Well read this article 2 days back on their official blog. Sounded interesting, but we did our very own research. If one is a regular user of Google Reader (like me) I am sure it will take a little time to figure out what to make out of the new interface. I think the current version is feature packed, but somewhere lacking in its flow of UI’s.
Basically the home page contains on the left the list of subscriptions you have along with the number of articles that you haven’t read for every feed. I think the user should have an option of customizing the order of his subscriptions i.e. on the basis of number of item’s unread, alphabetical, customized order etc. On the top left there are options like ‘Home’, ‘All Items’, ‘Starred Items’, ‘Shared Items’. The shared items has been termed the ‘my favorite feature’ by Nicholas Baum the program manager for Google Reader. But on the contrary I think this is a personalized newspaper and unlike my blog my friend’s wouldn’t be that keen on seeing what I am reading and vice-versa on sharing.
The reading experience has been improved. Two types of scrolling one is the expanded view other in list view. One major feature missing is just browsing, Like in the last version the user could just scroll through the list of articles on the left and the details would show on the right and continue/discard it depending on his likes. Though a similar effort has been tried through the list view. Though in this regard the older version scored better.
Then there are the usual keyboard shortcuts, which definitely come in handy. Though it takes a bit of time getting used to it. The up and down arrow keys also worked but switched focus to the next article after a 2 or 3 presses till that new article occupied a certain amount of space on the reading section. The good feature they have retained is the starred item feature for book-marking your favorite articles for later reference.
Also on a higher note one of the desirable feature could be categorizing the list into sports, technology, finance etc. Otherwise we give it thumbs up. Considering it’s a product still under development we can this article going as a feedback and expect it to be even better next time over.
