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"Overall it was important to me that the page be dynamic, that it feel very fresh, and that it be very intuitive, and that it really tries to embody beautiful d
by bpatrianakos 14y ago
"Overall it was important to me that the page be dynamic, that it feel very fresh, and that it be very intuitive, and that it really tries to embody beautiful design"
Is that really supposed to mean anything? It sounds like buzzword soup. It should kind of go without saying that she wants the site to be fresh, intuitive, and beautiful. I don't think anyone wants a stale, frustrating and ugly website. That said, news feeds, AJAX, and oAuth don't necessarily make the site all 3 of those things.
I'm really rooting for Mayer but I couldn't let that quote go.
- prezjordan 14y agoShe's the face of a large corporation, is that really unexpected? I figure anyone in her position would throw around marketing lingo - seems like it's part of the job.
- bpatrianakos 14y agoI know that. I'm being a little harsh and I am kidding a bit too. I usually don't go out of my way to say anything about these sorts of things because of exactly what you said but this one just struck me so hard I could not let it go.
- untog 14y agoIt's an interview with BusinessWeek. There is such a thing as playing to your audience. She's a techie, we know she is, BusinessWeek's average reader doesn't know or care.
- obstacle1 14y agoThis is a fluff piece aimed entirely at nontechnical readers. "Beautiful", "intuitive", "dynamic", "personalizable", and so on are exactly the words this audience wants to hear. They wouldn't understand anything more jargon-y and don't care how the site was built, they just want to know how they're going to feel while using it.
- jrockway 14y agoHow can someone tell me what I will find beautiful or intuitive? It's buzzwords, not a meaningful reflection on the changes. People that aren't professional writers think that stringing positive-sounding words together in a way that is grammatically correct will result in a good sentence. The result is corporate speak. "The synergy of the positive verbiage results in a dynamic reading experience." No, it makes me want to hit my head on the desk until my eyes get too watery to read the text anymore. Or post an angry comment on HN. One of those.
- obstacle1 14y ago>How can someone tell me what I will find beautiful or intuitive? Nobody can. But when a press release says a product is beautiful and intuitive, it at least invites you to go use the product and judge for yourself. >It's buzzwords, not a meaningful reflection on the changes. Beautiful, fresh, and intuitive aren't buzzwords in the same sense that synergistic, disruptive, etc. are. Beauty, freshness, and intuition are ancient aesthetic concepts that speak to instincts in, dare I say, all humans. When I hear that something is beautiful, that is an invitation for me to go judge said thing's beauty. As such, I'd argue that describing a new product as beautiful, intuitive, or something similar is an equally meaningful description as listing technical specs driving a change. >People that aren't professional writers think that stringing positive-sounding words together in a way that is grammatically correct will result in a good sentence. The result is corporate speak. As someone who has written copy professionally (and still sometimes does) I disagree with you on a number of levels. Strings of positive-sounding but effectively meaningless words absolutely are effective for selling and persuading. On the other hand strings of meaningful and unambiguous words often don't convert. Note that we don't sell consumer products by using instruction manuals as ads, and we don't drive massive traffic by describing the mechanics behind a site. Even Rails, a technical "product", advertises itself by claiming to facilitate the writing of "beautiful" code.
- taligent 14y ago> How can someone tell me what I will find beautiful or intuitive? Let's be honest here. Yahoo doesn't really care what you think. Clearly if you are someone who gets worked up because a company calls a new product, "beautiful" or "intuitive" then you really aren't their desired demographic. Especially since you know. You are a Google employee and all. The fact is that Yahoo is simply trying to make this launch sound exciting. Like companies have been doing for hundreds of years. And the language they are using is far less hyperbolic than most. > The result is corporate speak. Might want to check a dictionary because I don't think you understand what that term means.
- wmeredith 14y agoShe's not going to rattle off jargon from the technical requirements document. If she did, the Business Week audience would respond with, "What's that supposed to mean? It just a bunch of acronyms and industry jargon." This is a marketing and PR piece.
- dfxm12 14y agoAren't buzzwords like this just as alienating as tech jargon? I know everyone does it, but why does she have to speak in marketing/design jargon, and not plain English?
- ed209 14y agoActually, you should always define some "buzzword soup" as you put it, or as others put it "define the tone". Picking out opposites to words she says is a cheap shot. Of course no one would ask for "stale, frustrating and ugly" websites. However, she could just as easily have said "robust, bold and permanent" which would have resulted in a site better suited for obituaries. I often encounter people who put these very high level definitions down to project management fluff, but the truth is the stuff makes a difference on it's way down the development chain.
- bpatrianakos 14y agoEveryone seems to be misunderstanding what I meant. I understand that those words have meaning in some contexts and I get that this is a Business Week interview and they're playing to the audience. All I'm saying is that if she would have added in just a couple of specifics in there the quote would have had meaning. What she said would have made sense if she were saying it to her design department but in this context it still stands as meaningless.
- ed209 14y agofair enough, my comments were directed more towards these terms used in a project management context rather than where she actually used them. I would still argue that using them as part of marketing speak is doing something towards setting the tone though.
- biot 14y agoThe page used to be relatively static, a bit outdated, not as intuitive as it could be, and with a design that was aging. Her explanation is perfect for conveying what they've focused on changing without dwelling on the old status.
- lotso 14y agoThe page is dynamic and fresh = the content is changing and up-to-date. Intuitive = easy to use, especially important for Yahoo's demographic Beautiful design = nice to look at. I think that sentence covers the redesign pretty well and isn't just "buzzword soup."
- pacomerh 14y agoHere we are at HN, a community of "smart" people, and yet you still don't understand that those words are for targeted for everyone, not just you, the nerd. Of course it's fine if she says the "obvious", it's not obvious for everyone.
- tn13 14y agoShe clearly missed the following words. "leveraging the cloud, mobile optimized, touch friendly"