Usability Hell

Google+ has been interesting to play around with & will probably be at least a medium sized success.

I also like the fact since Larry Page took over again design seems to be getting a higher priority at Google.

However, there is some usability feces just waiting to hit the giant Dyson Airblade that Eric left behind.

Google clearly liked the old days, pre 2000, when they could spend their work days in their underpants in their Mom’s garage. You can tell because they have brought back the timeless web 1.0 usability classic, buttons with no label (image above)!

In 2011. REALLY. WHAT - Google WHAT! I’ve been using + for a month or two and still can’t remember what they’re all for.

WHAT!

Hot rollover areas: instead of clicking the ‘Add to Circles’ button, when you roll over it it pops up a check box list. This breaks 20+ years of web convention - everyone is going to click the button. You shouldn’t expect users to remember that this one button works differently. Why not make it a drop down list?

Like Facebook, Google seem to think they can re-invent usability because they’re so big. They can’t - or at least it will take years before most people even begin to start getting it & only then if other sites also begin to adopt their conventions.

I’m all for JQuery-ish, fast client side interfaces - Google practically invented this with GMail. GMail stuck to convention though - and Google+ just went that bit too far.

We have fond memories of 2000 too Google (animated gifs are also big in Google+) - but what’s next, 28.8 dialup real player postage stamp sized videos in a microsoft java virtual machine running Netscape Navigator 10 Gold on Windows 95 with Eudora Pro quake 2 LAN party?

I’m getting nostalgic already…