Designing at Google, two approaches

written by Javier on 24/03/2009


Approach A

A lot of designers want to increase the line height or padding in order to make the interface “breathe.” We deliberately don’t do that. We want to squeeze in as much information as possible above the fold. We recognize that information density is part of what makes the experience great and efficient. Our goal is to get users in and out really quickly. All our design decisions are based on that strategy.

Irene Au, User Interface Director at Google

Approach B

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions.

Douglas Bowman, Former Head of Visual Design at Google

Which one would you take?

(thanks, Missha)

There are 11 comments to this article:

  1. 24/03/2009Ana Belén Ramón says:

    and supporting Approach A, Marissa Mayer said a few days ago:

    “Google and other Internet companies are doing design in a whole new way, because the Internet has really opened up opportunities for us to be very data driven. When you have a large user base, you can basically have a large sample size. So we take small percentages of our users that ultimately add up to 100,000, 200,000 people, and run a new design on them, and we can mathematically tell – based on a sort of metrics – which design is better.

    [...] So, for example, when we were picking the light blue on the top of the result page, we picked two different designers involved who each picked a different shade of blue. And we couldn’t figure out which blue was better, so we decided to run them both. And then when the results came back, we thought that was so interesting; we then went on to run every shade of blue in between.

    [...] And what’s really amazing is you can actually plot a curve of how well users are responding to this, and find the local maxima on that curve. You can actually mathematically prove that your design is correct.”

    http://www.wowowow.com/politics/lesley-stahl-marissa-mayer-google-search-products-242531?page=0%2C5

  2. 24/03/2009Olga Revilla says:

    My hearts says B. My brain says A. Or is the opposite?

  3. 24/03/2009sebadog says:

    it depends ;)

  4. 24/03/2009ignacio says:

    Para mi que el amigo Douglas se mea fuera del tiesto

    Claramente si tienes posibilidades (como Google) siempre es A, otra cuestión es que por falta de recursos (entiendase como posibilidades de testeo o tiempo para realizar el trabajo) la experiencia y talento del diseñador sea una pieza clave.

    Lo que me resulta chocante es que si hay una empresa en el mundo que sabes que el trabajo del diseñador gráfico va a ser limitado y además supertestado esa es google.

    Estamos hablando de un monstruo que tiene publicadas 30 aplicaciones, y con una línea de trabajo clarisima.

    Evidentemente entiendo que el amigo Douglas (que es un crack) no sea el hombre idoneo para este tipo de proceso, pero tampoco entiendo la queja y creo que no hay mucho debate al respecto de si A o B.

    Seguramente en Yahoo sería feliz.

  5. 24/03/2009ignacio says:

    Lo habría puesto en ingles pero no sé como se dice mear fuera del tiesto con el mismo “charm” que tiene en español :P

  6. 24/03/2009Gorka Beaumont says:

    “Sticking your nose in?”

  7. 24/03/2009Sam says:

    @ignacio, “peeing up the wrong wall” would be a similarly themed suitable translation.

  8. 25/03/2009Ariel Guers says:

    I don’t consider A and B to be opposites, really.
    But testing 41 shades and letting metrics decide wich shade of blue is “correct” might work as it might yield success (as Mayer asserts). It might work, but it isn’t design.

    B is design. A can be design. Letting A/B testing decide is engineering, or something else but it isn’t design.
    Design problems are wicked problems, ill-defined per definition. If you can define a problem with clear parameters it isn’t design.

  9. 27/03/2009Inaki says:

    Yo a esas dos aproximaciones les veo sencillamente usos distintos. Que por supuesto Google no hace. Google hace A en ocasiones evidentes de uso B.

    Ejemplo de uso A cuando podría ser B es Google Adwords no?

  10. 3/04/2009ignacio says:

    Pobre Douglas, ahora que se va a twitter.

    http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internet/Google/negocia/compra/Twitter/186/millones/elpeputec/20090403elpepunet_1/Tes

    Ya veo la escena

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcW-N1l67kw

  11. 21/11/2009Gucko.gucko says:

    Nice dude

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