Google Calendar Redesign: It's Goddamn Terrible

I am aware that hyperbole is the best thing in the entire world, but does the definition of 'terrible' really stretch this far? How about 'Google Calendar has some design decisions that I disagree with, mostly on the basis of some colors being different."

Google's new redesigns eliminate the separation between different areas of the window, and replace it with white space, while generally increasing white space through the design.<p>Overall you can see fewer things, and lacking anything to stop your eyes, the various areas of the screen blend into each other. It's much more WORK to use the calendar and Gmail with the new theme. The new Gmail "Dense" theme is less compact than the old Gmail.<p>Basically, any time your design is using ultra-light grey lines/text for anything, you've gone wrong. CONTRAST. It's important.

You know what's goddamn terrible? When you design your site so that middle-clicking on an image doesn't open the full-size one in a new tab, it just shits all over the current tab.

<i>Google Calendar team, did you consider how people use calendars...We went from being able to see 10 items to about 3</i><p>Perhaps studies found most people have 3 or less calendars and your just an outlier? Would you design your product for the 90% or the 10% use case - perhaps your being slightly hypocritical if you were to compare your critique here with your previous entries about how to build software

I actually quite like the new design. Primarily because it seems that all the google web apps are going to move to a more unified design (whereas before docs stuck out like a sore thumb).<p>I agree though that the calendar space could do with being subtly changed so the focus of the window is on it again. The greys are a little too light, and when surrounded by colour they fade away.<p>But in general it seems like this is very close to what I've wanted for a while.

I hate it too. Not enough contrast, except for (as pointed out) that big blue stupid search button. Too much white and light gray.<p>And on a small screen, the 'Other calendars' scrollbar disappears.<p>Even the copy is goofy - who decided that 'Create' makes more sense than 'Create event'? How about 'New event'?

If you don't like it, just switch to the old view. I don't understand these people.<p>I like calendar's new look. I love Gmail's new look.

The worst usability loss is showing multiple events on a day in calendar view. I like to see a calendar view to get an overview but now most of my events have been replaced with a useless '2+ more' or '3+ more'. The real sore point is that the '2+ more' takes up exactly 2 lines of space so they had just enough space to show me my 2 appointments but have decided I'd be much more interested to see this useless '2+ more' link. Outrageous!

I get the overall sense that this post is intentionally sensational to get some HN traction being that anything pro/against google+ is popular right now...i.e.<p><i>search button is a big blue button in the middle of your field of vision</i><p>Your being slightly nit-picky because hands down it is more aesthetically pleasing then the previous mis-aligned textbox and ugly submit button that was a constant distraction.

I think Justin needs calendar intervention, there's way too much info there no matter how you slice and dice it. There's always iCal or Fantastical on the Mac for nice and crisp colors.<p>PS I don't care for Google's new designs so much either

I rather like both the new Gmail and Calendar themes.<p>The only thing I don't like is the spacing: they both waste way too much space. Even on 15", my browser window isn't maximised. And on 10", both UIs require zooming out.

Sounds like the complaints are visual. (As it was a visual change, that makes sense.) Google should provide a skinning mechanism like GMail already has. And some proper skins, of course.

Am I the only one that thought the screenshots looked almost identical? Reading the article led you to believe it was like stepping back into the 90's when in reality it looks like he just needs to turn off some calendar views since everything is repeated 4 or 5 times and looks like a mess. I'm all for dissension but angry tirades with no substance and all opinion is not something I'd come to expect to be on HN front page...

The redesign doesn't bother me, what bothers me is that they have let issues with the calendar sit for so long that effect functionality.<p>Ical and other calendar feed changes will not appear in Google calendar after days or possibly, weeks.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=7c6b4213a42e6923&#38;hl=en" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=7c...</a>

I know this is essentially what us geeks do - we think about minute details, obsess about them, and hope that this ends up mattering. Usually I find this kind of compulsive preoccupation inspiring, but this article was so out of touch with reality I found it uncomfortable to read.<p>Suppose we grant the author that his criticism is objectively valid from the point of view of a UX designer (obviously a huge concession). Still, you're left reading an article in which a person complains that he <i>perhaps</i> prefers reading white letters to black, that a piece of <i>software</i> takes away the ability for him to tell <i>what day it is</i>, and that he cannot find his calendar on the page because he's so distracted by blue buttons.<p>On top of it all, looking at the screenshot provided it's pretty clear this person is not an average calendar user. Designing a usable calendar for someone with this many appointments each week is a completely different challenge to designing a usable calendar for me.<p>Perhaps a deep breath and some perspective acquisition is in order.

You can choose to turn off the new look by clicking the gear icon and choosing Use the classic look (you can turn it back on by going to the gear icon and choosing Try the new look).<p>from <a href="http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=1351806&#38;hl=en" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=...</a>):

How many times are we going to see "Look! They changed their site design, and the new one is awful!" The archetype is grousing about the new Facebook design, but it seems like any change gets a bunch of complaints.<p>I know: it drives traffic, and for some reason that madlib isn't quite "oh, linkbait" yet.

Are people really that distracted by the blue search button? I've seen it mentioned a couple times now about how the search button draws their attention away from what's actually on the page.<p>Maybe I'm in the minority, but I tend to look at the middle of pages, and have no problems with the button.

I noticed that it does not work correctly on Firefox 5 on either my or my wife's MacBooks. I think that it looks OK on Chrome and Safari, but not a big deal.

I'm sure they are doing usability testing on it and so your opinions that it is "bad" are really useless unless you have access to the same usability data

Frankly, I think the new design is long overdue and has a strong sense of usability and sleek, elegant design. Instead of making a change to only one of its online properties, Google used Google+ as an opportunity to revamp its entire ecosystem to provide a consisten and clean UI. I like it a lot, and am glad Google is finally using its designers.

I still want to see a workweek view (five columns), but with the current day wider so that you can more easily read what is going on. Especially with so many simultaneous events, like the author of the OP has.

I didn't find it particularly difficult to identify what day it is but I don't have nearly that many items in my calendar as he does. I suspect for the average user that it's not going to be a problem.

What we see here is a power user that doesnt represent the general google calendar users. I love the new design.

I just hope that the google teams dont take only the buzz noise posts over the net and do anything silly.<p>I love the new design, its less agressive with the colors and everything is much more clean.<p>Im just hoping that the Reader redesign will come soon...

Yeah? Well, I like it.