Google Defends Its Design Philosophy
In an interview on TechRadar UK, Google’s director of user experience goes a long way toward responding to claims earlier this year that the company’s design team is too reliant on data. “Data informs decision-making but it’s less useful for conceiving and building conceptually new directions,” explains Irene Au. “It’s most useful for optimising and […]
In an interview on TechRadar UK, Google’s director of user experience goes a long way toward responding to claims earlier this year that the company’s design team is too reliant on data.
“Data informs decision-making but it’s less useful for conceiving and building conceptually new directions,” explains Irene Au. “It’s most useful for optimising and refining an established concept.”
Au leads a 200-person user experience team that often gets involved in new projects long after the design has started. She tells TechRadar that projects are typically started by engineers, and a developer toolkit lets the engineers “get 70 to 80 per cent of the way there without having a designer involved.”
Au says Google has to be particularly careful with design because of the potential impacts on the company’s bottom line.
“Search is such a fragile interface. It’s humbling to see how the slightest changes in design, just pixel-level changes or barely perceptible changes to colours, can have such a dramatic impact on usage and revenue.”
Well-known designer Doug Bowman left Google earlier this year and fired a parting shot on the way out, saying that the company was too reliant on data to drive its design decisions.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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