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Bullshit. For example, do you honestly think that Android UI was done in a data-driven way from the scratch without designers? Google uses data to tweak experi

Bullshit. For example, do you honestly think that Android UI was done in a data-driven way from the scratch without designers? Google uses data to tweak experience of their existing products like Search UI. That's it. Designing interfaces for new products or features is done by designers (or in some case, like many Google Labs products, by developers).

neilk 17y ago
You're right, I should have qualified that. That said, there are a lot of people working as designers in Google, but in my experience they are essentially user interaction designers. The more woolly aspects of design -- like picking a different font just because of how it "feels" -- Google's pretty hostile to that. There's a default concept of "Googliness" which everyone understands to be a kind of high-energy, primary-color blandness with near-magical UI. There aren't a lot of projects that deviate from that, no matter what the designer thinks. If you compare it to the kind of design variety you see at Yahoo or even Microsoft you'll see what I mean. At Yahoo a lot of projects are almost led by design, for good (Flickr) or ill (almost everything else). And there are design principles of Flickr which Google could never accept, like "serendipity". The idea that a user interface could be deliberately not laser-efficient, in the name of promoting exploration and community engagement, would totally baffle Google managers and they wouldn't tolerate that kind of designer-talk.
- jlees 17y ago
  Heaven forfend one should use an attractive font on a Google product. Seeing the incredible engineering innovations going on at Google, and the incredible UI innovations going on elsewhere, makes me a little sad - never the twain shall meet, and instead they're redeemed to making shallow copies of each other and never quite hitting the spot. Over-designed and under-engineered, or vice versa. Adding design-led products or hiring more designers, however, would kind of change what Google is about IMO. Can engineers be taught design? ;)
  - krakensden 17y ago
    Have you ever considered that maybe designers have created a culture that is not quite congruent with reality, and that their perception of a good interface is not, in fact, always a good interface? Engineers like the Google style, but so do lots of my acquaintances who are non-engineers, from scientists to writers to school teachers. Designers seem to be the only demographic with a problem.
    - elblanco 17y ago
      Designer driven applications and websites seem to too often fall into the "pretty but unusable" bucket, I agree.
Devilboy 17y ago
Yes but the designers have to prove (using formal usability testing) that their 4 pixel bezel is superior to a 3 or a 5 pixel bezel for example.

neilk 17y ago

You're right, I should have qualified that. That said, there are a lot of people working as designers in Google, but in my experience they are essentially user interaction designers. The more woolly aspects of design -- like picking a different font just because of how it "feels" -- Google's pretty hostile to that. There's a default concept of "Googliness" which everyone understands to be a kind of high-energy, primary-color blandness with near-magical UI. There aren't a lot of projects that deviate from that, no matter what the designer thinks. If you compare it to the kind of design variety you see at Yahoo or even Microsoft you'll see what I mean. At Yahoo a lot of projects are almost led by design, for good (Flickr) or ill (almost everything else). And there are design principles of Flickr which Google could never accept, like "serendipity". The idea that a user interface could be deliberately not laser-efficient, in the name of promoting exploration and community engagement, would totally baffle Google managers and they wouldn't tolerate that kind of designer-talk.

jlees 17y ago
Heaven forfend one should use an attractive font on a Google product. Seeing the incredible engineering innovations going on at Google, and the incredible UI innovations going on elsewhere, makes me a little sad - never the twain shall meet, and instead they're redeemed to making shallow copies of each other and never quite hitting the spot. Over-designed and under-engineered, or vice versa. Adding design-led products or hiring more designers, however, would kind of change what Google is about IMO. Can engineers be taught design? ;)
- krakensden 17y ago
  Have you ever considered that maybe designers have created a culture that is not quite congruent with reality, and that their perception of a good interface is not, in fact, always a good interface? Engineers like the Google style, but so do lots of my acquaintances who are non-engineers, from scientists to writers to school teachers. Designers seem to be the only demographic with a problem.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    Designer driven applications and websites seem to too often fall into the "pretty but unusable" bucket, I agree.

Devilboy 17y ago

Yes but the designers have to prove (using formal usability testing) that their 4 pixel bezel is superior to a 3 or a 5 pixel bezel for example.