Google+ gets a redesign

The first thing I have to do when looking at a demo video like this is mute the music so I can actually look at the usability of the interface without the soundtrack trying to tug at my heartstrings.<p>I find it hard to tell if this is going to be a step in the right direction or not. There are some red flags that go up for me, but it's obviously hard to judge based on descriptions and videos alone.<p>One of the biggest UX problems with G+ today is the way it handles notifications and conversations. Every event gets a notification, to the point that I rarely see a Google page without some red number in the top right, usually indicating nothing more interesting than "{<i>random user</i>} has added you to their Circles." The signal-to-noise ratio for the notifications is so poor that I've developed notification blindness. I've subconsciously tuned it out, so if someone actually does have something to say to me, I miss it.<p>Conversations on G+ are also poorly handled today. Because so many things are handled in the notification overlay, they all have to live in a narrow band on the right that is very hard to process visually. Whether in an overlay or on Plus itself, conversations are difficult to follow with their collapsed views and lack of adequate visual cues for the reader's attention.<p>I'm intrigued by the "Conversation Cards" that are mentioned on the redesign announcement, but the fact that they don't warrant their own demo video leads me to suspect that Google hasn't considered the usability of their conversations to be a top priority.<p>One last red flag for me is the customizable "navigation ribbon." It's an adage in UX that when you see an interface that asks the user to customize the layout, it means the designers gave up trying to find the right solution themselves. I'm not saying it can never work, but it is a red flag for me here.<p>I hope the new G+ is a big step forward. I've been wanting to love Google Plus since it first arrived. At least they're devoted to G+, and they're staying hungry.

For me, the problem with G+ is that you can't fine-tune the signal:noise ratio enough.<p>In a nutshell, Facebook is a network of people I know first IRL, so getting pictures of their dinner last night or latest cat's antics and other useless stuff I can sort of live with, it goes with the territory.<p>But G+ is more like Twitter with longer posts - I follow a a lot of people I <i>don't</i> know IRL, but only because of a shared interest, and I'm only interested in their posts on that interest, not the other noise.<p>Whereas pointless posts on Twitter are only 140 characters, don't take up much screen real estate, and are easy to skim and/or skip, that's less the case with G+. I really want a way in G+ to filter out posts by those people that don't have anything to do with the shared interest.<p>For example, if I create a "Functional Programming" circle and subscribe to a bunch of Haskell, Ocaml, ML, Lisp, and Scheme programmers that I don't know IRL, I'm really not interested in their vacation photos and whatnot. But currently there's no way to filter their vacation photo posts from their posts on functional programming.<p>An effective 90% solution would be to simply add hash tag filtering to circles, so I can instruct my Functional Programming circle to only accept posts with #functional, #functionalprogramming, #haskell, #ocaml, #ml, #lisp, #scheme, and block anything else without at least one of those hash tags in it.<p>Not quite perfect, and G+'ers would have to develop the habbit of using hashtags more than they currently do, but it's functional and flexible enough and provides the tools necessary for the community to solve this problem themselves.<p>This is my biggest G+ pain point, and while I have nothing negative to say about the redesign (it's nice), as long as it doesn't solve this one problem, it will do nothing to get me using G+ more (I check in about 2 or 3 times a week currently).

Yeah I really like this, and I also like how google is not giving up. I do think it has potential, and if google can hit it, it will be huge for the company.<p>I think the piece that's missing is integration from other third party services - I would use my google+ account a lot more if I could post to it from apps I use often like twitter, instagram etc. There's always share to twitter in almost every app, which makes it easy. But to share anything to google+ i always have to go all the way to their site, which isn't worth it since many of my friends don't use it anyway.

To me, G+ is a good effort from Google. They've made a concerted attempt to add a social layer on top of the core Google products that have a unique take on social functionality and some manner of utility for users.<p>The problem comes down to engineering however - or more precisely, engineers.<p>I have always gotten the sense that G+ is a social network for "nerds". In this context, "nerds" refers to people that (like me) are:<p>1. More technically inclined than the average person 2. Willing to invest more time and effort into their social circles 3. Capable of grasping more abstract social concepts 4. Have an attention span longer than a gnat<p>While this is a very nice social network, G+ features are not designed for the instant grasp that Facebook has perfected. I think that FB's strategy of catering to the lowest common denominator - literally - in an elegant and usable way is what continues to cement their dominance over the space.<p>This latest redesign seems to be still very technically oriented, despite the pretty icons. The entire concept of reordering things is quite literally bunk when you get down to the average joe.<p>When are you going to reorder your icons on the left? What utility does it provide? As a regular user, you want something but the entire concept of moving stuff around on the screen isn't your priority. It is parsley on a dish, not the main course. Each G+ design feature I've seen so far continues to be just little bits of garnish, providing little in the way of truly useful functionality that makes the overall experience as a whole better in some way.<p>Of course, nothing is guaranteed in business and most certainly no one will be king of the hill forever. The world changes after all, and the generation that is being born now will utilize social media in a way we can barely imagine. However, that still doesn't change the fact that G+ as a whole seems to be an effort to make a social network for Googlers, not the world. We as HN readers should not gauge G+ by what we see through our own experience - we should gauge it by what our non-technical friends, family and random-acquaintances do, and that is how I'm gauging this design change right now (go FaceTime!).

They still want to enforce users to use "real" (for their definition of "real") names. As I write this, my profile is "suspended" because I didn't type my real name: "Your profile is currently under review to make sure it is in compliance with the Google+ Names Policy and User Content and Conduct Policy. Reviews are typically completed within a few days."<p>I also had to select "other" for gender, there's no option named "I just don't want to write it."<p>Yeah, sure:<p>"By focusing on you, the people you care about, and the stuff you’re into, we’re going to continue upgrading all the features you already know"<p>Context:<p><a href="http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/10/google-nymwars-redux/" rel="nofollow">http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/10/google-nymwars-redux/</a><p><a href="https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Zoiu" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Z...</a>

I genuinely think Google+ has plenty of potential. Google's strategy seems a little more unified in terms of the way the posts are linking to search results, how you can setup circles and the other more niftier features that have been added that Facebook has yet to add.<p>But despite all of that. Something is missing, and i just cant quite put my finger on it.

I see many people hoping for features/changes...<p>I hope they will add anchor with target to images (and content posts in general, I guess). You can't middle click to open image in background and you can't do anything at all with javascript disabled. I really, really hate that (the former). Especially because they change the cursor on hover which makes you think it's an clickable anchor.<p>Double middle-click used to work (seriously, what?) but it doesn't for some time now.

I thought the original G+ design was refreshing and original.... but this is... so much better!<p>The main nav bar on the side reminds me of Unity. And yes I know that many people don't have wide screens and many also despise Unity (for that or other reasons) but this feller here sure likes it.

I hope they fix their typography too. Arial is not the way to go, especially when you allow paragraphs as posts (or essays). Line-height makes it even worse. &#60;/designer's-rant&#62;

"More than 170 million people have upgraded to Google+"<p>Seems to me that continuing to count everyone who gets an Android phone or signs up for Gmail as a G+ user just invites people to pile on and point out how underwhelming G+'s userbase has been to date.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Google%20Plus%2CPinterest%2CInstagram%2CPath&#38;date=10%2F2011%207m&#38;cmpt=q" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Google%20Plus%2CPin...</a>

If only they could understand that UX is showing less, they would have won half the battle. Who needs all these buttons thrown at your face. If I need them Ill get them, please don't clutter and make user feel, "oh its so complicated". I had hopes on google plus, but this new UI, first thing that comes to my mind is Google Wave, less is more is the lesson for Google, the magic they have known for long(Google HomePage) but are discarding now.

Am I the only one who thinks that the new UI is not very pretty? It's all (un)balanced to the left (for big enough screens) and the gray frame feels like a cage.<p>Maybe some things work better, but I didn't have a good gut reaction at all seeing the new thing.<p>P.S. I didn't watch the explanatory video, they are good at those but I wanted to see what it was without guidance.

Glad to see Hangouts promoted in this design. Think that's probably the G+ trump card.

This is a huge step up for G+ and ultimately may lead to me using it it more. The problem I had with it before was it just wasn't intuitive to do anything with the interface. Now its easy to use, and I know exactly how to do everything without having to think about it. Its good to know that Google is sticking with their strategy of "Internet + you", I think its a good strategy.

Even though one can't reliably predict how to take down facebook, it's great to see google keep trying to lash at it.<p>Historically, no tech company stays in the #1 spot for more than a decade. That doesn't mean Facebook won't be around in 10 years, but it does show how volatile the tech market can be.<p>XBox was viewed as a joke but they kept at it with their cash machine, and now they're successful.<p>Dreamcast was awesome but they didn't have the cash to keep at it and had to throw in the towel.<p>If google keeps at it, they'll sink or swim, but you have to be persistent to try to take that share.<p>Personally, I think google hires at a far more talented tech pool. They're doing things like VR glasses and automatic parking cars while facebook makes a big deal about integrating with Skype. So the talent is there. The money is there. The marketing is there.<p>We'll see how this plays out. I'm excited to see the outcome.

Did they redesign their name policy or do they still have this very exclusionary policy that make G+ unfit?

I reading the comments here it seems like a lot of people don't use a basic G+ technique: don't view All Circles at once unless you really want to spend a while (like 5 or 10 minutes) browsing everyone you follow.<p>For example, I have circles for Java, Clojure, AI, Ruby, Semantic Web, etc., etc., and near the top of the screen I'll switch from All Circles to just AI, for example.<p>Also: the red notification number in the upper right corner: I usually ignore this and look at them all just once a day.<p>I don't treat G+ as stuff that I have to read. If I read useful and/or fun information that is fine, but I don't get concerned about missing something.

Deck chairs get rearranged (titanic.blogspot.com)

Wow, huge improvement! Is the cover photo new too? (I haven't checked out G+ in a while.. - copied from FB?!) Looks more "fun" in any case, which is good. (Not saying they have to go completely spastic but this is a good mix)

Still, way too much screen real estate reserved for the "static" fixed header bar. And now G+ has added a "static" fixed vertical frame too.<p>I thought the web reading public already expressed their disfavor of frames.

I think this is a positive direction for G+, with some nice, friendly, emotionally engaging UI touches that will help differentiate it from Facebook. However, I think there is one serious usability issue here, and that is the left alignment. On my 1920 x 1080 screen there is a massive gap between content and chat bar on the right. the content area feels uncomfortably crowded on the left, and it's just plain awkward to scan all the way to the right.<p><a href="http://cl.ly/060H0B3o1q0l1O3g0X03" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/060H0B3o1q0l1O3g0X03</a>

Excellent UI. To me it is very intuitive to use now. I am impressed

I can't believe they just copied the header of Facebook's timeline approach.<p>I wish they'd be more original and old-Apple-product-experience changing with this damn "project."

One thing of value I have noticed with Google Plus is when you receive a gmail within gmail, Google now includes senders Google Plus photo &#38; link to their public plus account.<p>This has saved me some time as I didn't have to go hunt and peck for information about who the sender is.<p>So plus 1 Google ... that alone has proved valuable and falls more align with being a search/identity company rather then a social network.

Just got to try it out now. I see that you can scroll inside the chat list, but as soon as the scrollbar gets to the end, it automatically starts scrolling the main page. Why? It seems annoying to me, because I expect it to do one action (scroll inside the chat) and it ends up doing another (scrolling the main page).

It's a bit too chunky for me, i.e. requires a high screen resolution to view content properly - similar to what they did with their webmail service, but at least with that you can switch it to a compact mode. I think Google's employees may have a skewed view of the web due their high end computers.

#WhiteSpace is trending: <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23whitespace/posts" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23whitespace/posts</a><p>Also funny: <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23usesforwhitespace" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23usesforwhitespace</a>

What they need is are "show more like this"/"show fewer like this" buttons. Then they can use a Bayes filter (like the Spam flag in Gmail) to hide posts. So if you don't want to see that programming-language researcher's vacation photos, click "show fewer like this".

I think the new UI. One thing I have noticed, though, is that my 'stream' is displaying posts from all sorts of people I have no idea about, not just people in my circles. A little confused with that, the only option I have is to select individual circles.

Is it just me or does anyone with large screen resolutions see this abomination?! <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/pavan_ky/status/190128945918783489/photo/1" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/#!/pavan_ky/status/190128945918783489/ph...</a>

The new design looks beautiful. But google+, while you have most of the features that are needed for a good all round social experience, please make it easy for non-techie people to understand.

The redesign is already featured in their "Learn More" page.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/learnmore/" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/learnmore/</a>

On facebook page I can hardly find an empty space, but redesigned google+ has so much white space on each page...white space can be used for postit notes

Surprised to see Google advertising on the TV in the UK for G+, a week later they change the navigation - that's pretty bad timing for any new adopters.

Please put comments in a div with a fixed height. <a href="http://tinypic.com/r/34r7rdx/5" rel="nofollow">http://tinypic.com/r/34r7rdx/5</a>

I like this a lot, hopefully they'll overhaul their mobile app using this style. Seems like this design is really mobile friendly.

So is blogspot intentionally broken in the presence of NoScript in some vague attempt to protect javascript-based advertisements?

I chuckled when I scrolled up and down this blog post, and paired it with the headline indicating a "simpler" Google.

Nice, but still too JS heavy for my liking.

Give me google glass and I'll start using my google plus account. Until then, FB is too convenient and ubiquitous.

When is this being rolled out? Everything looks the same to me. A skim of the article doesn't appear to say.

I just wish I had friends on google+. :(

Is it me, or is the large amount of white-space in the new design on wide-screen monitors unnerving?

I must say this design looks oddly familiar. Can't they just paint it blue and call it GoogBook?

Anyone know how to get the humungous right gutter to shrink without hiding the chat element?

Does anyone else notice themselves leaning to the left? I feel uncomfortable.

Interesting: Google+ borrows Twitter's awful grammar: "Who to follow."

Chat now takes screen real estate even when not in use. A shame :-(

I asked for &#60;pre&#62; support and look what they did instead.

Too many panels and everything in boxes took away the elegance.

Google using the word 'beautiful'. That's a new one.

"I like our strategy. I like it a lot."

anyone know when this launches?

Looks like it hasn't been rolled out to Apps users yet. I'm on the rapid release option too.

If Google+ gets a redesign, and no one is around to see it, does Google+ have a redesign?

A majority have tried google+ and moved away. Will this redesign make them come back?

This is really weird. I just wrote a post this morning <a href="http://oonwoye.com/2012/04/11/dear-larry-before-you-buy-airtime-lets-talk-about-google/" rel="nofollow">http://oonwoye.com/2012/04/11/dear-larry-before-you-buy-airt...</a> and this redesign reappears a few hours later.<p>It is good hangouts is getting much more prominence.

Beautiful.

This version's is a good improvement. But there is too many spaces on the screen, it's waste.

Google vs Facebook. Google+1

I think Google+ can capture part of that anti-Facebook audience. Emphasize more meaningful conversations, and less trivial updates and lame drama.<p>Sort of what those Mac commercials did by comparing themselves against boring old Windows.