

Google's Weakness: User Experience - amirhirsch
http://fpgacomputing.blogspot.com/

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rogerbinns
I also have similar problems with Google, but I think it is dangerous to
extrapolate from a sample of us. Most people are not going to have multiple
accounts in the first place.

However I had assumed that almost all Google employees would have multiple
accounts - a personal one a work one - and would be experiencing this pain.
Maybe Google employees don't actually use their own products like the public
and customers do?

The user feedback thing is what will lead to Google's demise. I was absolutely
shocked that I could I could actually submit an electronic issue for Android
Market issues (the pagination doesn't work, any app ever installed even if
uninstalled a few minutes later is shown forever). However the resulting
support was the standard thing you get when it has been outsourced to the
lowest bidder - your text is parsed for the closest match to the 10 canned
answers they have which doesn't help, and then you get a 'satisfaction' survey
where it is obvious what metrics they are measured on.

Android is not quite as bad, but still problematic. A public bug tracker where
issues are ignored for years, and Google+ hangouts which of course require
using G+ and participating at an exact time. I still want some very misleading
text on the Google Analytics for Android page to be addressed:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9694639/more-than-one-
bro...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9694639/more-than-one-
broadcastreceiver-for-the-same-intent-with-contradictory-doc-and-p)

Seth Godin has some good wisdom on the whole issue. I like his description of
companies having "a stall, deny and avoid policy when it comes to customer
interaction".

[http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/03/reorganizing...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/03/reorganizing-
the-economics-and-attitude-of-customer-service.html)

~~~
nilsbunger
I think two accounts is pretty common even outside geekdom. Lots of non-
techies have gmail as their personal email (even my parents do). And lots of
companies and schools are using Google apps for business email.

The intersection of the two must include a reasonable number of non-techies...

Agree with the rest of your point too, it is really strange that you literally
can't get support on google products, even if you pay for them as a business.

~~~
pasbesoin
My mother's school system just switched to Google Apps. Some ensuing confusion
-- amongst other things, with Google's/Gmail's repeated GUI rearrangements,
she'd lost track of and forgotten about the sign-out command in her personal
Gmail account.

I've similarly watched and helped her and others struggle with unintuitive
controls e.g. in Google Calendar.

Google may worry tons "about a shade of blue". But their real user experience
seems to depend upon individual projects and perhaps individuals. The original
search results page and early Gmail were high points. Some other items have
languished or declined under counter-productive development.

------
nilsbunger
One day, Google Plus's suggestions for "friends" I should add to circles
included 2 people I'd already circled, 2 versions of another person, and even
another version of myself!

So, yes, multi-account Google stuff is painful. I don't know why they don't
see that and fix it.

~~~
read_wharf
Be careful what you wish for.

I used to wish for better integration between Google's various products. Now
we have what we have, and I don't use Google anymore. Ironically, G+ was the
service I was most excited about from any vendor in recent memory, and their
management of that was what finally pushed me out of the nest. At this point
they're only a backup account, like Yahoo used to be before they dropped me
for inactivity.

So yeah, Google could decide to integrate your multiple accounts, but I expect
their implementation of that to piss off a lot of people.

