Maybe you can expand the theme to include interesting things folks are doing at home (in addition to cooking). You could also pull in interesting posts automatically from the social sites like twitter and instagram. Looking forward to more updates!
One of the main ideas for future direction is to integrate it more with existing services for Todos (RememberTheMilk, etc.), Notes (Evernote, etc.), instead of rebuilding those tools.
So, imagine having an Evernote notebook for a project, and managing all notes from it on the homepage. That way your information is still in the cloud, in the service of your choice, but accessible within the context of a project.
I highly recommend that you explain what you'll be doing with every permission that you ask for.
Unfortunately Chrome/Android has a terrible approach when asking for permissions. Since they only know the class of permission (instead of what the dev is doing with them), they pop up a scary-sounding warning and hope the user figures things out. On top of desensitizing users to real threats, I can recall many times when I decided against installing an Android/Chrome app because I couldn't/didn't want to figure out how it would impact my system and didn't want to take a risk on some one-person operation.
Amusingly, I never had this issue on iOS because Apple never warns you and as a user I can assume (rightly or wrongly) that all iOS apps are safe. I wonder when Google will catch on because I personally still feel their app marketplace is much more dangerous than Apple's.
Google needs to work on permissions more. They need to show granular-level permission details. Currently the permission details are very broad. Something like, why this "extension needs this-specific permission" clause during installation might help users.
Maybe the community can check if the extension or app is not malicious. And its not sending any data to remote servers. Recently I tweeted on the same to @google-chrome-team, they don't have a support team to even acknowledge back. :D
And I don't understand for what reason they stay in Twitter.
Yes, a description on why every permission is required should go a long way in helping the user make an intelligent decision.
I will add those prominently on the Chrome Webstore Installation page (and maybe the homepage).
I agree, with the iOS App Store, one doesn't have to worry about it as much because you know that all apps go through a review process and wouldn't be approved if they were doing something terrible.
I once thought this but not again. Your family, at least the elders, would more appreciate that you pick up the phone or send postal mail than use technology.
You think it's a big part but you are in fact making that personal connection weaker.
At the very most in the world technology, email would suffice for your family.
Your family, at least the elders, would more appreciate that you pick up the phone or send postal mail than use technology.
Most of the elders in my family - talking people 65+ - have computers, use Facebook, to keep in touch. Most of my mother's _friends_ are on Facebook for that matter. They do appreciate a phone call, but for grand-baby pictures and video, that's where the action is.
My mother is the exception. At the age of 70, she's never touched a computer. She likely never will.
Anyway - my point is that my family is not exceptional, nor especially early-adopting. We're pretty typical Americans, I think.
Not my family; the "elders" (my Dad and his 3 siblings) all get on go-to-meeting every other Saturday and have a video chat. They were very excited that I joined their meeting last week. I have dozens of cousins of various degrees I only know through facebook, which we are using to organize a family reunion. I'm not sure how this makes our family's personal connections weaker.
by the way; phones and postal mail still use technology.
To clarify, almost all the usability issues mentioned in the article are the ones I face myself too. The title is a bit misleading, it's just what prompted me to write it.
I agree that you can't have every product fit every person, but isn't one of the primary selling points of Google+ that "you can have private conversations with small groups of family and friends". I would personally think the features and UX should be designed keeping that in mind.
Even saying so, a lot of the points I say there are potential usability issues for everyone (at least for me they are). For example, the big banner ads for mobile apps and Hangouts.
I agree, the title is a bit misleading. By "setup", I meant creating an account and simplifying the user interface, and explaining to my mom how to start hangouts, share photos, etc.
Perhaps that's my point of contention. I think that, for sharing to small groups of individuals, G+ is the best platform around (though I haven't tried EveryMe as they aren't on Android). I type a message, I type a group or two, I hit enter. Done.
Sharing is simple.
Where it seems like your complaints lie are in getting too much information - above and beyond what has been shared.
To me, I suppose that's small potatoes. I get the occasional distraction in my stream, but Google's usually smart enough to make it relevant, and about half the time I see something from outside of my circles, it ends up drawing me into a conversation.
I am decidedly not your mom, and I don't mind it. Also, my stream is active enough that those 'outsiders' ever take up any significant percentage of it, so perhaps I'm unable to see it from her point of view, but I don't think that showing me things I like, that I might otherwise have missed, is a 'problem' that needs to be 'fixed'.
Again, just my opinion. Can I ask what other social networks your mom has used, and how she found those, in comparison?
Yes, it does depend how one is using Google+. I primarily use it to interact with small groups of friends and family who are using Google+ (which is not a lot), which might be very different from how you use it.
Also, these views are all mine, what triggered them was the annoyances I came across as I was trying to simplify the Google+ interface for my mom. I find Google+ great for sharing links, photos and doing hangouts and I definitely don't know of a better or simpler solution for private sharing among groups of people. Like you said, it is really simple to share.
I do feel strongly about letting users easily opt out of getting too much information. If I want to see what's trending, I can visit the Explore tab. Like the left navigation, maybe it makes sense to let you hide stuff on the right sidebar as well.
My main annoyance though is with the persistent adverts (the banners you see on Explore, Hangout and Photos pages). And the "in your face" banner that you cannot get rid of, if you have less than 10 people in Circles. The only way is to add strangers to your Circles to get rid of it. Would it be too bad to have a "X" icon on the top right to get rid of these?
