Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually think their name is one of the strongest things going for them...and Google being more than a search engine to be the very reason Bing is gaining market share and brands like DDG actually have a shot at competing. Regarding the name...it is unique and very MEMORABLE (repetition is one of the four mental glues.) It has just as few syllables as Microsoft, and is super easy to pronounce... From a branding per…
I just visited duckduckgo.com again (though full of hesitation) and as a designer I can tell you: 1) Their design is very complex and un-appealing with no simplicity that a SE should posses (For Eg. Google, Bing have a very simple design). They don't design Search engines to be simple because they like it that way, because they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which colors and patterns work b…
Enough people have already said it. I feel like a broken record but what's very complex about a text box and a logo?
> because they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which colors and patterns work best.
Interesting. Do you have any citations to back it up? I haven't heard of Google researching what colors work best for a search interface. Or bing for that matter.
> DO NOT over-use red.
The thing about design advice is everyone fancies himself Steve Jobs. Even if I started listening, I would never have a definitive, agreed-on opinion.
> Red is used to denote only important elements on a website (like a sign-up button), a call-to-action element (For example, compose button on Gmail)
Where is this definitive design rule book of yours? As long as you have sufficient contrast, that is enough to attract attention to important elements. Are you saying if I have a red background and a white compose button with black text, user will somehow see the background as call-to-action and not the button? Now don't go on how red background will not look very good. That's not the point. The point is color alone doesn't decide which section of the page is important.
> Look at DDG, they have a whole top-bar in full red.
Since they merge in serach box with the bar, that section is important.
> Now, I already know Google has a superior Search algorithm, period (from what I perceive).
This has been done n times. There is no clear pattern when it comes to choosing google vs bing results in a blind search result. As far as the end user is concerned, it's not possible to tell which one is algorithmically superior.
> Look at the irony, even you reference them by DDG and not DuckDuckGo,
What's the irony here?
> whereas you reference Google by just Google and not by any other short form. This is exactly what I meant. Brand Naming is something that we don't even pay attention to, but plays a much much important role.
Oh my. How much it has hurt Microsoft. They should have just called themselves MS and be done with it. I can't fathom how much of a hit y-combinator and hacker news are taking because their names can be abbreviated.
/s