Google's new "batshit crazy" UX→
Google recently redesigned their sites so that users can no longer click on the top-left logo to take them “home.” First of all, this is not one of those “OMG I hate the new Facebook/Twitter redesign” overreactions — this is a legit UX gripe, and I am clearly not the only one.
Dustin Curtis recently linked to a post by former Google designer Kevin Fox on why this change is ridiculous:
The new Gmail and Google+ ‘clicking on the logo does nothing’ behavior seems just absurd. […] As long as there is a property logo on your page, clicking on that logo should take you to the top level of that property, and if you’re already on the top level and it’s a dynamic site, clicking on it again should perform the same action as clicking a refresh button on the same page.
This isn’t a Google convention that will be acclimated to if changed. It’s an Internet convention that predates Google’s existence by a good many years. It’s like if Audi started shipping all 2012 vehicles with gearshifts on the driver’s left, no matter which side of the road folks drive on in your country, because it creates a more consistant experience across Audi cars or supports a future Audi strategy.
I’m an amateur web designer at best (and nowhere near as smart as most of the people who work at Google) but even I’m familiar with the clickable logo convention. Even crazier is the fact that in Google Reader and Gmail — the two Google products I use most — the orange text underneath the Google logo doen’t take you “home” either:
While you actually can use the orange text to go “home” in Gmail (it takes two clicks instead of one, though), in Reader the text isn’t even clickable. Seriously? What a waste.
As someone who often clicks on a site’s logo to go “home,” this really grinds my gears. [dcurtis via Techmeme]
How Steve Jobs ruined my life→
An industrial designer shares his thoughts on how Steve Jobs and Apple’s success may have actually stunted the design movement. An interesting take:
As a designer, you might think that I would be inspired by Apple. Maybe even in awe of their awesome design might. I am, but they’ve also made my job so much harder. Unfortunately, I don’t mean in terms of raising the standard of design.
All of a sudden, business stopped listening. Now they “understood.” They didn’t need to pay designers to do research into what people wanted. People wanted Apple.
Redesigned Gmail and Google Reader coming soon→
Google has really made a conscious effort to put more emphasis on its design lately. I can’t wait to try the new Gmail and Google Reader:
“Internal” Google staff video of the new Gmail look
Upcoming changes to Reader: a new look, new Google+ features, and some clean-up
The "readability" of Google Maps labels→
Google isn’t exactly known for coming up with the prettiest designs, but their products are always highly usable. This article explains why the labels in Google Maps are simply more “readable” than those on, say, Yahoo! or Bing. Pretty cool stuff.
It turns out that Google uses a variety of techniques and visual tricks to help make its city labels much more readable than those of its competitors. From the use of different shadings to the decluttering of areas outside of major cities, it sure seems like Google has put a lot of thought into how it displays the labels appearing on its maps. I have no doubt that little touches like these are among the many reasons why Google remains the web’s most popular mapping site.
[41Latitude via DC Domain]
Better screen, same old typography→
Don’t know much about typography (don’t know much about biology), but I still thought this article on Apple’s apparent lack of attention to typography was interesting to say the least. [Subtraction via Engadget Alt]
On multitouch gestures…
I’m a big fan of the use of multitouch as a UI, but Lukas Mathis writes an interesting article discussing some of the fundamental UI problems faced by the use of more non-obvious gestures. Out of all his solutions, I tend to like the idea of only using complex gestures as shortcuts best. [ignore the code via Daring Fireball and Chris Drackett]
