Jonathan Jeter

Director of Application Development

Home Archives for Web Development Google+ (Google Plus)

Coming Soon – The New Google +1 Button

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New Google +1 buttonThe Google+ Developers group announced today that the next update to the +1 button is strictly a UI change, with no functionality differences. I like the look of the clicked button, after you have activated it by using the plus one functionality.

However, the +1 button itself, not clicked, seems a little too camouflaged to me. It blends in with the surrounding area and doesn’t yell “click me!” like a good “call to action” button should. We talk a lot about the difference between what good design looks like and good design that actually gets user interaction, so I’m sure the good folks developing the Google+ button have tested the new design and found that the new design outperforms the old. They wouldn’t just change things to keep changing things, would they?

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Google+ Updates Launched

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Google Plus

As I mentioned in my post the other day, the Google+ Badge has gotten some tweaks. I think they’re great improvements that will help you increase your reach on Google+, as well as some good usability updates that just make sense.

I really like the new follow button in the Google+ site badge. It just makes sense to be able to put a site in your follow circle if you don’t want to decide which circle you want to add the person or site.

The new plus 1 button functionality sounded a lot better than it has actually proved out to be after the launch. The click on the +1 button is supposed to automatically trigger the share widget to appear. In practice, it seems like their is a brief hesitation before the share widget is triggered. In my experience, I personally navigate away from the button as soon as I’ve clicked it, so I would like to see the share widget open more quickly. It may be programmed to do that, but maybe server or bandwidth limitations make it a little less responsive.

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Google Plus Badge Gets Some Tweaks

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Google+ badge gets an updateIn the Google+ Developers preview group, it was announced today that the Google+ badge is getting a couple of really good tweaks.

First, the “Add to Circles” button is going to become a follow button and when clicked, it will automatically add the account to your “following” circle. At that point, you can change circles or select a different circle, but it’s an easy one-click way to add a Google+ page to your circles.

Secondly, the sharing functionality is going to get a little easier. Currently, when you +1 something, you have to click twice to get the sharing dialogue to appear. This will now be the default functionality, which will make it much easier to share content on Google Plus. If you are a member of the Google developers preview group, you can already see this functionality in action.

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