

Google Circles and Path 2.0: How good UI design cannot fix a broken solution - pascal07
http://www.elezea.com/2011/12/google-path-ui-design/

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judofyr
Yes, good UI design cannot fix a broken solution. But how can this article
talk about a "broken solution" when it doesn't even mention the _problem_?! If
you don't see the problem, the solution isn't "broken"; it's just solving a
problem you don't have.

I would have expected this article to actually discuss what problems they are
solving and exactly why their solution is wrong/broken. Instead it just says
"meh, it doesn't solve anything!" without any justification.

How can you even talk about "solutions" to social networks and not mention
privacy at all?

~~~
dlikhten
The problem is that he has more "friends" than he understands. Having 100
people in "friends" is bullshit. Nobody can have 100 friends. They can have 10
friends and 90 acquaintances. Those 90 probably go in "I'm interested in
following their messages but in reality its all public anyways".

Circles are like C. You can shoot yourself in the foot (by horribly missusing
em), or you can make it sing. Google has been following the trends and making
circles better. Following is an excellent feature.

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carldall
I've argued for a long time that Facebook has the huge advantage of having
even reach most of the laggards. All other social networks that don't focus on
an entirely different niche (like Instagram) will probably fail or stay small.

However, a social network doesn't necessarily need 800Mio users to be
relevant. Even a small social network with an avid and interested user base
can succeed.

And this could be the main differentiator here: A user base consisting out of
people that love fantastic design. If they and their design-loving friends are
on there, and don't require the facebook-laggard-surplus, then Path can
succeed.

~~~
pefavre
Sure Path's design is great, but as you say it focuses on classic facebook
users. It is designed to interact with friends and family, which is what
people use fb for. So maybe the best exit for Path is to get bought by
facebook.

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whalesalad
I could not agree with this more. I really love the Path UI and played with it
for a few days, but I just uninstalled it entirely from my iPhone because I
was tired of being notified on two separate social networks.

I had to decide, "Where should I check-in?" or "Where should I post this
photo?" and it all came down to my 10 or 12 'nerd' friends on Path vs. my
large circle of friends on Facebook. That decision is what killed it for me.

~~~
mvzink
This is why I am not friending any of my "nerd friends" on Path. Only family,
many of whom live across the country, and my (coincidentally very non-
technical) two circles of close friends, who also live throughout the country.

There are precisely two groups of people I don't particularly want seeing the
relatively personal stuff I post on Path: my "nerd friends", and everyone.

For me, Path is somewhere between a social network and a personal diary: it's
the excerpts from my diary that I want to share with the people I'm close to,
and I hope they'll share those moments back.

Facebook can't do this well for me, Google+ failed to, and I don't
particularly expect Path to, but it has a better chance than anything.

~~~
ChrisArchitect
how to get family&friends to start using Path though, other than the initial
'shiny new' app thing. Seems making the move from fb is a task everyone
struggles with

------
bad_user

        people don’t buy products – they buy the benefit.
    

People also can't differentiate needs over desires, they also can't help
themselves against the herd mentality, otherwise they wouldn't be using social
networks and playing Zynga games in the first place.

This emphasis on benefits is exaggerated, as clearly if people thought really
well about it, a lot of companies would go out of business.

Also, great software in usage goes beyond the purpose imbued by the creators.
Sometimes the creators don't even know the problem it's trying to solve. I'm
pretty sure the creators of software like Excel couldn't envision the myriads
of ways in which it will be used and why it would be of any usefulness versus
a custom form / listing developed by somebody in Fox Pro / dBase in an hour.
Facebook is also great because it is different for everybody - for some it is
a vanity contest, others like to keep contacts to old high-school buddies,
others like playing stupid games, others like to be notified of events and so
on and so fort.

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Jach
tl;dr for the below: If it's too much work with their UI, it's a UI problem.

> The problem is that it’s just too much work. I’ve long since given up trying
> to maintain my Circles, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Circles also lost
> its core utility for me. After I put about 100 people into different buckets
> I couldn’t remember who I put where, and what I was supposed to share with
> which Circle. So I just gave up and started sharing everything publicly.

> It doesn’t matter how great and fun an experience is, good UI design cannot
> fix a broken solution.

I actually think Google Circles' problem _is_ poor UI design, not a broken
solution. Lists are a great way to manage things, but you need to have
powerful operations on top of lists. I said it when they came out that I was
disappointed with their lack of a Venn-diagram interface where I can define
sets of people in terms of other sets and their operations. (Why then
"circles" and not "groups"?) On-the-fly one-time-use circles would have been
nice to have, too. And they didn't have an API for a long time so it's not
like someone could straightforwardly go implement such things in a third-party
app. (I haven't been following the API so I don't know if someone could do
this now, but I'm pretty sure their first version of the API didn't even allow
POST requests--awful developer UI.)

On a second note, I think good UI can cover up a broken solution. Look at the
mobile world with "everything-is-an-app" largely thanks to the iPhone.

~~~
munaf
Agreed on overlaps. Circles are essentially tags/labels with a nicer UI. I
wonder why tags are the chosen solution for _every_ classification task these
days. They're great for information retrieval because they easily let you
widen or narrow the scope of what you're looking for. But defining data
permissions? Not so much. It feels like designers avoid hierarchal UI
paradigms because they're old, but automated inheritance would've been nice on
Google+.

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mdeutsch505
I really do think Path can retain its users past this initial "ooh shiny!"
phase if it can continue to add features to differentiate itself as a mobile
diary and solve that user need -- it is not trying to compete directly with
Facebook

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zapf
OK. UI is great. But whats the app doing?

Telling you it is your own journal and allowing occasional sharing? So a
personal blog that works from your smart phone and thus lets you do stuff that
Wordpress won't?

I like it, I must say. But why would users use it? Self gratification? What is
their business model? A la four square? Will they eventually have checkins and
deals?

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RandallBrown
I would love for Path to be a tightly integrated Facebook client. The
interaction is great and it's really a joy to use. The problem is, I don't
want to have to keep up with another network, even if I'm supposed to use this
one differently than I would Facebook or Twitter.

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j_col
Path excludes me because I don't have an iOS or Android device (yes we do
exist).

~~~
xer0
Email works really well for most if not all that Path does. The interface is
pretty bare bones, but the utility has stood the test of time.

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pkaler
I completely disagree. This is the classic Silicon Valley echo-chamber view of
Path. Path is not made for the Silicon Valley technorati.

Path is more like iMessage than it is like Facebook or Twitter.

I go for a run. No one knows I'm going for a run. I post to Path. Now if I get
mugged, my sister will know where to dispatch the cops to.

I post a photo of a family member. I get a "so-and-so visited my Path"
notification. I can then go and chat with them about the photo cause I know
that they have seen it.

I go to sleep. My friends check my Path before they SMS me to make sure they
don't interrupt my sleep.

The problems it solves for me:

\- Did so-and-so see that photo I posted? They can view it on their own time.
Once they've seen it I'll have a conversation with them about it.

\- I live on my own. My family knows where I am if I accidentally disappear.

\- I am asleep. Don't wake me up.

~~~
jrockway
_I go for a run. No one knows I'm going for a run. I post to Path. Now if I
get mugged, my sister will know where to dispatch the cops to._

How will they know that you got mugged?

~~~
zyfo
You wallet is linked up to your iPhone which auto-tweets once the wallet is
emptied.

Jokes aside, if you have daily contact with someone and they don't answer your
calls / don't show up, you know where to look.

~~~
jrockway
So a day later, someone will come looking for you? That is probably not
helpful.

The "tell someone where you're going" rule is for trips longer than running.
It's if you go on a two-day bike tour and aren't back by the third, or if
you're going backpacking for a week and aren't back in 10 days. It doesn't do
much for a quick jog in populated areas; a passerby will notice your corpse
long before anyone you know thinks to figure out your running route and go
look for you.

