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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 creativ

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.

plinkplonk 18y ago
" 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.
- cdibona 18y ago
  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.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
ionfish 18y ago
What makes you think that clean and creative are design attributes in opposition to one another? I've seen a number of comments like yours on this thread, and to be honest I'm quite dubious about this attitude. It smacks of the whole "designers are just here to add visual pizzazz" school of thought, which while true of many bad designers, is not true of good ones like Doug Bowman. If you have a lot of information to present to a user, then good design is about presenting that information in a comprehensible way, which often involves creating a pretty spartan interface. Doing this is not easy, and requires plenty of creativity.
- radu_floricica 18y ago
  I'm an engineer by heart, so I make the same mistakes mentioned in the article :) I respect a large system and all the work that it implies, and I believe in incremental and tested changes where the stakes are so high. Yes, there can be better designs which are just as clean, but to get to the same level with a new concept would take the same amount of work and the same number of mistakes. This I also believe. As for what I think about designers... truth is, not so much lately. In my freelance experience, working with freelance designers, they are the worst when it comes to deadlines (even very loose ones). But the thing I resent them most for is how often they just "add visual pizzazz". Rarely I see a site layout, or worse, application layout which accounts for future development or development ease or changes of any kind. What I really want is a concept which would allow me to do more, not less with my app. And unfortunately I often get one which looks great, but will break if I want to add a couple of controls or filters.
  - anatoli 18y ago
    Maybe you just work with the wrong designers... ? No sane, professional designer I know, works like that.
- tvon 18y ago
  John Gruber touched on a similar point today, quoting from a NY Times article from 2003 (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/30IPOD.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/30IPOD.html): “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” - Steve Jobs [edited formatting (thanks unalone)]
  - unalone 18y ago
    Your line stretches out this page ridiculously. EDIT: That's one of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes. When I was younger and making my first web sites, I thought design was all about making things pretty. Turns out, pretty has almost nothing to do with design (and, in fact most of the design I like the most is aggressively minimal and stripped away). Design's about how things flow. (I'd also say, speaking as somebody who takes a lot of interest in design, that this makes design incredibly fun once you figure this out. It means that every page you make, even sign-up pages, are wildly different and interesting. I've made something like 6 iterations of my site's log in page, simplifying and condensing it each time, and I get a thrill out of that similar to the one that comes from making code better and more elegant. Not to speak of the notadouche sign up page, which was very very fun to design.)
gb 18y ago
Clean and creative aren't mutually exclusive though. It's perhaps too obvious an example, but Apple's design is on the whole pretty clean - and to my eyes at least looks like a lot more care was given to it. One of my main problem's with Google's design isn't how plain it is, it's just that it looks half finished at times - it doesn't need more, but it doesn't look like it was well thought out.
- twoz 18y ago
  One of my main problems with Google's design isn't how plain it is, it's just that it looks half finished at times - it doesn't need more, but it doesn't look like it was well thought out. This could very well be intentional. Take speaking a foreign language as an example: 1) If you're a novice, a native can tell right off the bat and cuts you some serious slack. 2) Even if you speak their language at an intermediate level, a native can still tell it's not your first tongue and, depending on your demeanor, cuts you some slack. 3) You speak their language fluently and can be considered by any native speaker to have mastered their tongue. However, when you (confidently) mess up in the slightest, you can very well look quite retarded to the natives. In Google's case, that half-finished look could be very intentional and can look a bit humble, as in "I'm sorry I haven't had time to clean up the place, but please come in and make yourself feel at home". You can feel a bit better knowing you don't have to be constantly alert as you would around the presence of perceived perfection.
  - gb 18y ago
    That's an interesting way of looking at it, not something that would have occurred to me at all.
ken 18y ago
I like companies that work on big hard problems, not whether a border is 4 or 5 pixels wide. I like companies that encourage top minds to stick around, not with gimmicks like free snacks but by valuing their ideas. They've got millions of clients, but they have very few designers. I'd be more worried about losing the design leads. (Unless his ideas would have cost the company millions of clients, but it doesn't sound like that's the case -- if it was, they would have just fired him.) The question of whether it "works" isn't clear-cut to me. Not a day goes by I use a Google service that I don't curse it for something stupid it does. I'm looking forward to what Bowman does next, because if it's any of the Google services I use, I'll jump ship in a heartbeat for something with good design. A lot of their services are almost without competition, because the little guys don't have the guts to stand up to Google, and the big guys who do have even worse design.

plinkplonk 18y ago

" 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.

cdibona 18y ago
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.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]

ionfish 18y ago

What makes you think that clean and creative are design attributes in opposition to one another? I've seen a number of comments like yours on this thread, and to be honest I'm quite dubious about this attitude. It smacks of the whole "designers are just here to add visual pizzazz" school of thought, which while true of many bad designers, is not true of good ones like Doug Bowman. If you have a lot of information to present to a user, then good design is about presenting that information in a comprehensible way, which often involves creating a pretty spartan interface. Doing this is not easy, and requires plenty of creativity.

radu_floricica 18y ago
I'm an engineer by heart, so I make the same mistakes mentioned in the article :) I respect a large system and all the work that it implies, and I believe in incremental and tested changes where the stakes are so high. Yes, there can be better designs which are just as clean, but to get to the same level with a new concept would take the same amount of work and the same number of mistakes. This I also believe. As for what I think about designers... truth is, not so much lately. In my freelance experience, working with freelance designers, they are the worst when it comes to deadlines (even very loose ones). But the thing I resent them most for is how often they just "add visual pizzazz". Rarely I see a site layout, or worse, application layout which accounts for future development or development ease or changes of any kind. What I really want is a concept which would allow me to do more, not less with my app. And unfortunately I often get one which looks great, but will break if I want to add a couple of controls or filters.
- anatoli 18y ago
  Maybe you just work with the wrong designers... ? No sane, professional designer I know, works like that.
tvon 18y ago
John Gruber touched on a similar point today, quoting from a NY Times article from 2003 (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/30IPOD.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/30IPOD.html): “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” - Steve Jobs [edited formatting (thanks unalone)]
- unalone 18y ago
  Your line stretches out this page ridiculously. EDIT: That's one of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes. When I was younger and making my first web sites, I thought design was all about making things pretty. Turns out, pretty has almost nothing to do with design (and, in fact most of the design I like the most is aggressively minimal and stripped away). Design's about how things flow. (I'd also say, speaking as somebody who takes a lot of interest in design, that this makes design incredibly fun once you figure this out. It means that every page you make, even sign-up pages, are wildly different and interesting. I've made something like 6 iterations of my site's log in page, simplifying and condensing it each time, and I get a thrill out of that similar to the one that comes from making code better and more elegant. Not to speak of the notadouche sign up page, which was very very fun to design.)

gb 18y ago

Clean and creative aren't mutually exclusive though. It's perhaps too obvious an example, but Apple's design is on the whole pretty clean - and to my eyes at least looks like a lot more care was given to it. One of my main problem's with Google's design isn't how plain it is, it's just that it looks half finished at times - it doesn't need more, but it doesn't look like it was well thought out.

twoz 18y ago
One of my main problems with Google's design isn't how plain it is, it's just that it looks half finished at times - it doesn't need more, but it doesn't look like it was well thought out. This could very well be intentional. Take speaking a foreign language as an example: 1) If you're a novice, a native can tell right off the bat and cuts you some serious slack. 2) Even if you speak their language at an intermediate level, a native can still tell it's not your first tongue and, depending on your demeanor, cuts you some slack. 3) You speak their language fluently and can be considered by any native speaker to have mastered their tongue. However, when you (confidently) mess up in the slightest, you can very well look quite retarded to the natives. In Google's case, that half-finished look could be very intentional and can look a bit humble, as in "I'm sorry I haven't had time to clean up the place, but please come in and make yourself feel at home". You can feel a bit better knowing you don't have to be constantly alert as you would around the presence of perceived perfection.
- gb 18y ago
  That's an interesting way of looking at it, not something that would have occurred to me at all.

ken 18y ago

I like companies that work on big hard problems, not whether a border is 4 or 5 pixels wide. I like companies that encourage top minds to stick around, not with gimmicks like free snacks but by valuing their ideas. They've got millions of clients, but they have very few designers. I'd be more worried about losing the design leads. (Unless his ideas would have cost the company millions of clients, but it doesn't sound like that's the case -- if it was, they would have just fired him.) The question of whether it "works" isn't clear-cut to me. Not a day goes by I use a Google service that I don't curse it for something stupid it does. I'm looking forward to what Bowman does next, because if it's any of the Google services I use, I'll jump ship in a heartbeat for something with good design. A lot of their services are almost without competition, because the little guys don't have the guts to stand up to Google, and the big guys who do have even worse design.