We wrote about Google Reader over the weekend and gave what I felt was a factually correct review of the product. However, some of the comments I’ve received to the post, along with a couple of emails, suggested some of my criticisms were off the mark. I took another look today and I must say that I was dead wrong on a few points.
I’ve copied my “areas to improve on” below and have bolded text that was incorrect:
As I mentioned above, Google Reader is targeting heavy RSS readers. The product isn’t useful, however, for moving through a large number of feeds efficiently.
Posts are listed in order of “relevance†(which doesn’t seem to actually sort things in any relevant way), or by date. I need posts to be grouped under the individual blog because I read some feeds first - Google Reader doesn’t allow me to do this and I am frustrated trying to find the authors I like to read the most. There is no search functionality within feeds already subscribed to, so there is no way to find this content.
The reader is slow. Paging down through posts results in a long and unacceptable delay. As a side note, importing my OPML list took about 10 minutes. Since this was a one-time cost, it’s not that big of a deal.
Since this is a web-based reader only, there is no syncronization.
Google uses ajax instead of frames. While frames is an old technology, readers using it allow for multiple scroll bars - this means you can keep the feed frames locked while scrolling through individual posts. This needs to be addressed.
There is no unsubscribe button for feeds.
Google Reader is optimized for Firefox. It isn’t working properly on other browsers yet.
The three innacuracies were:
- no sorting by feed (v. post)
- no search functionality within feeds
- no unsubscribe button
A quick look at the “My Subscriptions” link that is prominently displayed at the top of the reader shows that all of this functionality is included, and actually works quite well.
Under this tab, feeds are shown, can be sorted (second circle below), can be deleted, and, perhaps most importantly, can be searched (third circle) using the “filter” feature. Clicking on any particular feed brings up the related posts in the bottom window. It’s actually a very nice intuitive UI.
Google Reader is still painfully slow, but these features, which I previously missed, do much to make it a competitive product. In my opinion, the “my subscriptions” tab should optionally be the home page, reducing the necessary clicks to get there.
“Was I Too Quick to Criticize?”
I don’t think so, because when I checked (at almost the same time as you did) I didn’t saw those functionality.
They must have been added after your review. That’s why it’s still in beta…
Hmm. If that’s the case, then perhaps I should update the title to “Major Improvements to Google Reader”.
I wish there was better FAQ/documentation on the site.
I don’t think you were too quick to criticize. In fact, I think you went far too easy on them.
The product is very unintuitive and the inability for people like you and I to find the type of things you missed show it’s a poorly designed product.
Look at Bloglines–how long does it take you to find the unsubscribe button? How long does it take you to find out how to sort by feed in Bloglines?
Bloglines was well designed. Google’s has a long way to go before it’s a good product.
Thanks for the re-review! Sorry about not having a better FAQ, we’ll be starting a blog in the next day or so to help. And everyone’s comments/reviews are very welcome as all of the engineers are watching for blog feedback. Funny enough, blog feedback is currently the easiest way to make sure that at least one engineer sees feedback.
We’ve been working madly to keep up with performance demands and have released some patches. Reader is intensely popular and we’ll be updating as often as is possible until it’s fixed.
On future development I can say there will be significant updates over the next month, particularly in regards to UI as we’ve had a bunch of stuff planned that didn’t make it in time for the announcement.
Oh, and to confirm: the drawer with the functions was there all the time.
Okay, gotta get back to work - we’re in the middle of another push to our production servers.
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Chris, thanks very much for your thoughts and confirming that the functionality was there all along. My apology stands.
FAQs and speed improvements will be very well received.
Still totally confused by the “sort by relevance” feature. Relevant to what? The FAQ says it’ll “prioritize items that seem most relevant to you.” What does that mean? Just a total mystery. Relevance is one of those things that engineers love but remains pretty opaque to outsiders and ultimately confusing.
Something Findory.com gets right, incidentally. Wondering why Findory put a particular story on your page? Click on it and it’ll tell you why. Meaningful contextual relevance!
i believe you certainly was too quick to criticize. in my opinion, this is probably because you, and some other fellow who commented above, were too used to a specifc U/I (bloglines) and your mindset not quickly enough open to accept new user interface experiences. i’m certain google will improve speed. having used the g-reader for three days now, except speed and unknown behaviours: rate of refresh, relevance, i’m satisfied with this free product.
was = were
“in my opinion, this is probably because you and some other fellow who commented above, were too used to a specifc U/I (bloglines)”
Not sure about the author of the post but I picked up Bloglines *extremely* quickly and easily. I certainly didn’t have to hunt down for any little thing and it is an extremely simple interface.
Also, I disagree on the “specific UI” part. The fact is, Bloglines isn’t really a ’specific’ UI. The Bloglines UI is pretty much the ’standard’ UI for an RSS reader. I could go from Bloglines to any of the many other 2-pane feed readers and have little difficulty picking it up.
Google Reader’s interface is a radical departure from the ’standard’ 2-pane/3-pane feed reader interfaces which could very well have been a good thing–if it had been implemented correctly.
I don’t expect Google to come out with the same old, same old. In fact, I’m used to Google coming up with something innovative and better–like Google maps, Gmail, etc. Google Reader at it’s current state though is actually worse than most other feed readers out there. It’s not intuitive. It’s not better.
I can remove a subscription but it still appears in the main list.
Bleedin annoying. Otherwise its a great wee rss aggregator.
Hello there!
Why does everybody makes such advertisement for the google rss reader. I also tested it like many others but i dont like the interface and usability.
I am using searchfox rss reader since some weeks and I had to say that it is the best RSS Aggregator I know and I have testet.
So perhaps it will be possible for the author to test http://rss.searchfox.com it’s in beta stage and a registration is only possible via mail but it one of the best i think.
Follow the Comment by Jon — October 10, 2005 @ 7:53 pm
I think even Yahoo is better suited than Google’s new reader. In my.yahoo.com I especially like the preview. Maybe the recent critics by Yaho’s Semel is well dosed. Google can’t do everything better.
I am afraid I do not really see what the big noise is all about. Yes, there are some usability issues, to my mind only 2 count: unsubscribe a whole block of feeds and label a whole block of feeds. These still need to be done. Otherwise, I like the beginning that Google reader made. I find the design extremely nice, I like some of the nifty touches they added, like Gmail this, Blog this etc. The point is, this is a product here to stay. I am pretty sure that within a couple of months, most of these features will be in place and then the fun begins.
So the real question is, did they release this too early? Maybe.
I don’t think My Subscriptions should be the default page… I think it should be a user option on which page you want.
Me? I don’t want my feeds broken up, I just quickly go through, regardless of source, using the “star” feature to tag those I want to look at in depth later. Being able to quickly go through a hundred articles is more important than having to look in 50 different feeds for those articles.
I never write one-liners on talkbacks and comment pages, but in this case I have nothing to add beyond this: GReader is a bad application and I do not intend to use it for rss.
I’ve spent a lot more time on it and I have to say that my first impression was off. I did have to load my opml file twice to get the “my subscriptions” working, and it is a very slow application, but I like what I see so far.