Don’t Look For Me On Facebook, I’ve Moved To Google+ | Hacker News Reader

Don’t Look For Me On Facebook, I’ve Moved To Google+

singularityhub.com

5 pointsjlhamilton4 comments

Disclaimer: I don't have a FaceBook account. I never had a myspace account either so I don't know much about social websites. I do make an occasional "tweet", but not often.

I got a g+ invite and tried using the service for 3 weeks. I deleted the account yesterday. In short, I found it overwhelming and confusing. Simple things like deleting photos or only sharing stuff with some circles was difficult to follow. Setting privacy was especially confusing. The options were worded in such a way that I had to re-read them several times to understand whether I was enabling or disabling something.

I felt I was going in circles (no pun intended). For example, try to find the "sign out" menu item. I did and felt, that it did not belong in the spot where Google put it. It seemed some things like "sign out" were purposefully made difficult to find and others were worded in such a way as to make the meaning intentionally confusing. I felt these things were done on purpose and that bothered me.

Finally, I hear others say that Twitter is now in trouble because of g+. I disagree. Twitter is immediately intuitive to me and does not try to do too much while making it difficult for users to figure out where to push what button and the privacy issues there are simple and easy to understand.

Just my 2cents about g+.

Interesting that you mention the sign out button; it's in the same place for all the other Google products (except YouTube). Did you sign up for a gmail account just to get on +?

No, I have a gmail account, but don't use it. I understand that it's not in Google's interest for me to "log out" (regardless of the service) and I think the location of the button reflects that.

It's certainly possible, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume evil just because a GUI isn't exactly how you would expect it. For reference, facebook's log out is in exactly the same place (accounts dropdown at the top right, logout).

In my experience it's become a pretty standard UI feature; there is always either an account dropdown in the top right or a logout button in the top right. I would honestly be more confused by a direct log out button in the top left or than the drop-down in the top right at this point.

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