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I find the floating buttons a bit of a bizarre choice, to me they look like they should be dragged, not clicked. Then again, it's just a picture, but why shoul

I find the floating buttons a bit of a bizarre choice, to me they look like they should be dragged, not clicked. Then again, it's just a picture, but why should we listen to what they're saying? They keep getting their own products wrong. One recent example is the android gmail app, where it's never clear when it last refreshed the data and you find yourself constantly pulling down to get it to refresh, it says it has, but then a minute or two later suddenly emails from hours ago appear. I've just switched to myMail and it's honestly a lot better. And the new maps interface is really rubbish, you constantly feel like you're fighting it, things have stupidly slow animations for no good reason, it's not actually clear what's, what. And the navigation in FPS mode is so bad and has been for years. Hell, and this one has always bugged me, they still after 7 years, hide the really important apps you have on google apps for business in a stupid little drop down hidden in a "more" link which isn't even clear it's a more link. Meaning the "platform" it's supposed to be is actually just a mail app with some links tacked on. Like Apple don't say much, but then release something and nail it, while Google talk as if they're an authority but consistently release complete messes. This is actually getting me pissed off. How can they be thought leaders? Even their own site has rubbish UX choices: http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/buttons.html http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/buttons.html Just look at the menu, it's a complete disaster UX wise. Click menu choices just open accordion sub menus, they make the cardinal sin of forcing the user to click again and do extra work. And one of them, the "Material Design", that just opens another menu with just one, YES JUST ONE, option of "Introduction". How can you call yourself thought leaders and yet get something as basic as a menu so wrong? It's like some sort of joke I don't get. Did no-one at google try and use their own site to see how useless it is? It's not a good UX. So how can you design good UX for the rest of us if you can't get that right? And they even have .html in their paths. Argh. Hello 1990.

cageface 12y ago
Are we so used to praising Apple for design that we haven't noticed that their last two releases of iOS have been a disaster from both an aesthetic and usability point of view? They certainly haven't "nailed" much of anything in UI design lately. Personally I find Material much more thoughtful, rational and functional and that's the same take I've heard coming from just about every professional designer I've heard take the time to voice an opinion.
- bluthru 12y ago
  I find iOS 7+ design language to be very clean and legible compared to iOS 6. When screen real estate is limited, all of the bevels, divisions, and shadows adds a lot of clutter where they can't be afforded. This is a good example: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/9025739956_f90cce7276_z.jpg http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/9025739956_f90cce7276_z.j...
clebio 12y ago
Why is this downvoted? It's a detailed critique, on-topic, etc. Provide feedback, a counter-point, instead of down-voting.
- izacus 12y ago
  Because it's: 1.) Not about Material design, but a single app 2.) Attacks the company, not the merits of the design itself.
  - mattmanser 12y ago
    I mention 4 different products, I was demonstrating there is not a single one of their products that hasn't got quite obvious UX issues that they never seem to even notice. And I haven't even added the new home page Chrome redesign on Android now hiding the most recently viewed web in landscape mode just so it can show a massive Google logo. It's very annoying. And their search still wastes a mass of real estate on the right hand side even when there's nothing to go there which resulted in the snippets of text being too short to be useful. I could go on and on ;) And I haven't even started on Google Play Music which has so many things wrong with it, not showing album years, it's a nightmare if you try and go "back" and a ton of other annoyances that spotify doesn't have. All of their products feel like they're just not very well thought out. But technically speaking they're brilliant and that makes up for it.
scrozier 12y ago
You hit the nail on the head. For as brilliant as Google may be in many ways, visual/UX design is not one of them. Google Apps for Business is nearly impenetrable, and AdWords and Analytics are not far behind. Come to think of it, this material manifesto sounds a bit like a company of engineers trying to force their will onto visual design. No thanks.

cageface 12y ago

Are we so used to praising Apple for design that we haven't noticed that their last two releases of iOS have been a disaster from both an aesthetic and usability point of view? They certainly haven't "nailed" much of anything in UI design lately. Personally I find Material much more thoughtful, rational and functional and that's the same take I've heard coming from just about every professional designer I've heard take the time to voice an opinion.

bluthru 12y ago
I find iOS 7+ design language to be very clean and legible compared to iOS 6. When screen real estate is limited, all of the bevels, divisions, and shadows adds a lot of clutter where they can't be afforded. This is a good example: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/9025739956_f90cce7276_z.jpg http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/9025739956_f90cce7276_z.j...

clebio 12y ago

Why is this downvoted? It's a detailed critique, on-topic, etc. Provide feedback, a counter-point, instead of down-voting.

izacus 12y ago
Because it's: 1.) Not about Material design, but a single app 2.) Attacks the company, not the merits of the design itself.
- mattmanser 12y ago
  I mention 4 different products, I was demonstrating there is not a single one of their products that hasn't got quite obvious UX issues that they never seem to even notice. And I haven't even added the new home page Chrome redesign on Android now hiding the most recently viewed web in landscape mode just so it can show a massive Google logo. It's very annoying. And their search still wastes a mass of real estate on the right hand side even when there's nothing to go there which resulted in the snippets of text being too short to be useful. I could go on and on ;) And I haven't even started on Google Play Music which has so many things wrong with it, not showing album years, it's a nightmare if you try and go "back" and a ton of other annoyances that spotify doesn't have. All of their products feel like they're just not very well thought out. But technically speaking they're brilliant and that makes up for it.

scrozier 12y ago

You hit the nail on the head. For as brilliant as Google may be in many ways, visual/UX design is not one of them. Google Apps for Business is nearly impenetrable, and AdWords and Analytics are not far behind. Come to think of it, this material manifesto sounds a bit like a company of engineers trying to force their will onto visual design. No thanks.