It's not discoverable--the only clue it's there is a tiny arrow. On the old bar it was totally obvious where the links were to jump to other properties.
It presents an inconsistent user interface. If you move the pointer in from the bottom, you're on the left nav. If you move the pointer in from the top, you're on the hover nav. It would be like getting two totally different neighborhoods depending on whether you drove in from the north or south.
It requires precise mouse choreography. It's not enough to aim for the target, you have to follow a specific path to get there (especially true with the extra fly-out submenu). If you don't, you have to go back to the beginning and start over. The old bar was a fixed set of targets--easy to hit from wherever.
Food for thought - would we have the PocketProtectorPlex fucking up usability across half the web now if it wasn't for Zuckerberg's "everything's going great, let's start a land war in Russia!" mentality and drive to own identity across the entire internet?
I agree with you totally, however this isn't unique to Google at all - it represents a much wider lack of thought and care by UI designers across all kinds of software.
If UI designers thought about the points you make above as routine, then we'd end up better menus for sure.
The idea of a menu is fine, it is the implementation that needs work. They could easily fix this with two changes:
1) Add a button or link that is specific to exposing the menu (call it "Menu" or "Products" or "Go to other Google services" or whatever). This way it's obvious what the user must do to expose further options. That also frees the Google logo to simply link home, which is what logos generally do on the web.
2) Make the menu open and close with a click instead of hover. That way you don't have be an expert mouse pilot to get to the link you want. It also maintain consistency with the dominant paradigm in a GUI, which is "click to take an action." Think about it--have you EVER seen a hover menu built into an OS? I'm not familiar with Linux GUIs but on Windows and Mac OS X, menus always take a click to expose them.
I feel the same way as bodegajed; I consider the way they're littering G+ everywhere to be very tacky, akin to something I'd expect from Microsoft or AOL. While I'm far from boycotting Google tools, it does make me want to avoid G+ entirely.
To be clear, though: I think this new bar in general is a usability improvement. The gray bar looked like ass, and having a consistent search box does make sense.
Google puts G+ in your searh results, with no opt out. G+ is fine on its own, but the creepy invasion across other products is annoying. Google used to be the classy alternative on the web. Now they are trying to out-mySpace Facebook.
Yes, but how is moving the navigation bar to a drop down doing that? I understand your point, but unless I am missing something its just a random complaint against Google, in this case.
It's not discoverable--the only clue it's there is a tiny arrow. On the old bar it was totally obvious where the links were to jump to other properties.
It presents an inconsistent user interface. If you move the pointer in from the bottom, you're on the left nav. If you move the pointer in from the top, you're on the hover nav. It would be like getting two totally different neighborhoods depending on whether you drove in from the north or south.
It requires precise mouse choreography. It's not enough to aim for the target, you have to follow a specific path to get there (especially true with the extra fly-out submenu). If you don't, you have to go back to the beginning and start over. The old bar was a fixed set of targets--easy to hit from wherever.