译者 四分之三还是水
（作者手中拿的纸上写着：我参与设计了Google Reader早期版本。我是“占领Google Reader”的第100+人——译者注）
Like many others, I was curious when Google announced that it would be revamping the Google Reader UI and refactor its social components into Google Plus. To that end, I wrote a brief blog post about what I felt would be a better alternative to stripping out Google Reader’s social functionality.
和多数人一样，我也一直好奇Google将于何时宣布改进Google Reader的界面并将其社交功能整合入Google+。最后，我还写了一篇简短的博文来阐述我所认为的转移Google Reader社交功能的好办法。
Now that the Google Reader redesign has gone live, it seems clear that the stripping of social functionality is only one of many significant problems that have come from repainting the product with the broad brush of Google’s new visual style guide. Affordances have gone awry, the relative implied importance of use cases (such as subscribing) have fallen out of balance, and visual grouping of related items has been whitewashed away, to name a few problems.
而今Google Reader新界面横空出世，但很显然在Google新视觉风格的指引下被一刀切的产品暴露出相当数量的问题，而社交功能的裁撤只是其中之一。感觉已经完全走样，我来举几个例子，比如那些旨在提醒用例（即use case，是对一项系统功能使用情况的普遍适应的描述——译者注）重要性（比如订阅）的一系列事物已经失去平衡，且直观的相关条目组也被抹杀。
I believe this has happened because Google Reader was held to a mandate of refreshing Google products under a common style guide, but from what I’ve been told it had no full-time user experience resource to apply that guide in a way that made sense for the nuances and needs of that particular product.
我相信Google Reader在Google统一全线产品风格的命令下已经开始着手改动，但据我所知，这个项目没有一个专业的用户体验团队来操刀，也没有用一个靠谱的方法来顾及这款特殊产品的细节和需求。
This product is important to me, and for many it fulfills the need for a source-centric news consumption product that has been overshadowed by the overwhelming push of ‘social stream’ products such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. While those products are important, they don’t meet the same needs that Google Reader was designed to, and Reader should not fall by the wayside, a victim to fashion.
尽管Google Reader在诸如Twitter、Facebook、Google+等社会化信息产品压倒性的冲击中黯然失色，但这款产品于我意义非凡，并且对很多人来说，它满足了人们以资源为核心的信息消费需求。尽管那些产品举足轻重（指前面提到的Twitter、Facebook、Google+等社会化信息产品——译者注），但它们都无法完成Google Reader设计之初的使命，Reader不应该作为时尚的受害者黯然退场。
And so I put my resources where my mouth is. As the former lead designer for Google Reader, I offer my services to Google, rejoining for a three month contract in order to restore and enhance the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements. I will put my current projects on hold to ensure that Google Reader keeps its place as the premier news reader, and raises the bar of what a social newsreader can be.
也因此我开始动用手头的资源。作为Google Reader前首席设计师，为了在保持Google所要求的新风格的基础上恢复并强化Google Reader功能，我将重返Google为其提供服务，并缔结三个月合同。我将放下手头工作以便保证Google Reader可以保持其作为首要信息阅读器的地位，并提升它作为社会化信息阅读器可以抵达的高度。
