“Simply Google” - emphasis on the sarcastic use of quotes!
Google’s frontpage is often described as extremely elegant and simple; Don Norman suggests that “the truth about Google’s so-called simplicity” is simply deception and hiding of features, rather than actual simplicity and ease of use. Chris McEvoy tried to implement a vision of a simpler Google. Try it for yourself: Simply Google.
I’m afraid that this new attempt isn’t very “simple”, or more importantly, easy. The page dumps nearly every option of entire Google endeavor into a single consolidated page. I can appreciate how this is great for power users, and while it’s not aesthetically perfect, much of that could be aided by some prettifying of the layout. However, you can’t get away from the fact that there’s a row of over 20 buttons marked “Search”, and a flood of links at both sides. If anything, this UI feels hyperactive.
This experiment feels like a far cry from usability, so perhaps high usability is not identical to simplicity. If this was the first page someone saw, there’s a good odds that they just wouldn’t soak more time into the page. Usability is, roughly, making the page’s functionality flow naturally into the user’s expectation. I’m find myself agreeing with Don’t Make Me Think* principles, and I don’t think this site follows that standard of maximizing user flow.
In the comments, Chris agrees that this isn’t an end-state of usability:
Design-wise, it is at the other extreme from the ’simple’ official google homepage and shows that the most usable version is probably somewhere in-between the two.
And Google’s UI approach isn’t the end-all either (The idea of “home page googlization” seems like the case where everything looks like a nail for your GoogleHammer.) I’m skeptical that this flattening of all features is moving the page towards greater usability, but I look forward to seeing how these experiments progress, and what they come up with,
* See also: Don’t Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)
nabeel hyatt wrote:
design is, at it’s heart, about making choices for the user. this might sound totalitarian, but that’s clearly what it is.
we know the full raft of every single feature, but to display all of this in the same heirarchy, in the same density, is to require an expertly trained eye (think about the cockpit of an airplane).
google may be an extreme example, but it is indeed a valuable one. from the headline of a newspaper to the layout of a webpage, designers make important decisions not just about how important information is, but whether it should be shown at all.
Posted on 03-Jun-07 at 6:44 pm | Permalink