I feel like there isn't even an option to give feedback to Google.
I was trying to join a Google Meet (or is it Hangouts? or is it Hangouts Meet? Or is it Gmail meet?) event this morning. It somehow dialed out of my Gmail app (WTF?) instead of the Meet app, said it was "joining as" my personal account and I had no option to switch it to my work account, and I wasn't able to look at my e-mail during the meeting because the Gmail app was busy dealing with a call.
I don't even know where to begin about how awful of a UX this has become. I'd give them feedback but there isn't even an obvious option to do that.
Also, I truly hate the new UIs from Google where buttons jump around. The order of "Maps", "Images" tabs in search results jumps around depending on the search and that messes with my muscle memory. Buttons just randomly disappear and appear as you scroll up and down. Names of streets and restaurants randomly disappear in navigation mode. Some buttons get bigger and smaller as you scroll. What was the product manager smoking when they called for this BS? As a user I constantly feel like I can never use my phone, and I have no way to even relay this to them. Did they even care to A/B test this stuff and analyze how many times users were e.g. hitting the back button (or other metrics of user fumbling)?
I get the impression they don’t care if you enjoy using it, just that you are using it so they can continue to capture the data. They know most people aren’t going anywhere.
Well, if engagement is measured by time in the system, then a bad UI/UX can help that measure. If things move around inside an app frequently enough, I'm forced to spend more time using it because I on longer know how (Google Finance changed yet again a few weeks ago on me). If they hold an outsized share of the market + momentum from people having used their services for (now) 20+ years, then they can get away with this for a while.
This sounds cynical, but I wonder if this is actually the case to some extent. If you only look at engagement metrics, then those engagement metrics will be optimised, no matter how. Cobra effect and all that.
There’s an amusing issue with Google Opinion Rewards where it only supports payouts to PayPal (of all things), it doesn’t let you enter a PayPal account, instead it just assumes your Google account is your PayPal account and sends money there.
This means I can’t use it because PayPal somehow let someone else add my email to their account years ago and won’t unlink it.
I was trying to join a Google Meet (or is it Hangouts? or is it Hangouts Meet? Or is it Gmail meet?) event this morning. It somehow dialed out of my Gmail app (WTF?) instead of the Meet app, said it was "joining as" my personal account and I had no option to switch it to my work account, and I wasn't able to look at my e-mail during the meeting because the Gmail app was busy dealing with a call.
I don't even know where to begin about how awful of a UX this has become. I'd give them feedback but there isn't even an obvious option to do that.
Also, I truly hate the new UIs from Google where buttons jump around. The order of "Maps", "Images" tabs in search results jumps around depending on the search and that messes with my muscle memory. Buttons just randomly disappear and appear as you scroll up and down. Names of streets and restaurants randomly disappear in navigation mode. Some buttons get bigger and smaller as you scroll. What was the product manager smoking when they called for this BS? As a user I constantly feel like I can never use my phone, and I have no way to even relay this to them. Did they even care to A/B test this stuff and analyze how many times users were e.g. hitting the back button (or other metrics of user fumbling)?