↵

Google Is Really Good at Design(theoutline.com)

over 5 years ago from Sacha Greif, Creator at Sidebar

  • Sacha GreifSacha Greif, over 5 years ago

    I think that one thing that companies like Google or Facebook have over Apple in terms of design is a more modern and more open company culture: they encourage designers to iterate, share, publish case studies, blog…

    As opposed to Apple, where you get the feeling everything is the result of a very rigid, very strict process that isn't as permeable to the outside world.

    So paradoxically, while Apple is great at coming up with new ideas and innovations (Apple Watch, 3D touch, touchbar, face ID…) those ideas tend to not be as well-designed as they should be.

    In other words Google might not come up with the idea for the touchbar, but if it did implement one I'm pretty sure it would be more useful than the one on my macbook.

    14 points
    • Dirk HCM van BoxtelDirk HCM van Boxtel, over 5 years ago

      Can I go on a tangent, and highlight touchbar as a failure? (total case of "imo")

      13 points
      • Doug OrchardDoug Orchard, over 5 years ago

        It is. As Apple fanboi I, myself drew a line and said I don't want the cruft. No Touchbar laptop for me.

        7 points
      • Account deleted over 5 years ago

        The touch bar is absolutely terrible.

        2 points
      • Jason O'Brien, over 5 years ago

        It's bad. I'm constantly resting my hands in the wrong position and inadvertently pressing "keys." Esc is hard to find and the lack of feedback on it is disconcerting (as a power user I use ESC all the time to get out of dialogs).

        I turned off the context switching because I was tired of the display going nuts as I moved around in an application and switched applications, I'm glad I don't suffer from seizures because I probably would have had a fit.

        0 points
    • Mike Wilson, over 5 years ago

      Agree completely about open company culture. Apple's culture of secrecy seems to be evolving into a massive problem for the efficiency of the organization and their ability to innovate (and hilariously, the secrets always end up getting leaked anyways). Their product line is expanding and fragmenting every single year, and it's increasingly clear to me that their old culture is not scaling well to meet the increased demand on their teams.

      Google also has advantage of not being a 40+ year old company. You cannot imagine the sheer amount of legacy systems, bureaucracy, old management theories, and ineptitude that probably still exists from 1980s and 1990s Apple.

      ...but all of that said, I personally believe Material Design to be the worst, most heavy-handed and gratuitous design system in use by a major tech company today. Its poor implementation across many Android apps is the biggest reason I switched to iOS recently. iOS is still the most user-friendly OS on the market today. But in the future? who knows.

      1 point