Products · Product
Google Reader
Raised as a usability problem by 89 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2008–2024), in 51 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Unread counts update but feed content stays stale until clickedUnreviewed
20082026- Items already read reappear as unread after refreshing the feed2016-05-20
- Unread counts update but feed content stays stale until the user clicks the count2013-07-02
- Unread counts make reading feel like an email backlog to clear2009-07-19
Cannot mark accidentally opened item unread, unclear what counts as readUnreviewed
20082026- Can't mark an accidentally opened item unread; no clear indication when item is marked read2013-06-29
- Can't tell which items in the main view have been read or unread2011-11-01
- Accidentally hits mark all as read on phone, losing hundreds of items with no undo2011-07-11
Hard to scan all headlines and see which feeds have new articlesUnreviewed
20082026- High-volume feeds like Hacker News are impossible to follow in the reader2013-03-14
- Scanning all headlines is harder and it's hard to see which feeds have new articles2011-11-02
- Feed search has gotten worse and less comprehensive over time2011-07-26
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Users were pushed into Google+ after Reader was killed, against their choice2024-04-22
- Articles take many seconds to load, so reading is tiring because of the waiting2023-06-30
- Sharing features pushed onto users made the reader worse and more cluttered2023-03-13
- Material design redesign made the interface confusing2021-03-25
- Items already read reappear as unread after refreshing the feed2016-05-20
- Felt clunky and slow to interact with compared to Bloglines2016-04-26
- Adding and removing feeds is clunky and a painful, unnecessary effort2015-02-17
- Couldn't find the premium upgrade; it was buried under a settings cogwheel2014-03-14
- Switching between feeds with inconsistent formats causes cognitive friction and confusion2013-10-05
- UI feels sluggish at times, slower than the old Reader interface2013-08-26
- Buttons show blank with no icons or text, and settings are hard to find2013-07-03
- Unread counts update but feed content stays stale until the user clicks the count2013-07-02
- Can't mark an accidentally opened item unread; no clear indication when item is marked read2013-06-29
- Interface is ugly and has many quirky UX behaviours2013-06-25
- Articles lose their unread status even when not opened2013-06-25
- Confusing vertical scrolls with horizontal swipes, plus delays switching screens2013-06-25
- Feeds hang on Loading forever and the UI gets out of sync2013-06-25
- The web client's user interface is poor and hard to use2013-03-17
- Stated subscription limit on front page doesn't match the lower limit shown after login2013-03-14
- Commenter couldn't tell whether the chart had loaded because it was a table2013-03-14
- Having to check a separate RSS account each day is inconvenient2013-03-14
- High-volume feeds like Hacker News are impossible to follow in the reader2013-03-14
- Feed formatting often wrong, so they had to click through to originals2013-03-14
- Welcome box's down arrow doesn't dismiss it, leaving users stuck wondering how to remove it2013-03-14
- Custom feed names set in the browser can't be read or set through the API2013-03-14
- Google Reader search has become flaky and unreliable as the product languished2013-03-14
- Feed count grew so large that reading became unmanageable and it was abandoned2013-03-13
- Web interface was not responsive enough for quick skimming2012-12-28
- Cluttered layout with five stacked segments and no visual contrast, hard to process2012-12-26
- Page has a distracting background, unexplained bolding, and disorienting layout2012-12-26
- Clicking a story jumps the page to the top when selecting text2012-11-27
- Site's vim hotkeys hijack keys like scroll, causing users to lose their place2012-09-17
- Refresh button does nothing on stale data, forcing a back-and-retry workaround2012-09-05
- Adding an RSS feed takes five or six clicks, even after installing an extension2012-04-26
- Redesigned interface is crappy and Android app is extremely slow to use2012-04-19
- Top buttons consume most vertical space, leaving little room to read items2011-11-30
- New UI has massive button bars that take up too much space2011-11-06
- New layout with lots of whitespace and no divider makes it hard for eyes to read lines2011-11-04
- Must mouse through a dropdown list to find a feed instead of typing its name2011-11-04
- Links are black, so user needs a custom CSS hack to see them as links2011-11-03
- Recent redesign made layout cluttered and keyboard shortcuts broken, too painful to use2011-11-03
- Can no longer view or comment on friends' shared items within Reader2011-11-03
- Pressing j to move to next item now has a noticeable delay2011-11-03
- A recent redesign left so much wasted white space that the reader became essentially unusable2011-11-03
- Reader is essentially unusable on a netbook2011-11-03
- Sharing takes more clicks and screen space is reduced, slowing headline triage2011-11-02
- New layout's fixed top section wastes too much vertical screen space2011-11-02
- Too much whitespace makes reading harder for users2011-11-02
- Sharing is hard to use and shared content can't be found back in the reader2011-11-02
- Opening a feed item shows it in an iframe instead of opening the original link directly2011-11-02