Google deserves a lot of credit. They built a better search engine and have kept it one step ahead of the competition for seven years. They reinvented online advertising with AdWords and gave everyone with a website the ability to make a couple of bucks with AdSense. Gmail is one of the best webmail clients out there and Google Maps is just so amazingly great, it shocked MapQuest and Yahoo Maps out of their decade-long slumber.
With the exception of a couple of privacy freakouts, Google’s image has remained mostly untarnished. When the US government recently asked all the major search engines for server logs, Yahoo forked them over, but Google said no, earning the admiration of every geek who’s ever searched for a naughty word or two.
Google’s gotten a lot of praise, and they deserve pretty much all of it. But just because they’re the biggest dog in search, that doesn’t mean they’ve done everything right. In fact, when it comes to visual design, they’ve done pretty much everything wrong.
Portal to the Past
In the late nineties and early 2000s, when words like “portal” and “stickiness” were thrown around like so much unwise investment, every search engine piled layer upon layer of crap on their homepage, making it harder and harder to ascertain what, exactly, they did. If you want an example, just look at Yahoo’s homepage today – it’s still a “portal” in all its hectic, eye-crushing glory.
But Google kept it real, man. Their Zen-like homepage has remained pristine through it all. But what seems like smart marketing now was probably just design ineptitude. You don’t have to look much past Google’s Fisher Price logo to know it: These people have no use for design.
After a few years, the sparseness of Google’s homepage and refrigerator magnet logo have become their brand. They’re the anti-design search engine. But as they roll out new services (Calendar, Gmail, Etc), their pristine homepage’s days are numbered.
The Problem
Too many of today’s web companies simply copy Google’s sparse homepage because they think some of that success might rub off on them. But Google was successful in spite of their design, not because of it. Google rules the web today because their technology was so great, so unique back then, that users were willing to overlook their hostile user experience.
Imagine a web page with just a logo, a form entry field, and a submit button. What does it do? Only one way to find out. Some call that brilliant – I call it mean. The only reason we all tolerate it at all is because we were trained to. But that only works once – to compete, you have to offer users a better experience.
Google was not a success because their homepage was sparse. They were a success because they brought a better technique to solving a real world problem, and didn’t ever go off-message. And partly because it didn’t take much explaining, and partly because they were the scrappy underdog, and partly because they were going against the design trend of the time, their homepage was utterly bereft of any hint of design.
The lesson startups should learn is that, if those conditions are exactly the same for them – if they’ve got a red hot new technology that solves a real problem and is so dead simple that users will instinctively understand it without instruction – then by all means, copy Google. Create that perfect, sparse, Zen-like, no-explanation homepage, man.
But if you are entering a crowded marketplace, and you’re doing something a little bleeding edge, something a little newfangled, something your mom or dad might not see the value in without your explaining … in other words, if you live in the real world, you can’t expect people to understand your product when all you give them is a logo and a blank form.
The Cult of Google
Ever heard of a Cargo Cult? During World War II, supplies were air-dropped to soldiers on Pacific Islands. The natives saw this as miraculous – food falling from the sky! When the war was over and the soldiers departed, the islanders repeated the things they’d seen. They built wooden altars that resembled runways and control towers. They wore wooden earphones and waved wooden landing signals. They thought that if they did what they’d seen soldiers do, the food would come parachuting down again.
Seems crazy, right? But it’s no different than search engines copying Google’s design, somehow hoping it’ll bring showers of cash. Just look at the recently redesigned Ask.com. Where there once was a friendly butler, there to lend a hand, now there’s just a logo and a search box. Where there once was a differentiating characteristic and an interesting (albeit kind of silly) brand, now there’s just another pale imitation of the market leader. How can a site like Ask prove to its users that it’s better than Google when they’re obviously changing their design to be more like it? It’s clear who’s leading, and who’s playing catch-up.
And it’s not just Ask.com. Take any half-serious search engine like A9 or Microsoft’s new Live search engine. They all copy Google’s user interface: Logo, form, button. Why are they so afraid of giving their users a little context?
Something Completely Different
When I redesigned Technorati, I felt strongly that if we copied Google’s structure, users would expect a Google-like experience. But Technorati is a fundamentally different search engine: the results are blog posts sorted by time, not websites sorted by relevance. If a user expected an experience like Google, they’d walk away unfulfilled. So Technorati had to reset some user expectations.
We did that by adding text and context. The text took some time to explain what Technorati did (assuming everyone will “get it” is a classic startup mistake). The context showed example content. The best way to indirectly teach users is to provide them with excellent examples. In this case, we chose to show the top recent search terms and tags. That way, if you were suffering from input anxiety, and didn’t know what to search for, you could jump in using what the crowd thought was hot.
This made it clear, right from the first page, that Technorati was different. It reset the expectations that users came to the site with. And best of all, the users loved the top searches feature, sometimes coming back to the site many times a day to see what was hot. I was happy to see the recently launched blog search engine Sphere provide some context the same way.
The Question to Ask
If you’re ever tempted to copy Google’s sparse interface, or have a client who says, “Well, Google did it this way, so they must be right,” tell them that copying Google says two things about you:
- You don’t care enough about your users to bother talking to them about why they should care about you (and, therefore, they won’t)
- You’re as unoriginal as the guy selling knockoff handbags on the corner, so it’s probably best to just avoid eye contact altogether.
So I beg you, the next time you’re faced with a design decision, don’t ask “What would Google do?” Instead ask, “What would the people who use our product totally love?”
Answer that and Google might just have competition someday.
译文:
Google是怎么做的？
Google就是权威。他们打造了一个很好的搜索引擎，并且在这七年中，始终保持领先地位。他们用AdWords重塑了在线广告，并且给予网站的每一个人有能力利用AdSense去制作buck。在这里，Gmail是最好的邮件客户端之一，而且Google Maps简直太棒了，MapQuest和Yahoo Maps要花十年的时间才能迎头赶上！
除了这几个金字招牌外，Google的形象仍旧非常高大。当美国政府最近要求那些主要的搜索引擎公司交出他们的服务日志时，Yahoo乖乖地交出了，而Google却拒绝配合。这一举措获得了那些一直搜索不那么高尚词汇的用户的钦佩。
Google获得了很多赞誉，而他们也的确值得我们这样做。他们是搜索引擎类的巨头，但是这并不意味着他们做的每件事情都是正确的。实际上，当提到视觉设计时，他们所做的事情基本上都是错误的。
过去的门户网站
在19世纪末和20世纪初，当“门户”和“粘着性”这样的词汇，在一群不那么有智慧的投资商中提出时，许多搜索引擎网站将赌注投在了他们的首页上，让人们越来越难去确定他们究竟是做什么的。如果你希望有一个例子来证明，只要看看Yahoo今天的首页就知道了——他看起来就像是一个“门户网站”。
但是Google便显得名副其实。他们的首页自始自终都是保留了质朴。不过看起来好象是精明的营销理念，现在看来可能只是设计上的缺陷。你不用看许多Google过去的Fisher Price的商标就能够知道：这些人不会设计。
几年后，Google的首页内容越来越少，冰箱磁铁的商标成为他们的品牌。他们是反对花哨设计的搜索引擎。但当他们推出新的服务时（比如Calendar、Gmail等等），他们的原始页面所存在的日子屈指可数，马上就会被代替。
存在的问题
今天，有太多的网络公司简单地沿用了Google那简洁的首页模式，因为他们认为一些成功可能会把他们消除。但是，排除设计方面，Google是成功的。Google在今天统治了整个网络世界，因为他们的技术真的是太棒了，是那么的独特，使得用户愿意放弃享受来自他们竞争对手的用户体验。
想象一个网页只有一个标志、一个输入区域、一个提交按纽。它都做些什么呢？只有一种方式去找出答案。有些人认为那很杰出，而我却这认为这很低级。我们都能够忍受它的唯一理由，是因为我们都经过了训练。但是对竞争来说，你必须为用户提供更好的体验。
Google并不是一个成功的例子，因为他们的首页看起来太单调了。但是他同时又是一个成功的例子，因为他提供了更好的技术，让人们解决真实世界的问题，并且从来不曾停止过。另外，因为他没有过多的解释、因为他们是scrappy underdog、也因为他们反对随时间流动的设计趋势，他们的首页完全被剥夺了任何设计的暗示。
应该了解到的是，如果那些情况对他们来说是完全相同的——如果他们已经得到了可以解决实质问题的新技术，并且用户不需要任何说明书就可以非常简单地了解它——那这一定是复制了Google。创造了完美、简洁、无需任何解释的首页。
但是如果你正进入一个已经饱和的市场，并且你正在做一些比较高端、新奇的事情，以及一些如果脱离了你的解释，你的父母就完全无法领会其价值的事情……换句话说，如果你生活在现实世界，你就不能够期望当你只给他们一个图表及空白表格时，他们便能够理解你的产品。
Google崇拜
有没有听到过货船崇拜（Cargo Cult）这一说法呢？在第二次世界大战期间，在太平洋群岛上，物资的供给是通过空投给士兵的。当地人看到这些后，以为是奇迹——天上掉了食物！当战争结束，士兵们也离开了后，岛上的人们不停的重复他们所看到的事情。他们建造了木制的祭坛（类似于跑道和指挥塔台）、他们戴着木制的耳机、、挥动木制的着陆信号。他们以为，如果他们也和那些士兵做同样的事情，食物就会像降落伞一样，再次从天上掉下来。
看起来是不是很愚昧呢？但是，对于那些复制Google设计的搜索引擎来说，与太平洋群岛上的那些士兵并无区别，而且他们还希望这可以为他们带来收入。只要看看最近重新设计的Ask.com就知道了。以前它的页面上曾有友好的提醒功能来帮助你，现在就只有一个图表和一个搜索框。以前它的页面上有一个区别特征以及一个有趣的商标（尽管那有几分无聊），但是现在，它只是抄袭了这个市场的领军人的做法。像ASK这样的网站，如何去向他的用户证明——当他们明显改变自己的设计以变得更像Google时，他们会比Google更好？其实这很明显：谁是市场的领军人物，而谁是那个不停追赶的人。
其实并不只有Ask.com是这样的。像A9或者微软新的Live搜索引擎。他们都是复制了Google的用户界面：图标、输入框、按纽。他们为什么那么害怕给他们的用户多一点内容呢？
完全不同的一些事情
当我重新设计Technorati时，我强烈的感觉到，如果我复制Google的结构，那么用户会希望将有一个像Google一样的用户体验。但是Technorati是一个与Google截然不同的搜索引擎：它的搜索结果是根据时间排列的博客文章分类，而不是根据实用性排列的网站分类。如果用户希望有像在Google那里的用户体验，那么他们将会非常失望。所以Technorati只好重新进行设计。
我们通过添加正文和上下文语境来这样做。文字会花一些时间去解释Technorati是做什么的（假定每个人都将“了解”是一个经典的启动错误）。上下文显示了例子的内容。间接指导用户的最好方法是：为他们提供很好的实例。在这种情况下，我们选择显示最近的搜索用语和关键字。这样的话，当你不想输入，或者你不知道要搜索些什么的时候，你就能选用大众认为非常流行的内容。
这就使之非常清楚：从第一页开始，Technorati就是不同的。当用户进入这个网站后，他们就会有不一样的期望。最好的是，用户们非常喜欢最新搜索这一功能，有时候他们会一天来这个网站好几次，就是为了看看哪些内容是最热门的。而我也很高兴地看到最近推出的博客搜索引擎Sphere，也以相同的方式提供了一些内容。
提出的问题
如果你曾经试图去复制Google的页面，或者有客户说：“Google就是那样做的，所以那肯定是正确的。”那么，你要告诉他们，抄袭Google对你来说，意味着两件事情：
1、 你根本不在意你的用户，也懒得与他们交流，那么他们为什么要来在意你呢？（所以，他们当然不会对你在意）
2、 你就好象那些在街角叫卖手提包的家伙一样没有创造力，所以他们对你最好的方法大概就是避免与之接触了。
所以我请求你，下次，当你在面对一个设计决定的时候，不要再问“Google是怎么做的？”这样的问题。而是问：“我们产品的使用者，他们喜欢什么样的？”