I Hate Google Everything
Let’s examine a normal interaction with Google products.
I get a link to a document on Google Docs. I click the link, and I’m greeted with this:
Seems reasonable.
This is likely because I have signed in with my personal account, which I must do to interact with YouTube. No problem, look at that “Sign in as a different user” link just begging to be clicked.
I click it, and one of two things happens: I get bounced to the contents page of my current account, with no prompt to log in as a different user whatsoever. This happens frequently. Alternately, I actually get prompted to sign in.
The Google Accounts login widget implicitly includes the domain portion of your email address.
Unfortunately, the regular login widget requires you to enter a full email address. And even if you have a Google Accounts account, and even if you were going to view a document in another account, you get the standard widget. This defeats tools like 1Password (which I use), as well as just being confusing. You get used to logging in on one way, then have to do it differently; because you’re never sure which one you’ll get, you have to pay attention. Friction, unhappiness, annoyance.
After successfully navigating this, what happens? I get sent back to the list of documents for the new account, rather than sent to the document I actually opened. Incredible.
After tracking down the original link and opening it again, you finally get to see the document, and now the real usability WTFs can begin. There’s a link in the document, which I would like to follow. When clicked, you get this:
I click it again. Do I get the page I wanted? No, I get a redirect through google.com.
Does Google have anyone working on UI/UX? This is absolutely horrible.