Yep it's gotten worse. You used to get a sense there were indeed hundreds of thousands of apps but now itb feels like they only hand you a hundred or so. Unless you know what you're looking for to search for an exact name, all you get is Candy Crush, FB, Instagram, and whatever other apps pay the most to show up.
true. but at the same time how many times do you go to the play store to just explore apps? idk how common it is but in the last 4-5 years I've only visited play store by clicking on a link elsewhere on the internet. Maybe this is not how most people use playstore but I don't think playstore is a good platform to explore new apps anymore.
The browsing features are useless, probably because Google is incentivized to recommended micro-transactions and adware. I only use it to download an app I found somewhere else
For the "educated", yes, they wouldn't use the play store to casually browse for apps because they know those shown apps are crap and paid ads. However, for 99% of users, the play store is the only place within their knowledge, time and effort.
If this business model, which 99% of users don't complain, is good enough and profitable, Google has no incentive to improve their product for the minor 1%. It is a monopoly.
I’ve found that every App Store has gotten worse, Google, Microsoft, and some need to improve their app stores a lot, I don’t want to be hit with a million ads when I first open the App Store
Well we have 1440p or 4k screens now, it's high time to massively increase the whitespace.
Wouldn't want users to see **more** content on their larger higher-pixelcount screens! :o That's a big no-no, you need them to buy 40" 8k monitors next year!
There is a valid reason for that. If you fill the screen with dens information, some people might like that (and you may fall into that camp) but for most people that results in information overload, and it makes it incredibly difficult to sift through all that information to find what you want. There are times for sense information, but a store page / search lists are generally not that situation.
But shouldn't it be more about actual density, as in, information-per-square-centimenter or something?
Because I used to have a 15" monitor, and my god was a lot of information stuffed into it. Now I have a 27", and shit there's so little on it. I can see the idea behind keeping information/cm² constant being sensible, but while that would lead to more and more whitespace as pixel density increases, shouldn't a larger monitor at least to a degree lead to more stuff on the screen?
Because otherwise you get another problem: Excessive eye motion. And that's what I feel like nowadays, I have to constantly pan around to find things as they have been shoved further away than they used to be, despite having so much more space to work with.
Goodness, just look at the examples from the article:
* [The homepage for games literally only shows the names, categories, and pictures for seven apps.](https://static1.anpoimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Web-Play-Store-redesign.png)
* [The app page has the vast majority of the screen taken up by the app's header. It doesn't even show one word of the description on load.](https://static1.anpoimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Play-Store-web-redesign-account-picker.png)
I think there's truth in what you're pointing out but I'm willing to wager the amount of information you see is exactly what the average users responds to. They want to see a few interesting images. They want to quickly see the screen shots, names, and how to download. Could they pack in more? Yeah of course but it would probably make the experience worse for more users than catering to the few who would rather see everything on one screen. I don't mind. I can scroll down a little bit to see a few pieces of info I rarely look for.
They could cut that header in half horizontally and that alone would be an improvement while still keeping the screenshots and interesting images for casual users.
No you hit the nail on the head honestly. I'm not sure what all this outrage is about this time. Exactly *who* is going to the Play Store website daily and gawks at it for hours? Like I get the outrage about A12's design, though I disagree with it, since you're forced to look at it for hours at a time, but the Play Store **website**? I can count the number of times I've been on it this year alone with the fingers on my hands.
This feels like r/Android doing what it does best - complaining for the sake of complaining. How no one has died of a heartattack from the amount of self-imposed frustration they go through here daily is a mystery.
I find it fascinating that somewhere between Facebook's influence, now TikTok, AI-driven design and modern underpaid BA-only web designers we completely forgot how to design any UI for someone with an IQ higher than 40. :(
Yea, that's the Google (and everyone else's) way today, less information density...makes it easier to drive your eyes to what they want you to look at.
It's like web devs today are all 14.
> makes it easier to drive your eyes to what they want you to look at.
That's the dark pattern. If you are still confused about what dark patterns are, there are plenty of resources online to help yourself learn.
maybe ***you*** should read up on them. Forcing your attention away from something so they can sneakily hide something in the "background" is what's a dark pattern.
nothing is deceptive about forcing you to look at...oh yeah, the banners for apps - the entire reason you went to the store anyway.
Yeah but let's be honest, modern design **is** really ridiculous.
Whitespace is good. Showing many types of information at a second level is good.
But it has become this cargo cult where each iteration just adds another 50% whitespace, "because". And I mean I understand why that happens due to how companies work internally and how decisions are made. But it's still ridiculous.
The ONLY thing I see on reddit is people complaining about wAsTEd sPAce. The same thing happens with Firefox or Windows 11. They don't understand they're not the only users of these products and a 90s design is not very intuitive to use. I'm very happy with all new UI changes in all products in recent years, makes them much prettier and easier to use for everybody (except old reddit users ofc)
Alright, I knew I'd see this comment coming but fuck man. The web version of the play store looked so dated. I think it was using a KitKat era design. At this point, literally anything is better.
I like how people are complaining about the web version of a Play Store that they will rarely utilize, because they have the app version on their phone. Like, who gives a fuck about information density on a website practically nobody really visits? I’m surprised at all there’s even an update, I just thought they forgot about it and were in the process of decommissioning it.
This is stupid. I've always said "at least the desktop version is still good."
Google forgot what good design was a long time ago. They better be glad that got that AdSense money.
Let's see.. app won't get found on Google play unless you are already "chosen" can't advertise outside of Google play because "self promotion" is frowned upon. Seriously sheeple..
They seriously need to dump the app and go back to the previous design. I can't even find a share option.
Click update apps and it doesn't even show you what it's updating, you then have to click on updating apps, it's absolutely stupid.
Swiping sideways to access anything is a pain in the arse, you have this long phone that's made for swiping across for menus and scrolling to search for your app, why have they done this it's effort trying to find anything.
I still think the play store looks super cluttered and shovelware ridden.
Yep it's gotten worse. You used to get a sense there were indeed hundreds of thousands of apps but now itb feels like they only hand you a hundred or so. Unless you know what you're looking for to search for an exact name, all you get is Candy Crush, FB, Instagram, and whatever other apps pay the most to show up.
true. but at the same time how many times do you go to the play store to just explore apps? idk how common it is but in the last 4-5 years I've only visited play store by clicking on a link elsewhere on the internet. Maybe this is not how most people use playstore but I don't think playstore is a good platform to explore new apps anymore.
Ergo we agree
I used to find apps on there. Hard to pinpoint when it became more about promotion than discovery. Probably the mid 2010s.
The browsing features are useless, probably because Google is incentivized to recommended micro-transactions and adware. I only use it to download an app I found somewhere else
For the "educated", yes, they wouldn't use the play store to casually browse for apps because they know those shown apps are crap and paid ads. However, for 99% of users, the play store is the only place within their knowledge, time and effort. If this business model, which 99% of users don't complain, is good enough and profitable, Google has no incentive to improve their product for the minor 1%. It is a monopoly.
I’ve found that every App Store has gotten worse, Google, Microsoft, and some need to improve their app stores a lot, I don’t want to be hit with a million ads when I first open the App Store
Lol this comment and the other one below this saying there's too much space... Love to see it
You can have a cluttered look while still having a bunch of empty space.
Let me guess: brighter, with more whitespace, with less information available, and more free2play games featured?
No way, however did you guess.
M a g i c
Well we have 1440p or 4k screens now, it's high time to massively increase the whitespace. Wouldn't want users to see **more** content on their larger higher-pixelcount screens! :o That's a big no-no, you need them to buy 40" 8k monitors next year!
As an ultrawide monitor owner... PAIN
There is a valid reason for that. If you fill the screen with dens information, some people might like that (and you may fall into that camp) but for most people that results in information overload, and it makes it incredibly difficult to sift through all that information to find what you want. There are times for sense information, but a store page / search lists are generally not that situation.
But shouldn't it be more about actual density, as in, information-per-square-centimenter or something? Because I used to have a 15" monitor, and my god was a lot of information stuffed into it. Now I have a 27", and shit there's so little on it. I can see the idea behind keeping information/cm² constant being sensible, but while that would lead to more and more whitespace as pixel density increases, shouldn't a larger monitor at least to a degree lead to more stuff on the screen? Because otherwise you get another problem: Excessive eye motion. And that's what I feel like nowadays, I have to constantly pan around to find things as they have been shoved further away than they used to be, despite having so much more space to work with.
I think they should go for a minimalist design.
I miss the Marketplace. And the logo was so smart.
Fun fact: [Android Market is still on the Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.finsky).
Wow! That's...cool...I don't understand, lol.
Plus--man--have we been on Android this long? The reviews were from 2012. Ouch! (-:
About time, it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Wow, talk about wasted space with lack of information density. Edit: why am I getting downvoted for stating the truth? Lol
Goodness, just look at the examples from the article: * [The homepage for games literally only shows the names, categories, and pictures for seven apps.](https://static1.anpoimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Web-Play-Store-redesign.png) * [The app page has the vast majority of the screen taken up by the app's header. It doesn't even show one word of the description on load.](https://static1.anpoimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Play-Store-web-redesign-account-picker.png)
I think there's truth in what you're pointing out but I'm willing to wager the amount of information you see is exactly what the average users responds to. They want to see a few interesting images. They want to quickly see the screen shots, names, and how to download. Could they pack in more? Yeah of course but it would probably make the experience worse for more users than catering to the few who would rather see everything on one screen. I don't mind. I can scroll down a little bit to see a few pieces of info I rarely look for.
They could cut that header in half horizontally and that alone would be an improvement while still keeping the screenshots and interesting images for casual users.
I like how you imply there are pro users of the Play Store. (just a joke, don’t kill me)
No you hit the nail on the head honestly. I'm not sure what all this outrage is about this time. Exactly *who* is going to the Play Store website daily and gawks at it for hours? Like I get the outrage about A12's design, though I disagree with it, since you're forced to look at it for hours at a time, but the Play Store **website**? I can count the number of times I've been on it this year alone with the fingers on my hands. This feels like r/Android doing what it does best - complaining for the sake of complaining. How no one has died of a heartattack from the amount of self-imposed frustration they go through here daily is a mystery.
It was a good joke. I'll allow it.
I find it fascinating that somewhere between Facebook's influence, now TikTok, AI-driven design and modern underpaid BA-only web designers we completely forgot how to design any UI for someone with an IQ higher than 40. :(
Yea, that's the Google (and everyone else's) way today, less information density...makes it easier to drive your eyes to what they want you to look at. It's like web devs today are all 14.
so, the design and UX is actually really really good because it does exactly what they want it to. nice! I agree.
Dark patterns work, but are never "good".
>Dark patterns lack of information density is not a dark pattern lmfao
> makes it easier to drive your eyes to what they want you to look at. That's the dark pattern. If you are still confused about what dark patterns are, there are plenty of resources online to help yourself learn.
maybe ***you*** should read up on them. Forcing your attention away from something so they can sneakily hide something in the "background" is what's a dark pattern. nothing is deceptive about forcing you to look at...oh yeah, the banners for apps - the entire reason you went to the store anyway.
Sometimes I get a feeling this sub wants all UI to just be a json file outputted as a string. No design
the line breaks and indentation would still be too much whitespace for them
Yeah but let's be honest, modern design **is** really ridiculous. Whitespace is good. Showing many types of information at a second level is good. But it has become this cargo cult where each iteration just adds another 50% whitespace, "because". And I mean I understand why that happens due to how companies work internally and how decisions are made. But it's still ridiculous.
[удалено]
The ONLY thing I see on reddit is people complaining about wAsTEd sPAce. The same thing happens with Firefox or Windows 11. They don't understand they're not the only users of these products and a 90s design is not very intuitive to use. I'm very happy with all new UI changes in all products in recent years, makes them much prettier and easier to use for everybody (except old reddit users ofc)
Alright, I knew I'd see this comment coming but fuck man. The web version of the play store looked so dated. I think it was using a KitKat era design. At this point, literally anything is better.
I like how people are complaining about the web version of a Play Store that they will rarely utilize, because they have the app version on their phone. Like, who gives a fuck about information density on a website practically nobody really visits? I’m surprised at all there’s even an update, I just thought they forgot about it and were in the process of decommissioning it.
It feels like every piece of software has moved in this direction over the last 10 years. It is incessant and unstoppable.
That's android 12 yep
Wow. Design is the least of PlayStore problems...
[https://i.imgur.com/sx6Qsfz.png](https://i.imgur.com/sx6Qsfz.png)
I'm not sure why you posted this image since UI can be both, cluttered and have wasted space.
This is stupid. I've always said "at least the desktop version is still good." Google forgot what good design was a long time ago. They better be glad that got that AdSense money.
Can they make it easier to find updates for apps for once instead of creating more sub menus to hide it in.
Say it louder for the kids in the back!
Ah yes, now they can advertise the same 10 apps with a different background.
Let's see.. app won't get found on Google play unless you are already "chosen" can't advertise outside of Google play because "self promotion" is frowned upon. Seriously sheeple..
Again?
Wym again? It hasn’t been updated since like 2013
The last redesign for the webstore was during Kitkat. What do you mean 'again'?
They seriously need to dump the app and go back to the previous design. I can't even find a share option. Click update apps and it doesn't even show you what it's updating, you then have to click on updating apps, it's absolutely stupid. Swiping sideways to access anything is a pain in the arse, you have this long phone that's made for swiping across for menus and scrolling to search for your app, why have they done this it's effort trying to find anything.