#FF00AA

Who knows, maybe I’m just a Silicon Valley guy who has lost touch with reality. It’s entirely possible. But maybe, just maybe, the opposite is true. Maybe “regular” people have been allergic to using groups in the past because they simply don’t want to use groups. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s a good idea on paper or in a brain-storming session, but doesn’t translate onto the web.

That’s a very interesting theory — as a geek, I love the idea of Circles (like Diaspora’s aspects), but are regular users ever going to be interested in that concept at all?

Not to mention that I’d already planned to post that quote yesterday, before getting my own invite to Google+, but now I’m in and I can tell that the interface for Circles sucks. Sure, the concept is viable, but there are lots of little missteps that make it annoying and confusing (UI elements jumping around, semi-compulsory multiple selection, an unintuitive flow to simply see a prospective contact’s profile, and a bunch of other tiny details that mount up). In short, Google has made the interface uncharacteristically flashy… but they still haven’t gotten user-friendly.