring to here. Can you elaborate? > For that matter, sending group messages in apps is still horribly broken since iOS 7. I don't know what you're talking about here either. It works fine for me and everyone I know (and we use group messages a lot). > And iOS 8.1 was a disaster and was recalled quickly. What are you talking about? Perhaps you're referring to 8.0.1, which was replaced a day later by 8.0.2? The issue with 8.0.1 has not even the slightest shred of relation to design.
72deluxe 12y ago
It may be the case for some of the Google apps but the lack of coherent design in many many many of the Play Store apps leaves a lot to be desired, and almost tarnishes the platform a bit.
- oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
  This is a common problem that plagues every modern windowing environment. In my own experience, OSX suffers from this the least, but even there, inconsistencies between apps are pretty common.