Is Google losing the battle of good design? I don't know as I'm not an expert on the world of Google, but Cliff Kuang of FastCoDesign thinks it is. An excerpt of the summary:

"As they've added new products, has your G-mail or Google Reader gotten any easier to use, or less stressful on your eyes? Have either of them become a pleasure to look at or play with? No. But why not? Every new Apple product seems to make progress on that — and I'm not even talking about hardware. Just look at the music listings in new, redesigned iTunes.

Then again, I'll bet the testers (and engineers) still prefer their Google as it is now, simply because it's what they've always known."

Ouch! I'm a user of Google Reader, but I use the UI addon Feedly to get a MUCH better viewing experience. I'm a GMail user as well, but I use Mozilla's Thunderbird to handle emails because the GMail UI is so difficult to deal with. So, in my limited experience with Googleland, I'd say "Yes, they are losing the battle for good design."

Comments? What's your take on the topic?