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The most fundamental problem at Google, of which bad UX/UI is one symptom, is that product management has no real power there. Engineering has all the power th
by mikelanza 6y ago
The most fundamental problem at Google, of which bad UX/UI is one symptom, is that product management has no real power there. Engineering has all the power there, and basically does whatever it likes. It takes product management research as "input" for its decisions, but does not share power with product management.
Strong, competent product management balances user needs, marketplace conditions (competing and complementary products), and technological factors to create optimal products. What we see from the outside are products that are technologically strong, but suffer from lack of useful user perspective and market awareness.
Google will never create new (i.e. post search and AdWords) great products until it undergoes a complete cultural transformation toward a product management-focus.
- robertlagrant 6y agoSo did Engineering change all the icons to look almost identical?
- mikelanza 6y agoNo, poor product management from neglected product managers did that. You might not be very excited to design icons as your primary job, either, if you thought your job was to manage the entire product.
- robertlagrant 6y agoDo we know that's the case, that a product manager did this? Seems odd if they all accidentally designed very similar icons across the products. More likely this was a sweeping design centralisation change. And do we know they were misled about their roles? You might think "manage" means "lead", but it doesn't.