I'm most confused about Google's decision to remove the links from the logos. This is a convention engrained in the interwebs and I can't come up with a single reason why they would change it. Sure maybe inexperienced users wouldn't know the functionality exists, but when has that ever been a reason to remove a feature?
I think there was a HN discussion about this recently, but I missed it. Anybody know why they made this decision?
This is my own personal assumption, but I think it is to push focus towards the navigation bar and encourage users to look around. If you instinctively click the logo and nothing happens you start looking around and will discover the other things listed (such as the google+ button).
1. They are planning to get rid of it. Google has way too many non-removable elements as is, even using so called compact mode. Right now they have two or three bars that could be smashed together with a few modifications. This is doubly true if they get rid of a giant useless logo that stalks you throughout your pages.
2. People were clicking it by accident. As a heavy net user, I don't feel this, but perhaps older or tablet users (but then why not fix it for them) were clicking it and pulling themselves out of Gmail. I could see this being extremely frustrating for a user trying to click the mail or search button.
3. They wanted to shift the functionality to the black bar. This is sort of a combination of the above two. The Google logo is pretty ambiguous. When I click it do I want to reload the page? Do I want to go to the Google homepage? Do I want iGoogle (why did they ruin Reader temporarily but not fix the mess that is iGoogle)? Do I want to search with the bar next to the logo? This is compounded by the fact that it has a context based search bar next to it. I know what that bar does but the context search UI is pretty ambiguous for a first time user.
Purely speculation, but it seems like the only reason they'd do this is to free up the space for a future use case? While it will probably annoy/stump a few people for a second or two, ultimately people will just learn not to click on the logo.
At that point, the Google logo could become... err... well they tried to turn it into an all-google-properties dropdown previously, so who knows, maybe they'll try again later?
"While it will probably annoy/stump a few people for a second or two, ultimately people will just learn not to click on the logo."
No trust me, you will try and click it everyday. My former college had, and still has, a link-less logo; that didn't stop anyone from trying to click it. It was actually a routine point of conversation in the beginning web classes about just how bad of a design flaw that was because the rest of the web adds a hyperlink to logo's.
If you have a company-esque logo, it should always, always, always take you to either the landing page; or your personal account page if in a logged-in state; depending on your personal needs.
I believe this is one step in transitioning away from 'pages' to something more like apps, where they load and you interact with them through UI and state instead of links. They've already made it basically a requirement to have JavaScript enabled on their sites (for instance Google + is just a blank page without JS), and if you read the Dart leaked memo they seem deathly afraid of smartphone/tablet apps.
Seems believable to me anyway... for instance I read mail almost entirely on my phone now and never log into the gmail.com. Since I'm not using their mail app I never see their ads.
I think there was a HN discussion about this recently, but I missed it. Anybody know why they made this decision?