I’ve been a fan of Google Reader for some time now, the first time I used it I was amazed at what it was capable of doing. Putting everything I read into one spangly place so I don’t have to read here there and everywhere to absorb the gigabytes of information I need each day to survive. But there’s something wrong with it…
The IDEA of Google Reader is fantastic but I never find myself actually using it much and I’ve recently wondering why that is. I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason I don’t use it as much as I should is because it’s ugly. Absolutely no care has been taken to make the reader anywhere close to aesthetically pleasing, it’s uglier than the wayback machine’s yahoo archives.
The folders on the left look like Windows 95 meets Internet Explorer 4 and I don’t want to look at that. I want Mac OS X Leopard, I want Smashing Magazine, I want my eyes finish the day motivated for the next, not desperately craving their next hit of eye candy. We’re refined social mediaites now, we don’t DO ugly…
Google made a point of looking basic in the past, their search results did the talking for them; they don’t need the fancy visualisations that cuil so desperately hung to. Googles software might walk the walk, but it doesn’t talk the talk. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic application but the “we don’t need to look pretty” honeymoon is over. Hire some designers and make your software look better than the desperate last minute ramblings of a GCSE IT student.
Link:
