I will agree that their stuff is certainly prettier now, but I've found the usability has tanked across the board. I'd rather have something I can use than something that just looks nice.
In the same way that engineers over-engineer, designers over-design. The difference is when you over-design a user interface the end-user actually notices.
In the same way that developers jump on the next new language and framework, the designer jumps on the next trend. But when you change the interaction pattern the end-user has to re-learn.
Those clever lines of code you love so much in your last project? That's the 50ms animation that really ties together the page - but creates that noticeable (and endlessly anoying) lag where after you click you have to wait to start entering data but you always start to soon and it misses the first letter or the keystroke does something else because the page focus is wrong.
Sometimes design isn't about pretty, it's about not annoying the office worker who uses your product several hours per day.
This. Could someone at Google (and every other hip software company) please print this 2000x with a wide-format printer and plaster the walls of the designers' offices with it? Thanks.
Every millisecond counts.
Nothing is more valuable than people's time. Google pages load quickly, thanks to slim code and carefully selected image files. The most essential features and text are placed in the easiest-to-find locations. Unnecessary clicks, typing, steps, and other actions are eliminated. Google products ask for information only once and include smart defaults. Tasks are streamlined.
Speed is a boon to users. It is also a competitive advantage that Google doesn't sacrifice without good reason.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20080719213524/http://www.google....
Design should include usability. The eye-candy part is just a wrapper.
By that definition, Google certainly doesn't get design.
I don't think anyone would disagree with that? But hiding useful tools isn't necessarily bad design either - there's usually a tradeoff to be made to help the majority of users perform a common interaction easier vs. surfacing a more infrequently used tool more prominently.
The problem with maps is that they appear to be making it up as they go along. There are years of user interface research but because we're moving to touch interfaces it feels like designers are throwing all that research away.
Maps now is a confusing hard to use program. Functionality is not hidden in one set of menus. To do something you hae to search through a few different places, and the only way to learn is to just do it, but there are few affordances so you don't even know if a thing on the screen is clickable (or whether you need to tap; hold; pinch; drag; or stretch it).
Even after using it, I still have to re-learn it every time i use it. There's no intuitivity (totally a word) at all.
I've seen a number of philosophy of design videos about material, is there such a thing explaining the design choices of maps? Some icons have background, some don't. Different options available depending on the mode. Novel, but frustrating for me, shadow menu under the search box. Is there some vision that I'm just not getting or I would understand better if I just looked at it right? I remember being really frustrated with unix command line interface until I understood the philosophy and then I loved it, would be great to have the same moment of clarity for maps.
I agree. That said, I think they're very early in infusing design with their culture. I would even argue pre-'design' @ Google, they were still very user centered, but in different ways.