Tech Deck

A Gorgeous Google?

I can’t believe it.

Over the past week, with the introduction of Google+ (Google’s first product that could be a serious competitor in the social space,) the big G has rolled out updates to their stylings on many pages. With a new (preview) theme for gMail, a new Calendar theme, a Picasa skin update and the launch of the Google+ bar, does this signal a fundamental shift in how Google sees their products?

For seemingly the first time ever, Google is putting the user experience on the same level as the product function. There’s two possibilities I see for why this is the case:

1. Google deems some of these projects ‘feature complete’ and thinks they should focus on making them more consumer friendly.
2. Google now, because of the UX successes that Apple has had, feels the need to improve their own UX in hopes to bring a complete, user-focused ecosystem to market.

The first is the one that really means something.  This is good and troubling at the same time. Google will possibly stop working on these products but shift these quality engineers to other products like G+ and Offers (not to mention all the other features coming to G+.) If they really do tone down development of products like Calendar, Reader and Picasa, I hope to see a lot of innovation with G+.

On the second: This is great for Google all users. It means that you get better products because of market competition. Awesome.