Once again: it doesn’t matter how great and fun an experience is, good UI design cannot fix a broken solution. Good design can effectively differentiate a good solution, and bad design can completely ruin a good solution. But good design simply cannot make up for a solution that doesn’t address a core user need really well. As a recent post on ZURBlog proclaimed, people don’t buy products – they buy the benefit.
I’m afraid that in the case of both Google Circles and Path 2.0, they might just be flawed solutions wrapped in a layer of beautiful UI design. It’s fun to play with for a while, but when it inevitably becomes tedious you eventually just forget to use it. Forever.
As more of my own peers join Path and Google+ still resembling the remnants of a ghost town, the benefits of both are starting to dwindle for me. What happened to attacking the problem of sharing for "normal people"?
Path was originally meant for sharing only with your 50 closest friends, but since Path 2.0 I can't help but add friends that send me a request that I don't really consider super close. And when I do, they're over sharing the most mundane of things (i.e. self-portraits, napping on a Tuesday afternoon, listening to Lady Gaga, etc.) without giving me too much control on what I see (aside from booting them). Path really is a personal journal, but do you really want your friends reading it?
There's no question the app is beautiful, but I don't know how much longer it will prove to be beneficial for my own sharing needs.
Admittedly, Path was more fun when I was just friends with my girlfriend.
Google+ has not solved any need for me as of late. It's great for the occasional sharing of a funny .gif or YouTube video with the same circle of friends, but social media pundits have seemed to overtake the network. Where are all the "normal people"? Of course, they could just be sharing privately, but what does Google+ do for me an email couldn't serve just as well?
This post is more so about my own sharing preferences and not a critique of the services. The private sharing idea is still new to a lot of people, but the benefits are so immense that it will be the decisive factor in a future where more "normal people" are cognizant of privacy, ease of use, and overall benefit.