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Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

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Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#41

Post by brandonkm »

nostrademons wrote: post #19
brandonkm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the reason Apple's products have been so successful throughout the years. Not only that, but they are masters of creating a 'design ecosystem'. Browse apple.com, then head to the apple store, its a seamless experience. This is arguably one of the competitive advantages that has helped Apple maintain it's position in the market and with consumers everywhere.

Microsoft products have also been successful through the years, as have Google's. And neither of them has a keen sense of design. The reason Apple's been successful is that they occupy a small but passionate niche of customers that are completely underserved by Microsoft. Most users don't care about design - but the ones that do care a lot, and will pay a premium for something that pays attention to their needs. Ther…

I agree with some of what you're saying. However, I don't think Apple is playing the position of scooping up customers who are 'underserved by Microsoft'. They are playing the position of making intuitive, well designed products that anyone can use while locking you into their ecosystem.

Most users don't care about design? I think the number of the different Apple products sold say otherwise. A phone that anyone can pick up and use many of the features without reading a manual, thats a byproduct of brilliant design on many levels. Whether people care or not, they connect with it and are put in a position where they now have feelings for a piece of technology. When they then decide to make that purchase they very much care about design.

Microsoft products have indeed been successful, but other than the xbox (and we're talking consumer electronics here not OS's) what has been the other runaway hit they've made? The zune is a great media player, but came about after msft assembled a team and put them in a room with an ipod and told them to make something better.

The growth in sales from Apples products combined with their increasing marketshare in the desktop and mobile spaces are very indicative of consumers demanding better designed stuff. Apple's in-house iterative process is best positioned and most efficient at making products that are in line with that.

Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#43

Post by adamhowell »

reconbot wrote: post #38
adamhowell wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A real shame. Google is losing some major talent - which appears to have only been squandered over the last three years. When I started at Google Nov. '06 Doug had created some awesome Gmail mockups that really took the design and functionality above and beyond and -- having heard about how ground up Goog worked -- I was thinking those designs would be acted upon and built in the coming months and I was excited abo…

Are any of those mockups public? I love seeing good design ideas.

No, unfortunately, not that I know of.

Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#45

Post by tptacek »

axod wrote: post #7
tptacek wrote: post #2

Reading this makes me think of all the adwords-driven "brochure" sites with centered text and a 50 foot ribbon of testimonials, all designed that way because the data show that the work. I'm sure they do.

They're pretty different. Adwords-driven brochure sites usually have measurable conversions. You can immediately measure the ROI for left aligned text, and centered text. If the centered text gets a higher ROI, it'd be pretty weird to go with the left aligned instead. Design on something like Google isn't quite as easy to measure. A brochure site is designed to lead to a conversion, and likely to be only used by the…

You're right, of course, I'm just commenting that result-oriented design and graphic design may not be compatible worldviews.

Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#46

Post by ryanwaggoner »

axod wrote: post #12
dejb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. " Actually the evolutionist in me thinks this is pretty cool but I can still understand why a designer would want to quit.

I guess it depends on if you trust the majority making the right decision. I think often that just leads to mediocracy. 41 shades does seem a bit of a gimmick. I doubt it really matters that much, or that most people can even tell the difference.

I guess it depends on if you trust the majority making the right decision.

When you're running a business and the decision is whether or not to convert, trusting the majority is the only decision. If others see it as mediocrity, so be it.

Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#47

Post by ellyagg »

nostrademons wrote: post #18
jeresig wrote: post #4

> "Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this…

It sounds like he's a poor fit for Google. The data-driven decision making process really is central to Google (at least in Search; I dunno how it is in other departments), and if you're working at cross-purposes with that, the culture will and should reject you. That doesn't mean he's a bad designer - I'm sure he's not. But Google occupies a particular place in the market ecosystem: many of its users want a UI that'…

Nowhere does his post imply that the reason he's leaving is because his design aesthetic clashes with Google's desire for "clean, spartan, and utilitarian." It's perfectly possible to meet those goals and not be ugly, like, e.g., iGoogle and Gmail are. I consider most of Apple's designs to be "clean, spartan, and utilitarian".

Requiring user testing for shades of blue and thicknesses of border is the height of silliness. I'm reminded of those room makeover shows they have on TV. At the beginning, the designer tells the couple one of the colors they've chosen. The couple is aghast. "What, I can't stand magenta. No way!" Sometimes, the wife looks like she's about to cry. At the end, magenta is used and the design is breathtaking.

There is no way user testing has gotten efficient enough to beat a designer at that level of detail. Moreover, users often don't know they want something until a designer shows them they do. You can never get to those designs by testing blues and borders.

Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#48

Post by cpr »

wensing wrote: post #3

I wonder: are Apple's designs just as data-driven?

I think the critical portions of their design have been Jobs-driven for quite some years now.

A friend of mine, now an Apple emeritus distinguished engineer, said that during the engineering redesign of the Apple UI elements for Leopard (10.5) (which ended up looking nearly the same as 10.4), the engineers would have a weekly meeting, where they'd present just a few buttons. Jobs would walk in and say "yes" or "no" and walk out. Took quite a few iterations. ;-)

(To be clear, this was the internal re-engineering effort to make the Aqua UI resolution-independent. Inside of 10.5 is a huge set of tools that accomplish that fact, but it still had to look the same at current resolutions, and also look good at higher, which we haven't seen yet. The good results is that they can deploy a whole new system-wide, resolution-independent look & feel by replacing some XML and PNG files in the Appearance internal framework, and with no code changes. I suspect we're going to see that used in 10.6 very late in the cycle so there are no leaks.)

Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#49

Post by cdibona »

plinkplonk wrote: post #27
radu_floricica wrote: post #9

It's easy to criticize a policy like this, but they do have millions of clients and it does work. I'd rather have a clean interface for my google then a creative one. Actually, i'd like more clean interfaces all around. There's no shortage of creativity in web design, but large applications/sites with so many users are not the place to test it.

" but large applications/sites with so many users are not the place to test it." I am not so sure. Why not just A/B test anyway. You just might get stunning non incremental progress. Or if that is too radical, just focus test. Or something other than just rejecting non incremental designs.

We actually do a/b testing. I don't work with the ui folks much, but we're always running tests like this. It's why you sometimes see some design/functionality feature appear for like one search and then poof you don't see for a while if at all.

Re: Goodbye Google: "Visual Design Lead" leaves Google

#50

Post by Keyframe »

teej wrote: post #10
jeresig wrote: post #4

> "Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this…

> It's probably a big reason why Google hasn't had a truly innovative design in a long time. I would argue that they do have a truly innovative design. The fact that it doesn't look new and challenging doesn't preclude that. They have a design that's nuanced in thousands of ways to improve their business. Their design is reminiscient of Victorian architecture, every last detail polished off until it was perfect. Havi…

I think you are confusing functionality with design - even though two are closely related. Google is a landmark in both functionality and design - but former was the one that hauled latter onto the scene. IMO google has had one of the worst designs/branding ever before gmail era, which is in stark contrast with it's peak in functionality. This makes it a unique blend that stands out.
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