Google's new "batshit crazy" UX

What is also annoying is when the logo on a company/product's blog goes to the blog index rather than the homepage of the company, leaving me to either manually edit the url or look for the link which is always in a different place with different text.<p>If your blog exists to drive traffic to your product, why would you not link that big logo in the top left to the product page?<p>This is second in annoyance only to company blogs that don't have a tagline explaining wtf the product is, leaving me baffled when I click though from here or wherever. Thankfully people seem to have learned from this and you don't often end up dumped, contextless into the middle of some domain-specific screed any more.

I think the bigger problem with Google's UI is that the top links to Google's top-level categories do <i>not</i> keep your search terms. Only the left links do... In other words if I search the web for "Afghanistan" and then realize I actually want news article search results, if I click "News" at the top I have to re-type "Afghanistan". This is terrible.<p>e.g. from <a href="http://www.google.com/#hl=en&#38;gs_nf=1&#38;qe=YWZnaGFuaQ&#38;qesig=RixfB3BguS7IikRX_fkyvw&#38;pkc=AFgZ2tk5cM7WTF1Rg-vYMwglP-9942DQkIuExD3jwpCO_I3NUa7hz9Wij2RQjBfDIHAP4baRlAuJArluvnYC7a7UC54RTly6iw&#38;cp=7&#38;gs_id=q&#38;xhr=t&#38;q=afghanistan&#38;pf=p&#38;output=search&#38;sclient=psy-ab&#38;pbx=1&#38;oq=afghani&#38;aq=0&#38;aqi=g4&#38;aql=&#38;gs_sm=&#38;gs_upl=&#38;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&#38;fp=40a11131701df559&#38;biw=1024&#38;bih=514" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/#hl=en&#38;gs_nf=1&#38;qe=YWZnaGFuaQ&#...</a><p>Link to left: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=afghanistan&#38;hl=en&#38;biw=1024&#38;bih=514&#38;prmd=imvnsu&#38;source=lnms&#38;tbm=nws&#38;ei=--tET92HIIjQrQfcr822Dw&#38;sa=X&#38;oi=mode_link&#38;ct=mode&#38;cd=5&#38;sqi=2&#38;ved=0CCsQ_AUoBA" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?q=afghanistan&#38;hl=en&#38;biw...</a><p>Link at top: <a href="http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&#38;tab=wn" rel="nofollow">http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&#38;tab=wn</a>

Complaining about broken website conventions while simultaneously breaking them yourself is either ironic or hypocritical, depending on your mood.<p>The author's webpage has a "x Kudos" vibrating image on the right and side, and if you <i>hover</i> over the image then the page sends a "like" HTTP message to the server. So now hovering my mouse over an element just had me like the author's page. That is way worse than a link with a broken image.

...although sometimes it takes a little batshit crazy to break convention and change things for the better. Really, only time will tell...<p>I keep getting reminded of Zuckerberg's Startup School interview (<a href="http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/298808358" rel="nofollow">http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/298808358</a>) where he talks about moving equally too fast and too slow or as Jessica called it "a willingness to break things."<p>On one hand, I'm slightly frustrated at all these weird changes these established companies are making; but on the other hand I'm excited to see them messing with things that seem so core to their product, it shows that they're still willing to experiment and not getting too comfortable (which I think is more dangerous).

The first time I needed a permalink to particular tweet, I spent good five minutes looking around for it. Only accidentally I noticed that the timestamp has it, and it didn't strike me as obvious at all.<p>Having a link which clearly says 'Details' seems much more intuitive in this case. And even if it was indeed Twitter who has started this pattern of linkifying timestamps, now it could be considered as them backing off from confusing UX decision that many sites parroted.

I think the logo clicking decision isn't crazy. My interpretation is that Google is "un-training" users from using this valuable piece of screen real estate for a useless no-op function, in anticipation of putting a more useful function in its place.<p>Does anyone remember a few weeks back, when Google tested a "new way to browse Google's services"? They turned the logo into a button, producing a drop-down menu of services to navigate to.<p>My guess is that they found the new logo-button didn't work well, mainly because so many users saw the logo as a big button which refreshed the page or went to the inbox.<p>At the risk of making predictions, I'd guess this recent change is a grace period, designed to get us all used to using other buttons for reaching the inbox. And once people no longer instinctively click the logo-button, they'll introduce the new navigation which makes better use of that valuable screen space.<p>I could very well be way off the mark here... but it seems pretty clever to me, TBH.

Hyperbolic link,<p>Half of content is a quote,<p>This is just blog spam.

The most annoying part of Google's UI is changing email settings inside Gmail, and I know I'm not alone in this... On the top right, there's a link for your name, a link for your avatar, and THEN below those the most important one you probably want (that wheel icon): the email settings link. So annoying!<p>I don't care about changing my Google Plus or account settings if I'm in Gmail. I wanna set up filters or setup aliases. Why is the email settings link not prominently featured? I always end up clicking the wrong link when I want to change email settings. Also, don't get me started on creating a filter. That used to be 1-click and DONE in the old settings, now it's like finding Waldo. Ridiculous.

I sooooo agree.<p>Although I rarely, if ever click on the logo in gmail, I do believe in the "logo should be a link to the root" convention. Surely that's just UI design 101, right?<p>The twitter one you mentioned in the article drives me super crazy as well.

I had a gift card to burn on googlestore.com last evening. Noticed pages like this one <a href="http://imgur.com/6Y1nO" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/6Y1nO</a> which is apparently a failed search for a category, that simulantaneously has 0 matches and six pages. Same thing happens when I click on the big Youtube merch logo at the top of all pages there.<p>I was clicking around my google profile today (to remove history etc) and found broken links to google products there.<p>I remember when it was simple and perfect..

Some reasoning: It gets (read:forces) you to use the top bar. For people that always ignored the topbar before; they cannot now. So these users, as well as everyone else who used it only sporadically, are now using it always and thus are more likely to investigate and use other links/apps on the topbar now. These of course include all of the other google services. It's like herding cattle.

I always clicked on the gmail logo, and it drives me batty that they changed it. It's just an easier target for the mouse/my eyes than that little reload button, or, even worse, the inbox link.

When you don't want to be known as 'just a search company' how are you going to tackle that?<p>Provide a direct link your premier / 'home' product via your logo (reinforcing the idea that you're a one-product company), or encourage users to consider the full range of products by making them choose the one they're most interested in?<p>It seems sensible to me; there's nothing 'batshit crazy' about it.

The article is missing an important detail. They didn't just remove the ability to reload. They replaced it with the ability to go back to the top of your stream without reloading everything. (on g+ at least)<p>Since google+ already loads new posts automatically. In practice this will do almost the same as before, but with less waiting on the client side. Sounds like a smart design choice imo.

I've got the new Gmail design, when I click the logo it goes back to the Inbox regardless of where I am... so not sure I understand the problem?

Working at a large company, I was once informed that the company logo should, on a dynamic user interface, do exactly nothing. Clicking on it was not to go home or help. Much as I disagreed, the powers that be dictated otherwise.<p>Could be similar reasoning here: lawyers or marketing or some such got involved.

BTW, does anyone know how to go the next page after the UI change? Buttons just vanished and one can only see up to 50 messages.<p>EDIT: one has to click on "1-25 of many" and the buttons to change pages appear. Does anyone find it intuitive?

When I click the logo, it takes me back to the Google Homepage. I've refreshed my cache a number of times. Perhaps they've reverted back?<p>My mouse cursor does not change from default when I hover over it, though.

I thought I was the only one that this change annoyed the hell out of.

My biggest gripe is that they completely removed the link to "Scholar" from the search menu options, making my omnibar so less useful, and there's no option to reenable it.

Hmm, I NEVER click on a logo to go to the home page... don't know why, I just look for a home button or type the address in the address bar. The logo is just there...

This also drove my crazy.<p>My Temporary Fix: revert to the old school GMail, and select the theme "Preview (dense)".