[dimbirol]

Using the google sign-up process was one of the most infuriating things and definitely one of my worst UI/UX experiences.

In order to create a consistent online profile, it's ideal to choose a name which is available on all major social networks.

Google is just not capable of offering a service like that:

You can't check in advance if a given g+ or youtube name is available. If you sign up for a gmail-account, the new account [e-mail] doesn't mean you get youtube.com/newname or plus.google.com/+newname.

A custom youtube name oddly gets created at /c/username and not youtube.com/username and I somehow had to switch profiles (I think between my youtube account, for which I signed up using my gmail-account and my g+-profile which was created when signing up for gmail?!) while logged in into youtube to make changes which was extremely confusing.

Getting a custom g+url is even more difficult, as google adds some patronizing and suggests a name, which can not be edited.

Why is it not possible to register a consistent name accross all google products with 1 signup process: a gmail-account, a youtube username, a g+ account? Creating a new page or signing up at any other social media site maybe takes 5 minutes, the "Google experience" took 1 afternoon (!) with not the desired result.

[wyclif]

I agree this was a major problem, I have been using G+ off and on since the very beginning. It was annoying that I could not select an available username instead of the one Google thought I should use, and I wasn't happy that I couldn't use /c/myusername even though I knew it was available. No consistency whatsoever in the UI/UX. It should have been a cinch to sign in on the same username across all Google services.

You're also correct that this is something you'd think a company like Google would be able to execute well on. Well, you guessed wrong...