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Google Is Really Good At Design

Joshua Topolsky, writing for The Outline: The stuff Google showed off on October 4 was brazenly designed and strangely, invitingly touchable. These gadgets were soft, colorful... delightful? They looked human, but like something future humans had made; people who'd gotten righteously drunk with aliens. You could imagine them in your living room, your den, your bedroom. Your teleportation chamber. A fuzzy little donut you can have a conversation with. A VR headset in stunning pink. A phone with playful pops of color and an interface that seems to presage what you want, when you want it. It's weird. It's subtle. It's... good. It's Google? It's Google.

It was only a few years ago that Google was actually something of a laughing stock when it came to design. As an aggressively engineer-led company, the Mountain View behemoth's early efforts, particularly with its mobile software and devices, focused not on beauty, elegance, or simplicity, but rather concentrated on flexibility, iteration, and scale. These are useful priorities for a utilitarian search engine, but didn't translate well to many of the company's other products. Design -- the mysterious intersection of art and communication -- was a second-class citizen at Google, subordinate to The Data. That much was clear from the top down.

Enter Matias Duarte, the design impresario who was responsible for the Sidekick's UI (a wacky, yet strangely prescient mobile-everything concept) and later, the revolutionary (though ill-fated) webOS -- the striking mobile operating system and design language that would be Palm's final, valiant attempt at reclaiming the mobile market. Duarte was hired by Google in 2013 (initially as Android's User Experience Director, though he is now VP of design at the company), and spearheaded a complete reset of the company's visual and functional instincts. But even Duarte was aware of the design challenges his new role presented. "I never thought I'd work for Google," he told Surface Magazine in August. "I had zero ambition to work for Google. Everybody knew Google was a terrible place for design." Duarte went to work on a system that would ultimately be dubbed Material Design -- a set of principles that not only began to dictate how Android should look and work as a mobile operating system, but also triggered the march toward a unified system of design that slowly but surely pulled Google's disparate network of services into something that much more closely resembled a singular vision. A school of thought. A family.

187 comments

  1. Material design can suck my dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    my fucking dick

    1. Re: Material design can suck my dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I dont think you understand what they mean by âoematerial design.â

    2. Re:Material design can suck my dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You mean that floating action dick in the lower right hand corner of your screen, right?

    3. Re:Material design can suck my dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you could remove the tard features and design choices, like Bixby, Galaxy S8(+) is actually top of the line in design choices and configuration. It's 80% there, with 20% cruft that you are allowed to ignore, mostly.

      Doesn't mean that these "principles" will work the same in every device and setting, or even that the designers ever manage to go beyond just "looks good" for other devices.

      UX and UI is more about function, than "looks good", but designers don't / won't understand it!

    4. Re: Material design can suck my dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With curved edges

  2. Why is JEWgle no good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Jews believe this of others they call goyim/gentiles (any non-jew): Jews = biggest racists of all (for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Perrone, Spanish inquistion, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above. Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud. This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Khazar/Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple):

    Barbara Spectre, a jew, tells everyone it's jews orchestrating the muslim migrant problem in Europe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ/ . No migrant raping of women in Poland. Tons in Sweden. Do the math. Use common-sense. This is to get muslims and other goyim/gentiles to wipe one another out as incompatible cultures that will clash and always have.

    George Soros who funds groups to create division in the USA?? A jew. One who sold his own jew people into death for the nazis. Zucker @ CNN is another frying publicly for lying about "russians" and John Bonifield a producer @ CNN said it is bs. Van Jones did also.

    What World-famous Men have said About the Jews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MYPzKNQUE0/

    Harvey Weinstein the child molester tops it all off.

    There are three types of people who call themselves Jews:

    1. True Torah [Sephardic] Jews: these are the descendants of Prophet Jacob-Israel (Jacobites or Israelites) (about 5%-10% of all Jews)

    2. Khazarian or Ashkenazi Jews: these are the descendants of a Turkic idol/phallic worshiping tribe who migrated to Russia in the 7th Century A.C. and whose nobility converted to Judaism in the 8th Century A.C. and now inhabit mostly Europe. (about 90%-95% of all Jews)

    3. Zionist Jews: these are the ones from the 2 above who are pretending to be Jews for political reasons but whoâ(TM)re are actually Illuminists-Luciferian-Masonic-Satanists as Harold Wallace Rosenthal admits in this interview.

    They are led by the neo-Pharisees (occult-priest-banklords). They want to establish a Zionist Luciferian state from the Nile to the Euphrates from where they plan to rule the Earth. The new Israeli Supreme Court funded by the Rothschilds Banklords is full of Masonic Symbols, just like the B.I.S. Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, which is the Mother of All Private Central Banks.

    The hexagram symbol on the Israeli flag is the ancient Star of Moloch, a Satanic-Baal deity to which people were sacrificed. There is no such thing as a Star of David which the modern Jews have been fooled into believing; however, the True Torah Jews are not fooled by the Zionists Illuminatis and you can visit their websites for more info .

    1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim is like killing a wild animal."

    2. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."

    3. Sanhedrin 59a: "A goy (Gentile) who pries into The Law (Talmud) is guilty of death."

    4. Yebhamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age."

    5. Schabouth Hag. 6d: "Jews may swear falsely by use of subterfuge wording."

    6. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Do not save Goyim in danger of death."

    7. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Show no mercy to the Goyim."

    8. Choschen Hamm 388, 15: "If it can be proven that someone has given the money of Israelites to the Goyim, a wa

    1. Re:Why is JEWgle no good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It really is a shame that someone hasn't broke all 10 of your fingers.

    2. Re:Why is JEWgle no good? by Custard+Horse · · Score: 1

      It really is a shame that someone hasn't broke all 10 of your fingers.

      Why just the fingers?

    3. Re:Why is JEWgle no good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you do that? Someone has to turn the knobs on the ovens for baking you or controlling the knobs on the zyklon b valves!

    4. Re:Why is JEWgle no good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone has to turn the knobs on the ovens for frying and baking or the valve on the zyklon b gas cannisters!

  3. Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill N/T by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    this post intentionally left almost blank

  4. We're the most humble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're the most humble.

  5. Modern design is apparently for by dizzy8578 · · Score: 1

    Those who cannot read or wish to further glorify the stupid.

    --
    *"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
  6. As if by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google's design paradigm is "Google knows better how it should work". All their applications are absolutely awful when it comes to configuration.

  7. Slashvertisement by UpnAtom · · Score: 1

    And they all looked pretty ugly to me, bar possibly the VR/AR headset.

    1. Re:Slashvertisement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, summary and article were all fluff.

      "The nerds have finally figured it out!"

      Fuck you.

    2. Re:Slashvertisement by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 2

      Not to mention that one of the products he is wanking over has a button that doesn’t even work properly so it had to be disabled with software. Maybe the nerds should have focused more on the engineering rather than then aesthetic design?

    3. Re:Slashvertisement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's just the "minimalism is always good design" crowd. I've never understood them. Form should follow function and good design is defined by interactions not appearance.

    4. Re:Slashvertisement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #GNOME

  8. The new Pixelbook is sadly bad. by tlambert · · Score: 1

    The new Pixelbook is sadly bad.

    Step 1: Convert the keyboard into an easel by hyper-opening the device

    Step 2: Place the "easel" part keys-down on the table

    Step 3: ?

    Step 4: Spill your tea on the table and have capillary action wick it up into the Pixelbook keyboard

    Step 5: !@#$*!@!

    ...That's me, propheting...

    1. Re:The new Pixelbook is sadly bad. by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      I have experiences capillary action wick milk up in to the vent holes on the bottom of my laptop while it was sitting on the table. At least keyboards are designed to be moisture resistant these days.

    2. Re:The new Pixelbook is sadly bad. by fastasleep · · Score: 1

      "Step 3 is Profit." —Underpants Gnome

  9. Can't find the button by lorien420 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is Material Design the thing where I can't tell which part of the screen is a button and which part isn't? I loved webOS, but the whole "everything is a uniform color with no way to tell what is what or how to interact with it" is one of the dumber design ideas for computers.

    --
    "[We'll be] really getting inside your head and making it an unpleasant place to be" -- Trent Reznor
    1. Re:Can't find the button by bogaboga · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I couldn't agree more. This so called material Design is what is responsible for the horrible interface GMail has?

      In almost all Google products, they have adopted light colors for the font. These things aren't easily seen!!

      YouTube is even worse! The whole thing is from the 90s.

      Why, you may ask: For the desktop version, the whole page scrolls away if one is to read comments. Why not let the video remain visible as I peruse comments?

      If you are interested in video on the right, clicking to play subsequent video gets rid of that selection. I just don't get it!!

      Photos: No logical sorting exists. Google relies on AI for this! It's insane!

      Calendar: Huge bars as if one sent Google to Maximize screen real estate. Copying an event from one time frame to another is still not possible!

      One conclusion: It's sad that a [rich company like ]Google is horrible at design.

    2. Re:Can't find the button by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Informative

      Is Material Design the thing where I can't tell which part of the screen is a button and which part isn't?

      Exactly.

      And your befuddlement is not unique.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    3. Re:Can't find the button by rtb61 · · Score: 0

      Google like your typical psychopath, is only really good at designing one thing, their public image and as for the typical psychopath, right up until the private, manipulate, deceitful, controlling, invasive, exploitative reality is exposed. They have real skill and creating that warm, fuzzy, safe and helpful image but make no mistake it is only a carefully crafted public image, hiding the most disgusting behaviour. Manipulation of elections, mass political censorship, rabid racism.

      Specifically white male nerds, those SJW freaks are used to doing from school age and keep in going into employment, their marketing and public relations wonks as well as from the top down, the only thing keeping your employment going is their inability to code, else you would all be done and you know it, not matter what they say to you, they are also extremely ageist again specifically white male nerds. Don't even pretend it doesn't happen, at school from the earliest and in every form of content they are ridiculed, derided, slandered, beaten up, routinely publicly humiliated, especially by the google sjw types, not only do they do it shamelessly publicly, they cheer it on as a righteous cause and then blame the victims for being white male nerds, their fault and they deserve it and main stream media douche bags right in there with them.

      PS I am a geek not a nerd, I could readily stand up to it but that does not mean I was not fully aware of it and the suffering those white male nerds went through nearly every day of their life, I found the nerds not to be all that bad and in fact way better than the jock strap cheer leader crowd and their fawning groupies the googlites, still crawling to them for approval (well on the psuedo celebrity versions, those high school has beens, yeah no one wants anything to do with them).

      For the SJWs never forget the KKK and also SJWs and a prime example of what you will become, not only to gain power but just like them, when you are finally rejected into oblivion and that means you ANTIFA left my ass, you are self serving far right idiots pretending to be from the left.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re: Can't find the button by kristofer.vesi · · Score: 1

      If you are on the new yt, get tampermonkey and iridium for yt or when on old, search on greasyfork for youtube + or equivalent, they have that feature

    5. Re:Can't find the button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You hit the nail on the head, it is ridiculous they mention WebOS and Material Design in the same article. To me WebOS still is the best UI (aesthetically & functionally) ever designed on a smartphone, better by far than even iOS ever was.

    6. Re:Can't find the button by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Gmail uses black text on a white background by default. Hard to get more contrast than that. In general material design is high contrast, the basic tenet being to use black+white and a high contrast accent colour.

      Photos sorts by date by default, that's pretty logical. The AI is used for automatic photoshopping and to make natural language search work ("show me photos of my cat").

      The Calendar UI on desktop is quite annoying, mostly because clicking anything tries to create new events or change something.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Can't find the button by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Guidelines for Material buttons here: https://material.io/guidelines...

      As you can see, when there is any confusion about things being buttons you use a box to make it clear. If apps fail to do that and you are confused, they are doing Material design wrong.

      Unfortunately, there are some poor imitations out there.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Can't find the button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The button is the colored rectangle that looks like a button.

    9. Re:Can't find the button by coofercat · · Score: 1

      I've got to agree - but if you want truly horrific design from a rich company, look no further than ebay.

    10. Re:Can't find the button by retchdog · · Score: 1

      "For the SJWs never forget the KKK and also SJWs and a prime example of what you will become, not only to gain power but just like them, when you are finally rejected into oblivion and that means you ANTIFA left my ass, you are self serving far right idiots pretending to be from the left."

      time for your meds, grandpa.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    11. Re:Can't find the button by w3woody · · Score: 2

      Well, remember: in today's world, "design" is "what looks pretty and promotes the brand"--and today that's pastels and abstract shapes and cute little black and white animations which show off the horsepower of the GPU in the device.

      And it has absolutely fuck-all to do with computer-human interfaces or usability--as if we just dumped every SigCHI paper from the ACM from the 1970's to the 1990's on a great big bonfire.

    12. Re:Can't find the button by JohnFen · · Score: 2

      eBay isn't pretty -- but is is entirely usable and easily understandable. That's more than you can say about "material design" anything.

    13. Re:Can't find the button by barbariccow · · Score: 1

      Yeah but.. if the video isn't visible and you're looking at comments, it won't switch on you to the next video. That's something right?

    14. Re:Can't find the button by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      Gmail uses black text on a white background by default.

      It does?

      I'm looking at it right now, and it's using gray on white for the left-side column, and gray on lighter gray for the email list. I haven't changed any color settings.

      Note: I'm not complaining -- I prefer this to black-on-white -- but still, it's not black-on-white anywhere on the page that I can see.

    15. Re:Can't find the button by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      Google doesn't do that, though.

      Well, maybe they do for actual button controls, I don't know, but their pages are littered with things that you can interact with that provide no visual cue that you can interact with them.

      This is annoying but tolerable if you're using a mouse, but it's actively bad if you're using a touch screen.

    16. Re: Can't find the button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any Google or the Google?

    17. Re:Can't find the button by dinfinity · · Score: 2

      Why not let the video remain visible as I peruse comments?

      Below, user CSS to accomplish a fixed video player when not in theater mode. It is for the newest YT design and is still a little rough around the edges. I use it for my main desktop which has a UHD screen. Use a User CSS extension/addon/plugin of choice.

      ytd-watch[theater] #top #player.ytd-watch {
          position: relative;
      }

      ytd-watch[theater] #top #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
          margin-top: 0;
      }

      ytd-watch[theater] #top #playlist.style-scope.ytd-watch {
          top: 0;
      }

      ytd-watch[theater] #top #related.style-scope.ytd-watch {
          top: 0;
      } /**********/
      @media (min-width: 1000px) {
          ytd-watch #player.ytd-watch {
              position: fixed;
              z-index: 3;
          }

          ytd-watch #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
              margin-top: 960px;
          }
      }

      ytd-watch #items.style-scope.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer {
              margin-top: 480px;
          }
      } /**********/
      @media (min-height: 630px) and (min-width: 1294px) {
          ytd-watch #player.ytd-watch {
              position: fixed;
              z-index: 3;
          }

          ytd-watch #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
              margin-top: 960px;
          }
      } /**********/
      @media (min-height: 980px) and (min-width: 1720px) {
          ytd-watch #player.ytd-watch {
              position: fixed;
              z-index: 3;
          }

          ytd-watch #info-contents.style-scope.ytd-watch {
              margin-top: 1440px;
          }

          ytd-watch #top #related.style-scope.ytd-watch {
              top: 720px;
          }

          ytd-watch #top #playlist.style-scope.ytd-watch {
              top: 720px;
          }

      }

    18. Re:Can't find the button by bogaboga · · Score: 1

      Wow!

      How does one get to use it? I use Chrome.

      Thanks!

    19. Re:Can't find the button by fastasleep · · Score: 1

      Eh, I find Ebay to be much easier to navigate than most Google web UX, which never fails to baffle me. Ebay's mobile app is pretty solid as well, at least on iOS.

    20. Re:Can't find the button by dinfinity · · Score: 1

      Q:

      How does one get to use it? I use Chrome.

      A:

      Use a User CSS extension/addon/plugin of choice.

      So: Google "chrome user css extension".

      I personally use this one: https://chrome.google.com/webs...

    21. Re:Can't find the button by freudigst · · Score: 1

      It's not understandable anymore. I have an impossible time finding my purchases a few days/weeks after confirming the associated products are good due to sweeping changes a few years ago that ruin everything (aka Micro$oft).

      Plus, it's ugly and cluttered as he!!.

    22. Re:Can't find the button by freudigst · · Score: 1

      That's not saying much.

    23. Re:Can't find the button by freudigst · · Score: 1

      Plus, Google software tends to get better as opposed to worse, which is quite the accomplishment for a behemoth software house.

      That said, those devices do not look particularly good. Mr. Topolsky needs to get out of his parents' basement and go discover anywhere else in the world what good design actually is.

  10. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google is good at a lot of things, but design is most certainly not one of them.

    1. Re:huh? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but they're great at PR.

      Why do a company wide drive to have better design when you can give some tech journalist a goody bag in return for him writing an article gushing about how you 'finally get design'?

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  11. Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apparently you haven't used the docs.google.com interface; it's a real piece of shit, somehow they managed to do worse than Apple & Canonical.

    1. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still better than the ribbon though?

    2. Re:Bullshit by awyeah · · Score: 1

      I find it to be *okay* - not great, but okay. What is better? (This is a serious, non-trolling question).

      --
      Why, no, I haven't meta-moderated lately. Thanks for asking!
    3. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First off a search that can to partial strings.

      Next 2 navigation options, in no particular option the ability to tag and have sub/nested tags even multiple tags on documents that are browsable, gmail does this. Or have a hierarchical file system with a tree off to the left side, you know like most operating systems, (and the reason why most other operating systems/ file managers have them is they work and they're easy to use).

    4. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still better than the ribbon though?

      The ribbon is fine, if you have a shitload of vertical space.

  12. Good design, WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Has anyone involved in this puff piece article looked at Gmail in the past several years?

  13. Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Parker+Lewis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They call "Material", but it's the same unicolor as other companies. I.e, icons with no meaning (triangle for back, square for home... or circle for home?), no color, no underline to indicate clickable text (nor buttons), no border or shadow to help you to identify a window, no text to help and lack of shortcuts for the advanced users, extensive use of light text color in white background, no way to customize a thing. Appears that the cool in modern design is just ignore every HCI rule that was build in the last 40 years.

    1. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by countach74 · · Score: 1

      Material design calls for a colorful experience, has very clearly defined buttons, and an "elevation"-based shadow system to communicate depth in the apps. I don't know which apps use light color text on a white background... I can't imagine that's something that material design calls for. The reality is, given any design language, you can make apps look bad. But material design makes it pretty easy to make an app look decent. What's more important, though, is that these days most all of the apps on my Android phone all navigate in predictable ways. I don't have to guess if something's a button or not, I don't have to guess what will happen if I click something because the system is all pretty consistent now. Of course there's always room for improvement and there are a lot of bad apps, some of which are Google's, but material design is an effort to combat the problems you speak of. (Unfortunately, the triangle/square/circle soft keys on Android are what they are... and are not part of material design, for better or worse. I do wish they'd pick something more meaningful. I preferred the icons they used for those buttons in KitKat.)

    2. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by AbRASiON · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've been chanting what this guy has been saying for YEARS.

      Every point of his post is correct, FLAT colour, NO borders, NO defining lines, NO text labels, not even colour coded icons anymore, all one colour, it's a god damn sloppy disgusting joke that's HUGELY DIS-intuitive to me, I STILL double check what I'm clicking because I don't know what it is, BECAUSE IT'S NOT LABELLED!

      Colour coded, labelled, borders make a massive difference.
      Modern design is awful. but hey, some moron gets to call it 'clean'

    3. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      Material design calls for a means to permanently opt out of it.

      FTFY

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    4. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Informative

      They use a left triangle for back, the same as your web browser and your VCR and your tape deck.

      One of the core parts of Material design is an accent colour and/or border to highlight things you can interact with. This is similar to web browsers that colour links, although browsers are worse because you can have clickable images and the like with no indication.

      High contrast is another staple of Material design.

      Maybe you are mixing it up with other flat designs, like Apple's (which does use a lot of low contrast). I'm not saying Google are perfect but a lot of the complaints about Material design are addressed in the spec, the criticism should really be that Google don't always follow their own guidelines.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They use a left triangle for back, the same as your web browser and your VCR and your tape deck.

      No such button. A *right* pointing triangle means play. *Two* left triangles means rewind. Is that the same as "back"? Not really.

      Stop making things up.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    6. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      Appears that the cool in modern design is just ignore every HCI rule that was build in the last 40 years.

      Every generation has to figure things out for themselves, which is why everything that was old is eventually new again. I've already seen articles describing how the older Millennials are starting to tire of city renting life and desire to move to the suburbs .

      citation:

      http://www.bentley.edu/prepare...

    7. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      I've been chanting what this guy has been saying for YEARS.

      Every point of his post is correct, FLAT colour, NO borders, NO defining lines, NO text labels, not even colour coded icons anymore, all one colour, it's a god damn sloppy disgusting joke that's HUGELY DIS-intuitive to me, I STILL double check what I'm clicking because I don't know what it is, BECAUSE IT'S NOT LABELLED!

      Colour coded, labelled, borders make a massive difference. Modern design is awful. but hey, some moron gets to call it 'clean'

      You just don't get it man ... shave your head, put on the funny little glasses, grow the mandatory facial hair, and it will all start to become clear :)

    8. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice try, nobody believes you - we all have eyes and can see how awful 'Material Design' is...
      " I don't have to guess if something's a button or not, " LOL...

      Actually you DO have to guess if something is a button or not, because of crap 'flat' design... You're an idiot.

    9. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > No such button

      You don't say?

    10. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      But material design makes it pretty easy to make an app look decent.

      Then why is there so few examples of material design-based stuff both looking decent and being usable?

    11. Re: Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a left pointing triangle. And if it didn't say play underneath, I'd have no idea what it does.

    12. Re:Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Material design looks like shit. It's like going back to the look of Windows 1.0. If an app uses material design, I'll skip right over it and give my money to someone else.

    13. Re: Same bullshit as other modern companies UIs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had a reversible tape deck that had a left-pointing triangle button which meant "switch direction of play," but I can't find any images of it.

      Anyway, the point is that left-pointing triangle buttons obviously do exist.

      And FWIW, none of my browsers use a triangle button for forward/back; they all use arrows.

  14. What happened to summaries? by JoeRobe · · Score: 0

    The point of the /. front page is that it presents summaries of other stories. This is a three paragraph opinion piece on the front page that Iâ(TM)ve now skipped over. I come to /. because it gives a quick glimpse into interesting tech news, not to read some guyâ(TM)s full opinion about googleâ(TM)s design capabilities.

    I really hope this was accidental and editors just werenâ(TM)t paying atttention.

    --
    The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
    1. Re:What happened to summaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There are 4 articles of shovelled Google crap on the front page in just the most recent 8 articles here.

      The site was more enjoyable to read 10 years ago when the stories were about independent advancements ...

      Not wall-to-wall Google, Apple, Amazon, electric cars, driverless cars articles mixed with the occasional Slashdot-inappropriate political article.

    2. Re:What happened to summaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The lowest common denominator is the demographic of greatest profit.

      All sites gravitate towards them over time.

    3. Re:What happened to summaries? by lucm · · Score: 1

      You know what I miss the most from 10 years ago? The discussion about the year of the Linux desktop.

      Think I'm kidding?

      With phenomenal new distros, swelling international support, and a little extra momentum from Dell, we think Linux is poised to exploit the current atmosphere of doubt surrounding Vista and pick up serious traction in '08. 'For end users here in North America, Linux poses a low barrier to entry. While many still balk at an upgrade to Vista (typically centered around cost and restrictive licensing terms), those who are curious about the open-source alternative will find few of these obstacles. And an increasingly rich array of ready-to-run software (not to mention surprisingly effective utilities that let you run many Windows apps) makes it easy switch.

      https://linux.slashdot.org/sto...

      which reminds me of a quote from Bill Gates: "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    4. Re:What happened to summaries? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      This is a three paragraph opinion piece on the front page that IÃ(TM)ve now skipped over. I come to /. because it gives a quick glimpse into interesting tech news, not to read some guyÃ(TM)s full opinion about googleÃ(TM)s design capabilities.

      Another questionable slashdot UX choice is that when you paste smart quotes, emdashes, endashes etc into a slashdot comment field it displays them as gibberish like Ã(TM) rather than displaying them correctly or automagically converting them to their ASCII safe equivalents : ", - or '.

      Now you may say "That's because Slashdot uses UTF-8 rather than some Microsoft proprietary encoding!". Except it doesn't - not much outside ASCII actually works.

      You can work around it by pasting your comment here

      https://dan.hersam.com/tools/s...

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    5. Re:What happened to summaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The site went to shit 10 years ago--try 15 years ago. Now get off my lawn!

  15. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    This. I thought I was reading Wired from back in the day just now.

  16. Flamebait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article/headline isn't really bait, it's more like they just said 'fuckit' and threw the entire fishing pole into the comments section

    1. Re:Flamebait by lucm · · Score: 1

      Spot on. And they must be new here, otherwise they could have ended the summary with "Discuss." and at least it would have been worth a chuckle.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
  17. Well, Google, Is the Earth flat? by mbone · · Score: 0

    Google Is Really Good At Design

    That's good, because I am not so sure about search.

    Google "Is the Earth flat?" and you still mostly get flat Earth cranks on the first page - it's telling that the answers in Genesis article is actually one of the more sane articles returned.

  18. Is this a joke? by Whatsisname · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this a joke?

    I know this may just sound like old-man-curmudgeon speak, but many of their products were much better in the earlier days. Maps is the most dramatic example. The new maps, once MBA-types took over it, runs considerably slower and has a worse UI than the original maps.

    The earlier android versions were also much better looking, much better looking than the recent flat-ui idiocy.

    1. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously. Their admin UIs in particular are as bad as anything. Incoherent, rambling things that hide entire new regions beneath unassuming controls. And each region with its own original layout and interaction model.

      My favorite fails are the easy-to-miss dropdown in Gmail beneath the Gmail icon, which houses two whole options (that have nothing in common with each other), one of which—contacts—should be integrated with mail in a much more sophisticated, zero-nav way. And the Gmail refresh button that gives absolutely no feedback when pushed: not that you pushed it, not that it's doing what you asked, not when it's done. So... F5 it is. These ridiculous things have persisted for several years each.

    2. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is this a joke?

      I know this may just sound like old-man-curmudgeon speak, but many of their products were much better in the earlier days. Maps is the most dramatic example. The new maps, once MBA-types took over it, runs considerably slower and has a worse UI than the original maps.

      I have to agree that the Google map UI is difficult to use and the low contrast maps are difficult to read.

    3. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I googled "Is Google Really Good At Design?" and got the "Google is really good at design" back many times. Clearly the case is closed.

    4. Re: Is this a joke? by Reverend+Green · · Score: 2

      Google hasn't created a compelling/popular new product in-house since the original Google Maps. That was... 2004?

      They still have a good search engine. Even that is probably on the decline, as they start to manipulate results for political and/or anti-competitive purposes.

      What I really want to know it's how much of Google's "advertising revenue" really comes from selling ads. And how much comes from selling political surveillance services to fedgov and other repressive regimes?

    5. Re:Is this a joke? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Informative

      The MBA-types didn't take over Google Maps. Google hired designers from Apple to redesign it. The story was on Slashdot at the time, and everyone groaned because we all knew what was coming. Sure enough, the first update from the new designers removed tons of options. I kept the last version as long as I could, and then one fateful day decided Google Maps was a waste of space on my phone. Haven't looked back since. Don't miss it at all, either.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    6. Re:Is this a joke? by Miamicanes · · Score: 2

      And let's not forget the retarded "pinch to rotate" gesture. I don't think I've EVER met anyone, in the ENTIRE HISTORY of Google Maps for Android, who's INTENTIONALLY rotated a fucking map after the first time or two they've used it. It's one of those features that was cool to show off for 5 minutes, but actively harms the app's ultimate usability. I'm one of those people who've wished for YEARS that Google would add a preferences option to Google Maps for "disable rotate gestures"

    7. Re: Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Google didn't create "Google Maps" either. it was developed by "Where 2 Technologies"(started by some Australians) which Google bought.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps

      They also bought YouTube. Some people don't even know YouTube is Google's property. It is a separate brand like Microsoft does with XBox.

      And they bought Android too, which was going to be a palm-like device with keyboard:

      https://m.androidcentral.com/look-back-google-sooner-first-android-phone

      That was until the iPhone was debuted and then Eric Schmidt (who was then on Apple's board) got the Android team to copy it, which lead to pressure on him to eventually to resign from Apple's board. The copying of the iPhone lead to Steve Jobs famously saying Android as it had become was a "stolen product" and declaring he would go "thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty."

      http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1162728/steve-jobs-vendetta-against-google-believed-android-stole-apple-iphones

      And Android has now been turned into a way to distribute ads and track users for money. It's not really an OS. Its a Trojan Horse. It's an ad-distribution and "Big Brother" screen in one.

      So I don't think Google had created something useful "in house" since search.

      And they've always been Evil.

    8. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So much this! Google maps was *amazing* in the early days. Now it’s degenerated badly: slow, buggy, features seem to get moved, removed and re-added seemingly at random. The UI seems to get less intuitive by the year. Street views that I clearly remember being present in the past (as in I looked at them) just... gone.

      How is this an improvement?

    9. Re: Is this a joke? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

      With countries there's something called the Resource Curse

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty, refers to the paradox that countries with an abundance of natural resources (like fossil fuels and certain minerals), tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. There are many theories and much academic debate about the reasons for and exceptions to these adverse outcomes. Most experts believe the resource curse is not universal or inevitable, but affects certain types of countries or regions under certain conditions.

      I think something similar happens to companies. If they can make a lot of money doing something which doesn't require much innovation - selling ads(Google), getting revenue from pre installed software(Microsoft), getting a cut of software sales(Apple, Google, Valve), or having a large number of hardware customers who are locked in (Every mainframe manufacturer in the 70's and 80's but IBM is the best example, arguably Apple and Samsung now) - it tends to make them not worry so much about innovation.

      So in the short term they'll have little innovation but a healthy bottom line. Then the market will change and because they don't innovate they'll be screwed.

      It happened to IBM when people moved from mainframes to PCs. It's probably happening to Microsoft now as people move from PCs to phones and tablets. Apple and Samsung might well have problems if people stop upgrading to the latest flagship phone every two years when their mobile network offers it 'free' (aka 'in exchange for continuing to pay $50+ a month for another two years'). If your business is based on significant numbers of people spending $700-1000 on a new phone every two years, you've got problems.

      I.e. don't be surprised if Google and Apple end up going the way of Microsoft and IBM. They certainly deserve it for resting on their laurels and trying to convince people to upgrade to a new model with fewer features than the old one.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    10. Re:Is this a joke? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The only major issue I have with maps is that it's too easy to rotate when trying to zoom. Otherwise I find the UI clean and quick to navigate, with clear instructions when I'm driving or glancing at the screen.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they're probably serious. My first thought when I went to the article was "I'm not trusting the opinion of anyone who uses this web design on the quality of anyone else's design".

    12. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, you've made it abundantly clear that you love Google. We get it.

  19. Good eh? One look at Google News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    and their new Youtube beta, you would think otherwise. The UX experts.. sigh..

  20. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by Gr8Apes · · Score: 4, Funny

    Google's designers are almost as good at design as Equifax is at security.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  21. Ell no by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Funny

    The stuff Google showed off on October 4 was brazenly designed and strangely, invitingly touchable. These gadgets were soft, colorful... delightful? They looked human, but like something future humans had made; people who'd gotten righteously drunk with aliens.

    Cautionary tale: if you get righteously drunk with aliens, you richly deserve the soft, colorful, delightful anal probe you will not remember completely, save for the faint reckoning that your drinking is perhaps getting out of hand.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Ell no by barbariccow · · Score: 1

      Technically, if you take a bus with friends from the USA down to a Tijuana bar, are yall getting drunk with aliens?

    2. Re:Ell no by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      Technically, if you take a bus with friends from the USA down to a Tijuana bar, are yall getting drunk with aliens?

      No, but the Mexicans are.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

  22. A new Slashdot low by Gussington · · Score: 1

    "The stuff Google showed off was brazenly designed and strangely, invitingly touchable. These gadgets were soft, colorful... delightful? They looked human, but like something future humans had made; people who'd gotten righteously drunk with aliens."
    I'm speechless...

    1. Re:A new Slashdot low by sd4f · · Score: 2

      These tech writers are not technical people. They write about this sort of subjective stuff because they have no clue about what actually happens underneath, nor do they care. Their goal is to look hipster, put on black horn rimmed glasses when they don't need them.

      What we have now is an industry that just shills for google.

    2. Re: A new Slashdot low by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait? Who needs black horn rimmed glasses?

      I need glasses, but I don't need those!

    3. Re:A new Slashdot low by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Awful. Truly, truly awful.

    4. Re: A new Slashdot low by mcswell · · Score: 1

      If you'd had your black horn rimmed glasses on when Agent K demo'd the neuralizer, you'd remember why you need them.

  23. BeauHD is an Idiot - GOOGLE sucks at design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BeauHD needs to stop being allowed to post stories to /. Like seriously, what do you have to be smoking when you say google is good at design?

    Google is the king of half-assery - just look at the bug reports for any of their products.

  24. How do we mod summaries? by Gussington · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Enough of modding comments, I want to be able to mod this fucking awful summary and article out of existence...

    1. Re:How do we mod summaries? by dissy · · Score: 2

      Enough of modding comments, I want to be able to mod this fucking awful summary and article out of existence...

      The very top of the page by the Slashdot logo. Firehose -> All
      https://slashdot.org/recent
      .
      It's pretty sad seeing technical articles with 50 or less comments assuming they even get modded up and out of the firehose to the main page, yet many political articles per day with multiple hundreds of comments so damn consistently on a tech website, I wish more technical people would help mod the articles.

    2. Re:How do we mod summaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Enough of modding comments, I want to be able to mod this fucking awful summary and article out of existence...

      No kidding.

      > It's weird. It's subtle. It's... good. It's Google? It's Google.

      Who the FUCK writes shit like this?

  25. It's because they hired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    1. Re:It's because they hired by barbariccow · · Score: 1

      what the fuck is that?

    2. Re: It's because they hired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The typical UX Designer

  26. This is not the bullshit you are looking for -- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Makes you wonder what Jedi mind power advertising salesmen have over corporate C-levels to make them all buy into the same line of bullshit trying to sell the sizzle instead of the steak. Maybe the fact that they can get people to lie for them for so cheap...

  27. But fail at simple things like buttons... by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

    Yep, so great at design that they can’t design a non-malfunctioning button.

  28. Are you high? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No. Google is HORRID at design.

    We have 4 different chat apps (voice, hangouts, allo, duo), 2 different map apps (waze and google maps), two different forms of email (gmail and inbox) and so on and so on. And it doesn't always integrate cleanly. I want to use hangouts as my dialer all the time, but by default it opens up my system dialer on android. I can use sms via hangouts, or google voice, or its own messaging app.

    It's a fucking mix mash of well designed widgets.

    1. Re:Are you high? by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

      Waze is not a Google product.

    2. Re:Are you high? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OP's confusion probably stems from the face that Google bought Waze Mobile (the company that invented Waze) in 2013. Reference material if asked.

    3. Re:Are you high? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Where's the confusion? Just the semantics that technically Alphabet Inc owns them and not Google? Except for the pedants or bean counters, google and Alphabet Inc are synonymous. I mean fuck, Waze's address is: Google West Campus 3, 1505 Salado Dr Mountain View, CA

    4. Re:Are you high? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      On the one hand, Google monoculture and lack of choice sucks.

      On the other hand, Google has too many choices.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Are you high? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes it is. Google bought the Waze Mobile, the company behind Waze, 4 years ago and continue to develop the product.

      What is it like to have shit for brains?

    6. Re:Are you high? by ourlovecanlastforeve · · Score: 1

      Alphabet was created to work around anti-compete laws.

      It exists for zero other reason.

      "Don't be evil" ceased to be Google's slogan a long time ago.

      Now it should be "be evil and make everyone feel guilty for noticing."

  29. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Buttons are also hard for them apparently.

  30. Feh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What kind of shit tier shilling article is this.

  31. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    they're so good that there's an extra option in android to mark wtf is actually a button area.

    at least now I know why presented to the user android features have been going downhill while some technical aspects have gone a lot better. also the look is stupid now and things take more presses/swipes to do and user is bombarded with popups - and user protection features had not been tested in common use cases by actual common people.

    google added this feature where if theres an UI overlay you cannot approve of permissions for an app - and the approve permission screen gets dismissed if you turn off the app. this is a problem because using the fb faces for example makes it so that if an app wants a permission you want to give to it.. you have to first close that fb face. that is easily done just 1 swipe, but it means that you need to find again in the app the permission trigger to grant it, or dive into the menus to grant it, because the screen to grant it is already gone if you close the offending app.

    why this is stupid? the decision to make it was made by a stupid person because the permission granting dialog should be a separate screen that other ui overlay apps cannot overtake. and fyi they didn't immediately see it as a problem when they rolled it out as a nerfed feature to approve/disapprove per app.

    look, the basic idea is just the same as why windows goes to that separate screen to allow admin rights for an application. should just have copied that. technically they could have. very easily. they control the window manager which controls the overlay applications.

    the bad fucking thing about this is that i have to listen some exec dolt talk about how they got some new whizwhiz wweewee guru now at gooooooooogle and how they're good at design now at gooooogle and how we should do everything like them...

    how do you know an experienced android developer from a newbie? a newbie will argue that something should be done in some way because google tells to do it in that way. an experienced one knows that google also tells to do it the other way and also sometimes says that don't do it the old way without telling the new way. also a slightly experienced one will know that some of googles class wrappers are longer than just writing to use the classes directly anyways while there isn't any kind of a functional difference.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  32. Holo was still better. by edgedmurasame · · Score: 1

    It was one thing to unify, but turning everything to paper was a step backwards.

    --
    "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
    1. Re:Holo was still better. by speedplane · · Score: 1

      It was one thing to unify, but turning everything to paper was a step backwards.

      Material Design works well on mobile, and it was clearly created as mobile first. Does not do so well on desktop and larger screens.

      --
      Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
    2. Re:Holo was still better. by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      Material Design works well on mobile

      I don't really think so. It's too ambiguous and unclear, and lacks discovery. You can't tell how to do what you want to do by looking at it.

    3. Re:Holo was still better. by speedplane · · Score: 1

      Material Design works well on mobile

      I don't really think so. It's too ambiguous and unclear, and lacks discovery. You can't tell how to do what you want to do by looking at it.

      Poor discovery is definitely the common criticism. But discovery is only one element of a UI, there are tradeoffs, but overall I subjectively think it works well.

      --
      Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
  33. The market says otherwise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Samsung is the worlds biggest seller of phones, Google isn't even in the top ten. Even if you consider just the market segment their Pixel phones are released into, they don't sell well compared to the competition. Honestly they're ugly half plastic things, and the "clean" "pure" interface lacks functionality. User buy other peoples stuff not Googles.

    Their tablets? They sold practically none. They need multi-window support, Google simply copied Windows without even thinking if its the best solution for touch. Apple implemented something far more sensible and intuitive in the iPad Pro, Apples tablet market share is up, the market says Google are wrong and Apple are right.

    Many of their newer services are impossible to use. Take Google maps, the Android one on a device without touch.... how do you zoom out? There isn't a way. You can zoom in, but you cannot zoom out, it's only supported by pinch touch interface and without touch it cannot be done.

    Consider the back button on Android, people want to close apps, so apps implement back button as close. Google steadfastly refuses to implement a close-this-app system, and so everyone back-back-back-confirm close-ok, to exit. Millions of apps know this, billions of users know this, yet Google refuses to fix this shortcoming in the design.

    I go to Google.com, it pops up a dialog asking me to login, that dialog obscures another one that asks me if I want to change to english.

    Maps, editing a map and using a map are different sites. To edit it you clink the link to switch to maps.google.com..... as if anyone knows that till they discover it by accident.

    Google Play currently won't update any apps on my device. "Can't update app.... error code 495". I am supposed to visit their website for this error code! Their link requires I accept Chromes terms and conditions, but I use Firefox. Why doesn't it just tell me the error? Why a code number? Police use code numbers so people don't know what they're talking about, Google use 495 for what???

    So many times I get forced to use Google and I don't want to, they are a failing market incumbent trying to secure their place, the new Microsoft.

    1. Re: The market says otherwise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anothe AC crapflood saying 'google is bad' in too many words. How much is Cook paying you?

    2. Re:The market says otherwise by Custard+Horse · · Score: 1

      Take Google maps, the Android one on a device without touch.... how do you zoom out? There isn't a way. You can zoom in, but you cannot zoom out, it's only supported by pinch touch interface and without touch it cannot be done.

      Can't you just double-tap, hold the second tap and move your finger up and down? Up zooms out, down zooms in. Am I missing something or does that not work on all devices?

    3. Re: The market says otherwise by mcswell · · Score: 1

      The reason the poster used so many words should be obvious to a nearsighted sea cucumber: there are so many things wrong with Google apps. And he only scratched the surface. Don't get me started on Google News.

      The thing that has too many words is the article at the top of this page.

  34. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by lucm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the bad fucking thing about this is that i have to listen some exec dolt talk about how they got some new whizwhiz wweewee guru now at gooooooooogle and how they're good at design now at gooooogle

    Don't worry too much about it. Everyone can tell their products are terrible. Google is not good at design.

    Compare Google maps and Bing maps. The UX on Bing maps is vastly superior. Same for Bing images. As a search engine Bing is awful but the frontend (at least for images) is much better. Even Yahoo Search gives a better experience for images than Google.

    Or look at browsers. Is changing settings a delightful experience in Chrome, compared to Firefox or Safari? Absolutely not. It feels weird, you can never tell if you've looked at all the options, and when you change something it's not immediately clear if it's saved or not. These are all things that a junior designer could tell are wrong.

    If you really want a scare, open the developer tools that every developer knows as F12 but that somehow Google is trying to migrate to CTRL-Shift-I. Try to find the cookies or SSL certificates. Depending on the version of Chrome, they're not gonna be in the same place. Why? What problem are they trying to solve? All that was needed in terms of features and capabilities was already present in Firebug years ago. Google is just horsing around.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  35. History repeats itself, especially if it's bad by lucm · · Score: 1

    Remember what Microsoft attempted 15+ years ago with .Net: a single codebase and programming paradigm for multiple devices and media?

    That's how countless ASP.net web developers have no idea about what happens client-side versus server-side, since they are used to simply double-click on the control and write C# or VB.Net code in the event method; the widgets themselves take care of those details like ajax or win32 api. We've seen this horrible approach leak in the NodeJS world, with things like MeteorJS where you have to check the isClient variable to know if you're client or server-side... not so different from isPostback in Asp.net. Interestingly, MeteorJS also has isServer, because as we all know, the only thing better than a boolean variable is two boolean variables with opposite meaning.

    Well, Material Design is yet another take on this. One framework to rule them all, from things that can fit on your wrist to things that are bigger than your parent's first TV. Mission accomplished: it's terrible everywhere.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  36. Those All Look Terrible by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 2

    Why is a fluff piece about appearances on a site "for nerds?"

    1. Re:Those All Look Terrible by speedplane · · Score: 1

      Why is a fluff piece about appearances on a site "for nerds?"

      Not sure what a nerd is anymore. Tech is now mainstream. It's not enough to understand the tech anymore, you have to understand how it's used.

      --
      Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
    2. Re:Those All Look Terrible by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Joshua Topolsky? I wonder if that's his real name, or whether he's trying to be Joel Spolsky.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Those All Look Terrible by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      Not sure what a nerd is anymore. Tech is now mainstream. It's not enough to understand the tech anymore, you have to understand how it's used.

      A nerd is the same thing it always was: being at the cutting edge of technological innovation, development, and research. Nothing in the form of a consumer product fits that definition. Users are users, nerds are the people who have indirectly dictated the evolution of society from the dawn of Humanity. I'll say it again in case it didn't sink in though since your third statement shows a potentially serious caveat to your understanding: CONSUMER PRODUCTS ARE NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM NERD-RELATED.

    4. Re:Those All Look Terrible by speedplane · · Score: 1

      A nerd is the same thing it always was: being at the cutting edge of technological innovation, development, and research.

      That is a definition, but don't really agree with it. Academics are usually the ones at the real cutting edge. Nerds often deal with technology, but the word itself implies some type of anti-social behavior.

      --
      Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
    5. Re:Those All Look Terrible by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      That is a definition, but don't really agree with it. Academics are usually the ones at the real cutting edge. Nerds often deal with technology, but the word itself implies some type of anti-social behavior.

      Ha! Academics haven't been at the forefront of much since they started letting everyone it. At best 1%-3% of the population is intellectually capable of advancing anything - modern academics train laborers and babysit liberal arts majors so they don't do anything stupid while tripping on acid. Innovation happens in industry.

    6. Re:Those All Look Terrible by speedplane · · Score: 1

      Academics haven't been at the forefront of much since they started letting everyone it. ... Innovation happens in industry.

      Are you trolling here? Just about every major discovery from semiconductors, to search engines, to machine learning, to pharmaceuticals all enormously benefited from work at universities. Innovation happens in industry too. But this is besides the point. My original point is that you can be at the forefront of technology and not be a nerd. I think the defining feature of a "nerd" is some sort of antisocial behavior.

      --
      Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
    7. Re:Those All Look Terrible by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      My original point is that you can be at the forefront of technology and not be a nerd. I think the defining feature of a "nerd" is some sort of antisocial behavior.

      No, you can't. The defining feature of a "nerd" is a genius level IQ and an obsession with figuring out why things do what they do, also usually a desire to exploit the laws of nature to your advantage in ways nobody else has.

    8. Re:Those All Look Terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I think a nerd is someone who uses a telephone to talk to other people about telephones."
        – Douglas Adams

      It's not so much about brains or curiosity as about focus of interest and non-conformity with 'mainstream' interests. There's a reason we have math nerds, ham radio nerds and chess nerds, but no football nerds.

  37. Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Current youtube UI upheaval isn't categorically terrible, but flat UIs need to die a swift death. they were relevant in the 80s when computers displayed only a few colors. And put borders on your fucking buttons, you twits. Don't make them look like greyed out text.

  38. google by farhad2 · · Score: 0

    Hi google perfect search engine at world https://www.itelegram.org/ telegram news

    1. Re:google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and how many users in the world actually speak Persian??

    2. Re:google by mcswell · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure, but farhad's point might be that even if you don't have a clue what the Persian says, you can still figure out the UI. That's not quite true for me (the three large buttons(?) at the bottom don't seem to do anything), but it is an interesting idea. Hieroglyphics, I mean icons, almost never help me figure out a UI, and I like text. But perhaps for some purposes (maps, for example), one could build an a-lingual UI that would actually work. (Google Maps is not that UI.)

  39. My words stand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You cannot face the truth so you pretend the person telling the truth is a paid shill. Try reading the points and addressing them. They are all true and all valid.

    The situation currently is that Google let down the Android eco system, the only place this becomes crystal clear is in pure Android devices Google produces itself. Those don't sell. People don't want them. Yet the Android devices skinned and extended by others DO sell loads. So the difference is the Google design parts.

    Google just launched a stupid merged Android/ChromeOS tablet. It copies Windows windowing system, the OS with collapsing market share (currently only 15% of user devices sold run Windows). Do you want me to predict how a bad copy of a bad OS will sell? It should be self evident from the lack of interest even among reviewers.

  40. Re: Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by lucm · · Score: 1

    And you are one of those people who see everything as black or white (I think the technical term for that is "being immature")

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  41. Google vs Apple.... Apple vs Google. Bias bias! by TauPixel · · Score: 1

    Considering it's the same person who wrote the article about apple being bad at design. I can't stop thinking that there's a bias to these both articles and can't see a productive discussion.

  42. Re: Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, the technical term for that is "simpleton".

  43. Horse shit. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Everything google touches gets harder to use the more they touch it, and they ignore completely absolutely all feedback from users. Otherwise explain G+ whitespace.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Horse shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      G+ is still alive? Isn't that retired yet?

  44. Re: Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No, that would be severe colour blindness.

  45. author lives in another reality by gravewax · · Score: 1

    What the fuck is this garbage? google haven't gotten better with design they have gotten a 1000 times worse. Android is not an example of google design, it is a success despite the horrid design and inconsistent user experience.

  46. speaking of design.. by Cederic · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure I trust any commentary on design from a website that's so utterly fucking shit in its presentation of its content.

    That's a horrific web page!

    Anyway, the original Google.com was beautifully designed - "All the while, they've stubbornly kept the Google homepage concise and pristine." --https://www.wired.com/2003/01/google-10/

    1. Re:speaking of design.. by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      And there's so many similar websites out there. I blame CMS templates and idiot designers. Content needs to be separated in sections, not thrown at the browser as one long single page. And what's with those damn animated wavy separator lines? DO NOT MAKING ANYTHING MOVE ON THE PAGE BY ITSELF. That's anti-user design, some of us can't read when things move around on their own.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  47. Please, fix the title by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 0

    Google Is Really Good At Fucked Up Design

  48. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by PoopJuggler · · Score: 0

    Nice try, Microsoft.

  49. Joshua Topolsky Is Really Good At Being A Shill by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    n/c

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  50. Fluff piece by Neuroelectronic · · Score: 1

    I really like this article is designed. It generates a lot of feedback and it's really interesting as I know Google is very important company and I should read up on what they are doing to keep ahead of the curve.

  51. Google stuff is affordable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even more impressive is that good design also includes affordable products. This is where you begin to question, if Google can make affordable technology that is well designed, functions good and is supported. Why is a company like Apple unable to do the same without a high price tag? I have used some mid level Chromebooks as good as a Macbook Air is function, and the hardware is perfectly matched for the OS. Not saying Apple isn't making great products, but they seem obsessed with achieving a inflated mark up to do so.

  52. Is this a joke by DarkRookie · · Score: 1

    Is this a joke posting or what.

    --
    The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
    1. Re:Is this a joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a fake-news style advertising campaign. Notice that there's a spike in "google rocks" stories in the last few weeks... they really want pixel to inch towards iphone's success levels.

    2. Re:Is this a joke by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Joke posting on a joke website.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  53. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    3 3 3
    nicely done.

    Google is proletarian, but not design-incompetent. It's more like the Ikea of software.

    Ikea also has a few silly products you need to avoid. Ikea is also always discontinuing things: I had to order a replacement cover for my couch from a 3rd party because Ikea EOL'd the couch and stopped supporting it. Ikea also does clever "tax minimization."

  54. Guidelines? That really sells the argument. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Guidelines? That really sells the argument.

    Eat your own dogfood first.

  55. Ok, this is pretty funny by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I followed the link and skimmed quickly, just to look at pictures. After the initial image of the upcoming products, there is a sweet ass picture of a phone that looks like it wipes the floor with all competitors. Unlike a lot of crap out there, it appears they left enough space in the case to fit in a real battery, and it has physical buttons too! Win/win. Finally, there's going to be be good phone hardware on the market! I was getting excited.

    Then the caption explains that it's the G1, the first Android phone. The best-looking product on the page is the one the author hates the most, and apparently Google too since you can't buy anything like that anymore.

    Fuuuuuuuuck....

    (To be clear, I was just judging the book by its cover. I'm not saying the G1 has a great processor or enough storage or anything like that. I'm just saying that it looks like an outstanding case compared to anything you can get from Google, Apple, Samsung, etc.)

    --
    "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
  56. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Same for Apple ever since Jony Ive took over all design duties. The man has no expertise in ergonomics and his ego is too big for him to be wrong.

  57. uhh.. by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    excuse me? good at design? Have you actually SEEN what they presented? none of that actually looked any good, just like their chromecast which looks awful.
    Sorry but if there's one thing google's bad at, it's design.

  58. What?? by JohnFen · · Score: 1

    I emphatically disagree. The products Google introduced are uniformly ugly (particularly the Pixels). That follows with the hideousness that is "material design".

    From where I sit, Google is terrible at design.

    1. Re:What?? by mcswell · · Score: 1

      I think we all sit there. Perhaps this article was supposed to come out on April 1.

  59. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Compare Google maps and Bing maps. The UX on Bing maps is vastly superior. Same for Bing images.

    You may be the same person I replied to last time I asked this question but ... Are you high?

    Google is trying to migrate to CTRL-Shift-I

    By trying to migrate to you mean has been using since it's inception right? It also makes sense. There are multiple developer shortcuts that land you in different places, all Ctrl+shift+something. Why should one suddenly be F12 (which still works might I add). Frankly I'm happy I can bring up the developer console on my laptop without reaching for the function shift key.

    Try to find the cookies or SSL certificates. Depending on the version of Chrome, they're not gonna be in the same place. Why? What problem are they trying to solve?

    The problem that the previous place was retarded for something only developers look at when you have a dedicated developer toolbox.

    All that was needed in terms of features and capabilities was already present in Firebug years ago.

    Yep, and bloody hard to find at the time too. Your problem is you got used to something and someone moved your cheese.

  60. This is an ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is an advertisement for Google

  61. Trump will fix this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google is NOT good at design! Stop lying to us you fucking communist scum! MAGA!!

  62. Re: Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hmmm His score is +5. Yours is +1. Looks like people agree with him and not you. Guess that makes you WRONG.

  63. Mission accomplished by lucm · · Score: 1

    I think it worked, the MSFT stock is soaring.

    https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q...
    (look at the 5-day chart)

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  64. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by lucm · · Score: 1

    the Ikea of software.

    Ikea sells cheap chinese crap just like walmart, but with better marketing. So they're more like Apple than google.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  65. I really, really hate material design. by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 1

    Duarte was right: Google is really bad at design. And design at Google got much worse once Duarte took the helm. Material design is a major step backwards for user interfaces: gratuitous animation is freaking annoying, and adds pointless latency, which incurs cognitive cost.

  66. donuts by mcswell · · Score: 1

    "A fuzzy little donut you can have a conversation with." Where I come from, donuts are for eating. Unless they're fuzzy, in which case it's time to throw them in the trash. And I would much rather have a conversation with my wife, or my children, or any other human.

    I agree with virtually everyone else here; Google is Terrible at design.

    And for the record, the author flunked Topology 101; that thing is not homeomorphic with a donut.

    1. Re:donuts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Donuts don't have to have holes, dude.

  67. Why JEWgle is really bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jews believe this of others they call goyim/gentiles (any non-jew): Jews = biggest racists of all (for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Perrone, Spanish inquistion, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above. Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud. This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Khazar/Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple):

    Barbara Spectre, a jew, tells everyone it's jews orchestrating the muslim migrant problem in Europe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ/ . No migrant raping of women in Poland. Tons in Sweden. Do the math. Use common-sense. This is to get muslims and other goyim/gentiles to wipe one another out as incompatible cultures that will clash and always have.

    George Soros who funds groups to create division in the USA?? A jew. One who sold his own jew people into death for the nazis. Zucker @ CNN is another frying publicly for lying about "russians" and John Bonifield a producer @ CNN said it is bs. Van Jones did also.

    What World-famous Men have said About the Jews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MYPzKNQUE0/

    Harvey Weinstein the child molester tops it all off.

    There are three types of people who call themselves Jews:

    1. True Torah [Sephardic] Jews: these are the descendants of Prophet Jacob-Israel (Jacobites or Israelites) (about 5%-10% of all Jews)

    2. Khazarian or Ashkenazi Jews: these are the descendants of a Turkic idol/phallic worshiping tribe who migrated to Russia in the 7th Century A.C. and whose nobility converted to Judaism in the 8th Century A.C. and now inhabit mostly Europe. (about 90%-95% of all Jews)

    3. Zionist Jews: these are the ones from the 2 above who are pretending to be Jews for political reasons but whoâ(TM)re are actually Illuminists-Luciferian-Masonic-Satanists as Harold Wallace Rosenthal admits in this interview.

    They are led by the neo-Pharisees (occult-priest-banklords). They want to establish a Zionist Luciferian state from the Nile to the Euphrates from where they plan to rule the Earth. The new Israeli Supreme Court funded by the Rothschilds Banklords is full of Masonic Symbols, just like the B.I.S. Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, which is the Mother of All Private Central Banks.

    The hexagram symbol on the Israeli flag is the ancient Star of Moloch, a Satanic-Baal deity to which people were sacrificed. There is no such thing as a Star of David which the modern Jews have been fooled into believing; however, the True Torah Jews are not fooled by the Zionists Illuminatis and you can visit their websites for more info .

    1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim is like killing a wild animal."

    2. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."

    3. Sanhedrin 59a: "A goy (Gentile) who pries into The Law (Talmud) is guilty of death."

    4. Yebhamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age."

    5. Schabouth Hag. 6d: "Jews may swear falsely by use of subterfuge wording."

    6. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Do not save Goyim in danger of death."

    7. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Show no mercy to the Goyim."

    8. Choschen Hamm 388, 15: "If it can be proven that someone has given the money of Israelites to the Goyim, a wa

    1. Re:Why JEWgle is really bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More proof is this deluded psychopath jew JustAnotherOldGuy saying this https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11228639&cid=55361525/

  68. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by fastasleep · · Score: 1

    Jony Ive hasn't been in charge of "all design duties" for a few years now. Richard Howarth is the head of Industrial Design, Alan Dye is the head of User Interface. They do all the product design duties.

  69. Re:Joshua Topolsky's really good at being a shill by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

    Compare Google maps and Bing maps. The UX on Bing maps is vastly superior.

    Based on what? Google Maps has a more minimalist UI so that you can see more of the map, and you can click on objects (i.e. buildings, houses, monuments) to get their information (i.e. Address, coordinates, address block). Bing shows hardly any buildings at all, doesn't show ANY houses, and what few it shows are only occasionally clickable. Bing doesn't have any information (i.e. hours, menus, etc) about most businesses, its traffic data pales in comparison, and zooming in and out is also much slower.

    Furthermore, research shows that flat UIs (like the one Bing Maps uses) make users work 22% slower on average than UIs that provide depth (like what Google uses)

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/...

    That alone shows a crappy UX. But let's take this further:

    Google also allows you to look around buildings in the 3-space, even allowing you to zoom all the way out and see a webgl rendering of earth. This also works in almost every national park (even smaller ones) where you can see the mountain terrain in three dimensions, and better yet, the resolution in these areas at the closest zoom level is way better than what Bing provides. Google also maps all of the major trailheads and landmarks in even the less famous national parks, whereas Bing rarely does (look up hidden valley natural tunnel at south mountain national park for example; compare what you find with bing vs what you find in Google...Bing throws you to some place in Virginia.)

    You're going to have to describe pretty well how Bing Maps comes anywhere close to being as good as Google Maps in terms of UX, and there's no way in hell that Bing is equal, let alone better. And Bing Maps looks like a retarded stepchild compared to Google Maps in terms of features.