Microsoft Word gets a lot of flak for continuing to use the floppy disk icon to represent the “Save” button. An entire generation of computer users have no idea what that icon is, let alone what it represents.
Google solved this problem by eliminating the NEED for a save button… and therefore the icon all together.
But, they managed to copy a far worse obsolete concept in document creation – page breaks.
If my usage is any guide, I suspect a very small, perhaps insignificant percentage of documents created in Google Docs are printed. Yet- we are still forced to deal with the limitations of page breaks.
This is most obvious when pasting an image into a Doc. If the image doesn’t fit, it skips to the next page… leaving a giant white “whole” in the middle of the document.
When introduced, Google Doc’s collaborative features were so good, they changed the way we work. Over time, they incorporated their entire suite of tools so completely into their authentication, storage, and email. It’s hard to imagine switching to something else. It’s an example of a very creative team, completely thinking outside the box… but with a foothold in the past.
Finding Nilay 