68
As per the official Google announcement, the reasoning behind this change is to try out methods which would complement new password authentication methods. To quote the post
Today, you sign in to Google on a page that includes both the ‘email’
and ‘password’ fields on the same page. We’ll be gradually splitting
those two fields into separate pages in ...
62
Good observation.
In my experience this happens for a number of reasons, some intentional and some unintentional.
Intentional reasons to trim whitespace:
Users often cut and paste passwords (yes, use of Notepad as a password manager really happens) and the paste operation for some clients adds a whitespace.
Phrase (multi word) passwords are ...
50
Sometimes things exist not because they still make sense, but because their presence is an affordance -- i.e. it works not because it's good, but because the visitor understands what it is, what it does, and how to use it, because they've been inculcated over years with this knowledge.
The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button is a grand example of this, because as ...
43
The following screenshot is taken from the speech by Jon Wiley at UXweek 2011 (Original video). He explains the design decisions made by google in the past months.
Look towards the end (after minute 27) of the video to see it by yourself:
red is for "create something"
green is for "share something"
blue is for "do something" (e.g. submit a form)
Keep in ...
37
drag'n'drop nearly always has bad affordance.
The current model in gmail is the following:
Albeit I'm not sure if they're really serious about it, esp. as it only appears to the hovered element.
The previous one was this:
More dragg-ish, but still bad.
I think in order to reach good affordance with a drag-n-drop control, it either has to be explicit ...
34
They arrange the items depending on what you search for.
I.E. searching for 'Tax' is likely to return many News results, so that is shown alongside 'web':
Searching for 'Mexico Flag' is likely to return lots of images, so they set 'Images' as the next tab:
Whereas searching for 'Bristol' (A city in England) returns 'maps' as the next tab:
So ...
26
Official google explanation aside (as mentioned in the other answer), there is probably another work at play which goes unmentioned - using UX as stick/carrot method to promote desired behavior.
Note that if you at any time previously checked the "stay signed in" checkbox, even after logging out of the Gmail the google will remember your username (via ...
23
Interestingly, the button costs google up to $110 million per year.
In 2007, Google search boss Marissa Mayer estimated that 1% of all Google searches go through the I'm Feeling Lucky button – skipping Google's search results pages entirely.
That meant that Google showed ZERO ads (and therefore got ZERO ad clicks) on 1% of all Google search queries. Back in ...
21
Three bar icons are now being used widely to indicate a "show list/menu" function - it's not just Chrome. Below are screenshots from Day One and PlaceMe (I only had to open a couple of apps to find examples of this usage).
I believe the icon was a poor choice by Apple (in hindsight) - it does not give a clear interaction cue, it's more of a reorderable ...
20
Neither approach is ideal. You almost need a combination of the two.
If I select that I want something to happen every single month, just because it's on the 31st doesn't mean that I don't want it to reoccur.
I would stop trusting my calendar forever if even once it failed to notify me. Better to assume people want it reoccurring than to just be OCD. Those ...
19
These are called 'Dark patterns' and these can be used in many different ways to influence users behaviour.
Social networks as you mentioned put the logout button in a separate menu, Facebook in particular hide the 'deactivate' option very deeply in a settings structure. Some people also believe that you can never delete your Facebook account, when in ...
14
There are two psychological key aspects that are in play when it comes to this matter.
Users want to feel as they are in control
Users (people) want the ability to choose
The I'm feeling lucky feature does not cater to either of these aspects.
It is true that the user and the SEO will agree on the most suiting search result on a majority of the time. ...
13
Google actually removes autosuggestions for specific searches.
In which cases?
Searchengineland writes:
Were things being removed?
Yes, and for these specific reasons, Google says:
Hate or violence related suggestions
Personally identifiable information in suggestions
Porn & adult-content related suggestions
Legally mandated ...
12
The way outlook handles it is closer to what I would imagine a persons intentions would be when scheduling an appointment. However Outlook doesn't give you the option to handle it differently, which is a mistake.
You should be given the choice which way you would like it handled when you schedule an appointment for a day that each month doesn't have (28/29-...
11
It seems to be an attempt to :
reduce the need for labelling and custom filtering
allow users to process their emails faster (in a broad sense)
help users to focus on what they feel is important at the moment: checking regular emails, social networks chores and notifications, promotional emails, etc.
11
This is a bug with the Google UI, and not intentional.
You were right to notice the distinction, but it shouldn't be used as any kind of example of good design.
As of now (March 2015), Google is in the middle of a long process of migrating its apps and platforms to Material Design, and it will take a while before most apps are compliant.
Material Design ...
11
Responsive design is best practice, except for the most high-end websites
Responsive, mobile-first design gets you the most “bang for the buck” for most web sites or applications. Effectively you can design your web property once, get a good experience anywhere.
But responsive design has its drawbacks, and is arguably a compromise solution that works best ...
10
As a style, people often describe very thin lines and neutral shades of color as minimal. If you emphasize everything, nothing gets emphasized. Minimalist art is about emphasis. I suppose you could relate this to web design by saying minimalist design emphasizes content (text, video, sound).
Minimalism in design sprung from WW2. There was a new emphasis on ...
10
After thinking about this question for the last couple months and reading some related literature (Stephen P. Anderson's Seductive Interaction Design in particular), I've decided that the continuing existence of the button is likely due to a combination of three factors:
Branding - As @RachelKeslensky writes in her answer: keeping the button says "Yes, you'...
10
If you had 20 links, it would take you longer to scan for the attachment button than it would with two links and an expansion button. They are just optimising the most common use case.
You should always optimise for very common actions over rare actions. How much more common or rare they need to be is a judgement call which should be based on data and ...
8
What's it called?
I'm not sure if a canonical name exists. But here are some terms that help describe it...
It is a type of menu. (Google Material Design: Menus)
In iOS and Bootstrap parlance it is a type of Popover. (iOS Developer Library: Popovers)
Google specifically calls it an App Launcher. (Google Support: Use the Google Bar)
How do I implement it?
...
7
I think it all comes down to "progressive enhancement". You are quite right that across Google domains it automatically begins to search....in modern browsers. But in older browsers, users still have to click search or hit enter. And so the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button is left as a valid alternative option to retrieving search listings.
For example, so many ...
7
Gmail is opting for pre-organizing some of the information for the user to avoid clutter.
There are many emails coming from certain sources that will be read at a later date by the user but that maybe don't usually require immediate attention. Filtering or tagging helps, but a user still has to skim through their properly tagged emails from facebook, ...
7
The Google home page is simple and uncluttered.
But, once you search for something - you can filter:
Are we missing something - or are you?
7
Google is using 'Material Design' to give their vast number of different services a unified look and feel – so for google designers using Roboto is mandatory because it's part of their design by definition.
IMHO if you want to build a material design 'inspired' website, you are of course free to quote any design patterns as you like – so using Roboto could ...
7
Not mandatory. But highly recommended.
Roboto was introduced and standardized by Google for supporting devices of different dpi to have readability and legibility of fonts.
You can see that many apps have their own custom fonts which are either unique to their brand or to match their site. So Google cannot make it mandatory.
It's highly recommended ...
7
Getting in the trap of scrolling map area instead of page scrolling is definitely bad experience. Still current solution looks overcomplicated and provides a barrier to interaction.
The design looks a bit contradictory: large map area assumes reach user interaction with map content (primary task), but scrolling beyond map control looks like users don't need ...
7
As a matter of fact I'm quite sure that between the wrench and the kebab icon there was a hamburger.
Either way, the most likely reason for the icon is consistency . This kebab menu icon is the same they're using in Material Design, so they're basically following their own guidelines, see Menus section in MD
A menu is a temporary piece of material that ...
7
As mentioned by @locationunknown in the comments, the vertical position doesn't change when the window is resized.
But to answer your question. I believe it is because Google doesn't want you to travel visually far from the top of the screen.
Most of the important information is in the top of the screen (highlighted with red). Tabs, address bar, profile ...
6
I do not see how the + sign has anything to do with Google+. :)
It is just a matter of balancing the importantance/"commoness" of actions.
By each thing you make directly visible, everything else becomes a little less visible. Google simply pushes the simplicity factor to the edge in their visuals, like always.
For example, it might be faster for some to ...
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