Good news folks… Enough for me to get out of bed, put my back at risk and write a blog post – Doug Bowman, uber designer has joined Google which means, a likely end to the mishmash, drab and boring user interfaces from Google. Yeah!
On a more serious tip, with the acquisition of Measure Map, Google got some good people from Adaptive Path who know a thing or two about web design and UI. Bowman is another design ace. What it leads me to believe that with an increase in the number of offerings from Google, the search giant has realized that it needs to put its UI house in order. Bowman’s post on his blog pretty much says it all.
After a bit of negotiation and a lot of internal debate, I recently accepted an offer to join Google as Visual Design Lead, a position that did not previously exist there. I’m charged with helping the company establish a common visual language across all their collaborative and communication products. This includes products I’ve already had some hand in like Blogger and Calendar. But it will also include other highly used products like Gmail, Writely, Page Creator, and other projects in the pipeline.
Mishmash, drab and boring seem a bit harsh on Google. For a company whose homepage has ignited Minimalism on the web, has to be given its due credit. Most of the Google’s products are neat, clean and uncluttered for me.
I have seen far worse Web 2.0 pays royalty to O’Reilly sites than gMail. I like the simplicity of Google, that said if the same content stays but is offered in a more attractive way – I’m for it.
It’s good to know Google is actually going to pay some attention to design. Yes their apps are clean and uncluttered but they arent exaclty designed to appeal to the masses. (ie: Geeks love it).
Maybe Google are going through a phase of actually trying to market more to normal people.
http://www.digg.com/design/WillDougBowmanMakeGoogleBeautiful
I am with the folks who love the look and feel of the google homepage, gmail and google finance. Now Doug had a role in google calendar, so I am sure his work is excellent. I think the key is a consistent look and feel. I would hate google to get too fancy, but if Doug is able to keep the less of more credo alive and consistent across apps, then they will be in good shape. There is a lot of inconsistency in their recent offerings.
I love the Google interface, plain simple and ad free (in most parts).
Lets keep it that way.
the problem with moving away from a basic approach is you cant please everyone, with a basic look (most) people wont go, ugh, thats ugly, but say if google decides to make everything green and shiny, what happens with people who hate green, etc
I prefer plain and simple over way too long to load because of all the garbage anytime.
I think, personally, that Google could use a unified interface of sorts. They seem to have attempted this between Gmail, Calendar, and Reader…but only loosely. Another aspect that may appear out of this is universal Google Accounts…have you noticed that you have to sign up for each service indivudally (usually)? I’m hoping they create blanket accounts…if you belong to one, you have all the services but just have to activate that “module”.
There is nothing really bad about the current Google design. Furthermore, simplicity makes is the best way to surf the internet. I like it the way it is now, don’t think I would enjoy the additional weightage on the graphics or added user-interface widgets on the Google page.