While I have not used my Google Reader account for a long while, thanks to the awesome desktop RSS reader RSS Owl, I have been following recent news with interest. Especially the latest Google Reader update has infuriated part of the service’s user base. The update has been part of a larger scale redesign of all Google products in 2011. Some users have criticized Google for removing share and like buttons from Reader and replacing them with options to +1 favorite news stories. Google in this regard is promoting their own Google+ social networking and sharing service over other services and internal sharing options.
The new design has also been criticized for putting the content second to the interface. Lets take a look at the current implementation of Google Reader on the official site.
Users are greeted with the black Google toolbar at the top and a large area with logos and elements below. The actual news items are placed in large font with lots of whitespace in between, far from ideal for users who want to get quick overviews of new items posted.
The userscript (also available as a Firefox add-on) Google Reader New Style Minimalistic turns Google Reader changes the interface to a minimalistic one that is optimized for using as much screen estate as possible for Google Reader posts. Lets take a look at how Google Reader looks with the userscript installed and activated.
The new interface removes almost all the static elements at the top. The font size has been reduced to display more news items and categories on the screen at the same time. When you click on a news post you will notice that the same font size design is used which means that less scrolling is required (if at all) to read a full post on the Google Reader website.
The userscript is compatible with Firefox, and maybe other browsers as well. Firefox users can alternatively install the Firefox add-on instead
© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us, digg, facebook, reddit, twitter
Post tags: firefox add-ons, Google, google reader, userscript
0 comments:
Post a Comment