I live in San Francisco, and work at Pocket Gems. THERE ARE WORDS ON THIS PAGE. Not all of them are true.
FacebookSearch
Subscribe
Subscribe via RSS
Reader redesign: Terrible decision, or worst decision?
Full disclosure: I am an ex-PM on Google Reader, and I worked on comments and the last round of sharing changes. I also left Google in July.
Google released the previously announced set of changes around G+ integration and UI updates today, and boy is it a disaster. Since the general changes were pre-announced last week, most of us were prepared for the letdown, but actually seeing how it works end to end has made several flaws abundantly clear. Let's start with the obvious.
The Visual Changes
In the name of visual consistency, Google has updated the visual style to match Gmail, Calendar and Docs. I have nothing against visual consistency (and in fact, this something that Google should be doing), but it's as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something.
When you log into Reader, what the hell do you think your primary objective is? Did you answer "stare at a giant header bar with no real estate saved for actual reading"? Congrats, here's your prize:
Reader is a product built to consume information, quickly. We designed it to be very good at that one thing. G+ is an experience built around browsing (similar to Facebook) and socializing. Taking the UI paradigm for G+ and mashing it onto Reader without any apparent regard for the underlying function is awful and it shows.
The second and more obvious change, is that someone took the magic color-removing wand and drenched the whole page in grey. It's so unbelievably stark, it's hard to imagine a more desolate experience. Even G+ has blue links for post titles. Blue titles are good enough for Google search. Reader, which is built entirely around posts with titles, does away with this in the name of the almighty grey god.
There plenty of other areas to nitpick like the fact that there's no separation between the reading pane and the subscriptions panel, that the active post you're reading no longer pops out as much as before, and the extra padding crammed into the subscriptions list -- but the old interface wasn't perfect either, though it was designed around satisfying the primary use case of reading. In any case, I only have so much time, and need to save my rage for the next section of even more egregious changes.
The Sharing "Improvements"
Ok, before we get started - let me be very clear about one thing. I think integration with G+ should happen. Reader friends should be managed in the same place you manage G+, with the same metaphors (whether you think they're flawed or not). Sharing should utilize the same infrastructure and plumbing that G+ does. I am not objecting to any of these things. Google has clearly made its bets with G+, and Reader should be part of those plans.
But the new sharing flow around the +1 button has actually made it harder to share. Where you used to be able to click one button, or hit shift-s to one-click share to your audience, you now need to:
- Click +1 (no keyboard shortcuts for you)
- Click the text box that appears that says "Share to G+"
- Then choose your circle you want to share to (or let it default to public)
- Then click Share
Keep in mind that on top of requiring 3-4 times as many clicks, you also now must +1 a post publicly to share it, even if it's shared to a private circle. That bears repeating. The next time you want to share some sexy halloween costumes with your private set of friends, you first must publicly +1 the post, which means it shows up on your profile, plus wherever the hell G+ decides to use +1 data. So much for building a network around privacy controls.
The frustrating thing is that these pitfalls could have been avoided through a more thought out integration. As Kevin Fox has already pointed out, Google could have easily made it so that sharing was pushed through G+ (therefore giving providing content on G+, and gaining all the benefits of an integration), but also replaced shared items from People You Follow with a Reader-specific Circle.
But no - instead, they've ripped out the ability to consume shared items wholesale from the product. The closest analogue might be if Twitter made it so that 3rd party clients could use the Retweet functionality to push Retweets to a user's stream -- but only allowed you to consume Retweets on twitter.com.
It's almost as if Google wants to demonstrate that, yes, they don't really get platforms. Instead of improving the G+ API to support Reader as a fully functional 3rd party client (a la Twitter), they've instead crippled the product under the guise of improvements.
A History of Neglect
Google has long neglected Reader as a product. (Hey can someone fix Recommended Items? Please?) Reader was fortunate to have a passionate team that was trying to do the right thing for their users by continuing to innovate and build on the experience, but it's not hard to tell from the official blog that core updates died down a long time ago.
Reader never achieved the massively popular status of Gmail or Google News. But it did develop a fanatical following of users, and was one of the few places that Google was able to experiment with and learn about social features.
After I left Google in July, I heard that there was renewed effort around the project and that a new team was bringing some much-needed attention to the product. I expected them to give the product a facelift, and integrate G+ -- both things that needed to happen.
But killing off functionality that could have easily been built on top of G+, and missing the mark by so much on the UI... and then releasing them under the guise of improvements?
(Thanks to Harry Glaser and Zach Brock for reviewing this post.)
Update: It turns out there is a way to share without +1'ing first. If you click on the top right "Share..." field on the OneGoogle bar, you can bypass the +1 button. It's just completely undiscoverable.
Also, some other things that have jumped out at me after using it some more:
- Links within posts are also universally grey, making them harder to see
- Since there's no keyboard shortcut to share, if you're in the middle of a long post, you must scroll all the way down to the bottom of the post to click the +1 button and share, unless you know to use the alternative sharing method by clicking on the OneGoogle bar. Which you won't.
Comments (189)
We part ways on the G+ idea, I interpret the drive to merge with it as Google having never really understood social reading / content-centric sharing. I don't see why you'd have ever been motivated to move to a Plus model if you really "got" those things, saw how people were interacting in your product, and appreciated why it all worked so well.
Or maybe Google understands and doesn't care. Or maybe this kind of thing is just what massive blundering corporations do.
Now I've realised there's a share option at the top right that gets round this I'm still furious, only this time at the terrible UI. They really should duplicate this feature next to the other action buttons relating to an item.
Honestly, this Google Reader redesign is just what I needed.
Bitter, no, I'm not #$!$!% bitter.
Thanks for all the great work you and your team did on what was once Google's best product.
I'm really going to miss it, and honestly I just feel sad that I won't be able to connect with my two favorite internet pals in the same way anymore. I guess it's back to sending emails with links in them again...old school sharing & commenting.
The arrows to move up/down from post to post needs to be somewhere beneath the reading window. People read from top to bottom, therefore those buttons only make sense below the reading pane, not above, for those of us who like sifting through a lot of headlines quickly to get to the juicy stuff.
Also Google must figure out a way to both share and see shared stuff within Reader without having to leave the Reader site and head on over to Google +. I like both Reader and Plus, but when I'm doing my reading, the entire appeal of Google Reader is that it's a one-stop shop. Now Google is forcing me into a two-stop shop. That's gotta change.
The red subscribe button is hilarious in comparison to the rest of the monochrome scheme.
I just hope they're soaking up feedback and prepared to move quickly on it.
"If, however, you decide that the product is no longer for you, then please do take advantage of Reader's subscription export feature. Regardless where you go, we want to make sure you can take your data with you." Subtlety has never been Google's strong point. They may as well admit that they're nixing Reader.
Anyone curious about the practical development of RSS should be considering, firstly, a new model or function for sync. But, past even rivers of news, I believe we need to further explore the bounds of how we can interpret feeds.
They had the foundation for a collaborative Evernote killer that predated Wave and already worked, yawned, and threw it away.
Don't even get me started on losing Reader's social interface, regardless of what powered it: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109372531542734504522/posts/fHsSwwY4HUK
Now that GR/Social is dead, G+ is dead to me, and GR/Reader is on life support, there's a bit of a niche opening up.
Who fills that niche? Tumblr? Posterous? Pen-io? Something new?
Brian Shih - want to do a startup?
And new G Reader is sucks!
The UI style can be tweaked, but the big loss is in-context sharing and comments. I wrote a post about one workaround: http://thomaspark.me/2011/11/share-in-google-reader-again/
There's a taint-of-evil in the way Google dumped this data with 1 week's warning. That's bad, but what's worse is the stupidity of it all. The design, the way they did this, the migration path they chose, the impact on the fragile reputation of the Cloud.
Give me Apple-grade "evil" over Google-grade incompetence. Please.
-Isaac
I want to add that what's also gone is the "Note in Reader" feature. This was available as a bookmarklet and let you well note in Reader anything you came across on the internet.
This content could be both shared and archived for one's own convenience and this has been a huge huge feature for me.
Brian, what I would like to ask you is how could this happen? Do you have any idea whatsoever? You wrote that it is "as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something." I feel so today, but, really? Google?
I will miss the friends network, I will miss my notes (this is the 2nd blow after google discontinued notebook product), I used greader for bookmarking and sharing using the simple browser extension..I will miss all these.
Pls somebody give an alternative to this G+. I don't want to stay with the enemy.
Ze
How can a company expect to keep customers (even if the apps are 'free') when they make design decisions that are clearly NOT better for all and then not provide them the opportunity to go back to they way it was before when it was useful?
I suppose this is a perfect example of a graphic design/branding department trying to justify their existence.
It allowed me to know which posts were more popular based on how many people commented on them. This is the same concept used by 4chan.
I wrote about it here: http://wp.me/pps71-1L
Also, the "search in" drop down now fails to handle my massive list of tags (it's now a plain drop down, instead of a combobox where you can type) :-S
No way. We all are. Join the Diaspora and let's figure out where to go from here.
https://groups.google.com/group/google-reader-diaspora
http://alexch.tumblr.com/post/11868074433/why-i-love-and-how-i-use-google-reader
christ. its unbelievably badly designed. do googlers hate design? how is this company so poor?
Apparently you used to be able to do that manually with plusfeed.appspot.com but they had to shut down because the app engine fees got too expensive.
You are the greatest. It is unbelievable that you do not work for Reader at Google anymore. It was by far their best product. Thanks for all you have done, and I know we are all sorry the great product you managed is now in rubbles. I cant wait for HiveMinded to come online.
The whole web is going drab.
First, the screenshot is not a whole screen, just the top-left portion of it, making the content look way out of place.
Second, since the top right share button is on pretty much all google properties (maps, books, etc), the "I didn't notice it" complain will grow old fast. Give it some time, and it will go away.
The ability to share your +1's is been a few months old by now, if I recall correctly. This is another point where the change is being consistent with the rest of google. You can plus-one and share any page with a +1 button on it, you still find it mysterious?
And perhaps I'm cheap, but I love the shade dropped on the left column when I scroll it down. Nice little polish.
Now, the red "subscribe" button looks somewhat humorous indeed, like gmail's red button of "compose email". No need to have a "warning" color there :)
I meant to update the background to #FFEB99 and pick a nice condensed gothic font for you so my points would suddenly be more valid, but I ran out of time.
Forgive me?
Why should I go out and look for the appropriate extension to make their product look the way it should have from the beginning?
Speaking of which, how can someone whose site displays black and red text on a yellow/yellower background, with teeny-tiny faded black comment text, even =think= about being qualified to critique page readability?! This is HORRIBLE!
Oh well...this is an example where product innovation can actually move backward.
I think it should also be mentioned that half the people I used to share with on gReader are NOT on G+, Why? Because they don't see why they should have to sign up to that with a 'real name' (not your LEGAL name mind you, but a 'real' one that has to follow the first name/surname convention and 'look' real to Google) when they already have a google account.
Also despite what gReader blog post said, i have yet to find anyone who has ability in setting to revert to old version (for now at least).
Google lost two developers (you and kevin) that were so passionate about their job that they felt the need to publish those long corrections for the mistakes their successors did.
another sad thing is that Google still cant see how passionate i am and they do not even reply to my CV submissions.
the good thing is that by iteration Google will modify its apps for the win, sooner or later.
For the many of my friends who are deeply and rightly of Google+ and its privacy implications who will not use Google+ under any circumstances, they've been effectively removed from the conversation - and if I can't talk with my friends about items of interest, there's no point in using the service anymore.
The fact that Google doesn't even understand this, that one of the most interesting aspects of Reader was the built-in commentary, is a sure sign they just don't get it anymore.
It would be a shame to be forced to move away from reader considering all the tagging I've done over the years. Is there any real alternative?
That, and my "Sharing" button is now gone, and I had that all set up through dlvr.it to take the RSS feed and tweet my shared items.
Damn you Google...Shame on you!!
What is especially annoying is that there is no visible distinction between read and unread posts like earlier. This causes a real problem when scrolling through as new items are loading (and existing items are expanding due to images, etc...).
Additionally, why does the new look and feel IN GMAIL get a "Send Feedback" link persistent on the bottom of the page, and an opt out, but in Google Reader you just have to live with it?
I'm very interested in others' suggestions for coping with the changes, and/or communicating to Google about what needs to change (if such a thing is possible).
One of the things that most annoys me (though seemingly no one else) about the redesign is the starred items view. Previously, if I scrolled all the way to the bottom, it would say how many items were in my starred items. This helped me to manage my items and try to not get too far behind. Now, for some reason, they took that out. I'm having trouble figuring out how not including the number of starred items fits their social or design schemes.
Does anyone have any ideas for other readers that are most similar to the old Google Reader design (if anyone's still reading this far down)?
I used to follow some journalist in Reader that shared some interesting stuff. Now they are just gone. They can't just share it other than using G+ that, in their right don't want to use (don't even forget about the "has to use real name unless you are a celebrity").
So accounts that used pseudonyms in reader can no longer share.
Check it out! ... Join us!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/We-Hate-Google-Reader-Redesign/313525241998240
So glad that vulture posted this, you have so eloquently voiced most of my disappointments with this new "update." Google READER has been a huge part of my daily ritual since a friend first recommended it me freshman year of college (almost 6 years ago, yikes!). It is how I get any and all news, where I learned a love of typographic design and DIY blogs, and a huge part of how my friend group socializes.
Reading the past 24 hours feels remarkably isolating. It is amazing to see what a huge part of the experience was the sharing, and commenting -and being forwarded information by other people's shares. Now it suddenly feels like homework.
I agree that they need to integrate it with their new social network, but I hate the idea that any time I share something it is going to a circle that I predetermine. The best thing about google reader was that it was a select community of people who volunteered to subscribe to your sharing feed. The reason facebook has become overwhelming is that there is no subscription, you constantly bombarded with the "shares" of every person you have encountered for the past few decades. Even if I limit a circle to "close friends," I dont want them to have to see every post I share...I really just want it to go to other people invested in the google reading and sharing experience. If I really want my friends to see something, I will email them. Google reader demanded a much lower level of commitment.
It's also SO much harder to follow the posts with the extreme lack of color, the stark black and whiteness is very jarring to the senses. And the wasted real estate is truly tragic and pointless.
Anywho - just wanted to tell you that your product has had a huge impact on my life these past (many) years and even if was never google's most popular feature it was certainly the one I treasured most. Thank you for your words and your ingenuity!
~Barry
It's broken.
http://notes.kateva.org/2011/11/how-to-replace-google-reader.html
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hfpgmhngikgcmcebikkhopndbaceelna :D
Same as Coca Cola and New Coke!
I never used Google Reader to read articles directly in the app. I used it to scan titles, inspect the beginning to see if it was worth reading. Then I send to instapaper to read later, or click on the link to view in the original form.
For those who read articles directly in google reader, why read in an app that *never* presented content very well?
That is all.
I only use Reader for checking what's new, and that's it. Any feature that has disappeared isn't one that I use. I have a fairly large monitor, so space is never an issue. In terms of color and "simplicity," I like it. Less other stuff for me to look at. Basically, what Kelly Miyashiro said.
Having explored the new design past the main list of headlines, I have to agree that a lot of functionality appears missing and much of the design seems ham fisted and forced. However, I still stand by my comment on the welcome whitespace around the headline list is an improvement, which is the only thing I care about 99% of the time I use Google Reader.
the biggest question of new gg-reader is :
beautiful look , ugly use . （中看不中用）
Just like an Apple style (black/white/gray/red) , but full of beginner level , everywhrer . Sad to hear old members of core reader dev team left google . the most valuable design and life-saving fuctions are all fucked .
Non-webdev-experence big fucking man changed the life-saving gg-reader , in my Clevo notebook's 1080p screen , and firefox-64bit-10.0a with left favorites bar open , even the browser window is less than 1920 pix , in the main reader pane which shows the content list , I can't find the old pre-next button on the bottom , just a very long distance there's up-down fucking button , every time after I clicked some links in the RSS contents I must move my mouse pointer for a super long distance to click the up/down button again ! So I must fuck the stupid-Apple-like designer very hard , because they're wasting my time and waste of my life !
this is only 1 bad design , such as "content with no blue border" is another confused place , and many more . I'm a php web developer in China and I use gg-reader every day and I almost can not find a suggestion place in all google official sites , so I went here to post my opinion with the poor English .
I'm sorry and we all are missing the old version of gg-reader so much .
Finally we must say thank you all old dev-man .
==================================
谷歌不得好死！设计新阅读器的傻屄们，不知道是不是从苹果而来的“高级”大师？这些脑残欠肏的ued人员，完全破坏了阅读器。
上一篇-下一篇的按键，从原来的超级高明的浮游式框体的下方，变为了右上超远距离大王八键！而且每篇文章没有了边框，看起来十分不悦——
苹果化的谷歌，不是我们想要的！我们管苹果叫苹狗，谷歌你悬崖勒马还来得及！
休要再中看不中用了！
They just crippled the whole thing, and what is worst, deleting the contacts, leaving us with *no* good alternative. G+ is not an alternative to Reader.
One of the most useful things, "sort by magic", does not work anymore, it is broken, displaying news from the same feeds always...
You don't treat your users like this, neglecting all the feedback, forcing them the wrong things. For me, this is the beginning of seeing Google as an idiotic large corporation, as opposed to the smart "do-no-evil" one it was some 5 years ago. #google-sucks
Has anyone actually studied whether when FB made their news feed significantly more chunky by adding tons of whitespace and large avatar icons that it actually IMPROVED the user experience? It certainly degraded mine, and I would guess that the continued growth of FB is owed to factors other than the chunkiness which is now mindlessly copied by imitators.
I was very interested in the rolling out of G+ but that has been a marvelous disappointment mostly because it failed to reach critical mass. I don't think it's looking good going forward but who knows. It's just a shame that my second most used Google platform (after search) has gone away.
I once shared quite a bit with a very select group. I no longer share anything or read anything shared by others.
I have one question, and if you can answer :) I am really interested:
With this wast amount of negative feedback, is anyone in google listening to what people want ?
Or are they blinded by : G+ and social are our targets, the rest is not important ?
Is anyone there capable of being a leader and take the Responsibility of a product and fire people if something goes wrong [ like this G.Reader ?
Were the designers even aware that not so many PC/Mac/Linux users have touchscreen? The extra padding and margins they put on the UI components don't make any sense for those who use traditional computers to access Reader.
http://www.google.com/reader/view/#friends-manager-page
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=313e6e132f740c4b&hl=e...
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=3d73303e00ecf4bd&hl=en
1) Even 10000 people complaining about this issues are a minority of the users, so even if they listen it doesn't matter - numbers do
2) The design change reflects the biggest use case - adding feed sources and using Google Reader as synchronization service for News Reading Apps and Podcasting.
3) Google will release another Product for actually "consuming" the feeds the way most people like to do and use Google Reader as backend - so you might not need Feedly, Pulse etc.
I also made a few more comments about the superuser distorted view on the redesign here https://plus.google.com/116114203998112257616/posts/D4TjYfMZKDd
I've got to disagree with you on G+, though. I think G+ is a disastrously bad idea. It's a weird do-over of Buzz. Buzz didn't fail because there were flaws in it. It failed because nobody wants another social network platform. G+ will fail for the same reason -- it will just fail harder.
Because they moved the function buttons around, I accidentally deleted all unread posts when i wanted to refresh. *Argh*
I now use Reader a tiny fraction of what I used to. Part of it is the interface, which is just less easy and snappy to use. But the majority of it is that I used to spend 90% in the Shared By Others section, and that's plain not there any more.
I like Plus. I'm using Plus more than ever now (so Google's cunning scheme has worked somewhat). It's much better than Buzz, and as the API opens up some new functionality is making it more and more useful.
But as you note, they could have done that without pithing Reader so badly.
will be beneficial for me.
www.allindiainstitutions.com
Leave a comment...