David Herrold

Design intuition and serendipity

Posted by Dave | Filed under Design, Google, Web design

Douglas Bowman, the visual design lead at Google, recently left his post to pursue greener pastures. In a farewell blog post, he cited a profound reason for leaving (emphasis mine). You can read the entire post here.

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. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

From an engineering perspective, testing multiple colors, recording outcomes and making sound empirical judgments makes all the sense in the world.  If this is done correctly, eventually you will end up with the most effective design implemented.

However, from a design perspective, this tactic may be lacking some things the design world relies upon on a regular basis.

Intuition

Like master mechanics who are able to diagnose many car problems by simply listening to the engine, seasoned designers can solve web design problems in a similar fashion.  They can look at an obstacle or task and solve it almost instinctively.

They could, of course, perform user experience testing to dissect the problem and solve it in a very methodical way.  However, accumulated years of design experience give them an almost intuitive knowledge to see the most effective solution without much testing at all.

Serendipity

These are the beautiful accidents that designers stumble upon when looking for something else.  They may be attempting to solve a complicated navigation issue and stumble upon a great idea for handling web forms.

The world of technology and invention is rife with happy accidents that have created new products or changed humanity in some significant way.  A vital part of the creative process is lost when designers are forced to operate in a rigid environment that relies heavily upon empirical engineering data.

Could these happy accidents still occur in an environment like this?  Probably…

However, I think it is much less likely to happen.  And when it does happen, it is more likely to be ignored because the idea has not gone through the rigors of testing yet.  Or perhaps the idea was so different it didn’t get the consideration it deserves.

Google was built by engineers and has become the largest property on the internet due to the policies and guidance from these early engineers.  It would be silly to say their method of design doesn’t work.  However, this environment might not work for everyone…especially creative people who need to challenge themselves with big ideas and sweeping changes.

So, designers, what do you think?

Tags: Design, Google, intuition, serendipity, user experience, user testing, Web design

Google Doc your grocery list

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google, Mobile, Productivity

I discovered a great way to use Google Docs as a mobile grocery list last week.  All you need is a Gmail account and a mobile phone with WAP access.

Justine and I both have Gmail accounts, so that part was easy.  You simply create a document in Google Docs and share that document with your partner.  You can now update this document over and over for new lists whenever you need them (and even access the revision history to see what your shopping lists looked like last month).

You can now access that document on any mobile device in read-only format (presumably while you’re walking down the aisles in a grocery store).

So a simple phone call while I’m at work “Honey, I updated the list” is all I need to know exactly what she wants me to bring home from the grocery store.

I find technology fascinating when it intersects with everyday life to make things a bit easier.

Do you have any technology tricks like this?  Feel free to share them in the comments.

Tags: Blackberry, Google, iPhone, Mobile, Productivity

Richard Stallman on “cloud computing”

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google, Networking, Software

The Guardian published an interesting interview with open source stalwart, Richard Stallman.  He speaks his mind on the concept of “cloud computing.”

One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control,” he said. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

You can read the entire article here.  Needless to say, he doesn’t like “cloud computing” very much.

Photo by Han Soete

Tags: cloud computing, Google, open source, richard stallman

Google, Internet 2 and powdered soap

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google, Mobile, Technology

Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, posted an interesting article on their blog today speculating what the “next internet” will look like. It’s no real surprise that they touch upon mobile web and location-based services.

“In the next decade, around 70% of the human population will have fixed or mobile access to the Internet at increasingly high speeds, up to gigabits per second. We can reliably expect that mobile devices will become a major component of the Internet, as will appliances and sensors of all kinds. Many of the things on the Internet, whether mobile or fixed, will know where they are, both geographically and logically.”

I’m glad to see Google mention the importance of mobile devices in the future (which is already here). I’m fascinated by the prospects that truly “smart” phones will offer us within the next year or two (I think their estimate of 10 years is a bit high. I think the web, mobile or otherwise, is evolving far faster than that.)

Although, I’m not convinced I want the internet involved with my dirty socks.

“A box of washing machine soap will become part of a service as Internet-enabled washing machines are managed by Web-based services that can configure and activate your washing machine.”

Regardless the post is worth reading.

- Dave

Tags: future, Google, internet, Mobile, Technology

Gmail labs

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Google, Software

I’m checking out Gmail labs. Has anyone started to play around with the new features?

- Dave

Tags: gmail, gmail labs, Google

Google opens Website Optimizer

Posted by Dave | Filed under Business, Design, Development, Google, Marketing, Usability, Web design

Google released their Website Optimizer platform last week for general use. It has only been available to sites using Google AdWords in the past, but now can be used by anyone to enhance site performance. This is great news for web analytic junkies, usability testers, developers and designers alike.

In a nutshell, Google’s Website Optimizer allows you to test multiple versions of content (ie. marketing messages, logos, icons, copy, etc) in a live environment to determine which combination of content yields the best results.

Based upon what you are testing, this “result” could mean higher click-throughs, increased product sales, increased product downloads, increased ad revenue, higher traffic to internal pages, etc.

This eliminates the guesswork of testing ad placement, site designs, product purchase flows, etc. You can simply release multiple versions of your content and look at the analytics to determine which one is yielding the best results.

There are certainly other tools to do the same job; but not many are free or this simple. We could certainly do the same thing at the Chronicle, however we would have to use several systems to make it happen. This simplicity of using one system appeals to me.

Here are some links to get you started with Google’s Website Optimizer:

Google Website Optimizer
Google Website Optimizer blog
Website Optimizer press release

(via Web Worker Daily)

Tags: analytics, Google, Marketing, Usability, website optimizer

Google Apps Engine vs Amazon S3

Posted by Dave | Filed under Development, Google, Technology

According to a recent TechCrunch post, Google will be venturing into the application cloud business to compete directly with Amazon’s S3 service.

From TechCrunch:

Unlike Amazon Web Services’ loosely coupled architecture, which consists of several essentially independent services that can optionally be tied together by developers, Google’s architecture is more unified but less flexible. For example, it is possible with Amazon to use their storage service S3 independently of any other services, while with Google using their BigTable service will require writing and deploying a Python script to their app servers, one that creates a web-accessible interface to BigTable.

Are there enough differences for both services to exist or will there be a knock-down, drag-out fight in the near future. It’s hard to beat Google’s “hey, kids, our dope is free…for now” model.

It should be interesting to watch this unfold.

- Dave

Tags: amazon, application, Google, hosting, s3

Google goes goth

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google

Is Google going goth or perhaps making an homage to heavy metal concert t-shirts (ROCK-N-ROLL…where’s the stage)?

No, my fellow creatures of the night, they are not. According to Google:

Google users in the United States will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don’t do this permanently – it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

I thought I hit an odd key combination this morning that inversed my screen colors (command+option+control+8 on a Mac). I stopped for a minute, cocked my head in a a befuddled way and clicked on the Earth Hour link.

Ah, it all makes sense now. It was simply Google giving us a dose of environmental awareness at 72 DPI.

Thanks Google…I need more coffee.

Tags: earth hour, energy, environment, Google

RSS bloat with Google Reader

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google, Technology, Usability

Nearly 4 months ago I trimmed the RSS feeds I read on a regular basis from 192 to 132. That reduction was fairly easy and painless. I looked at my reading trends and the frequency with which many of the feeds update and cut anything I hadn’t read within the last 30 days.

I checked my subscriptions tonight in my Google Reader account and was shocked to find that I have climbed back up to 162 subscriptions.

How did this happen?!

Click here to read more…

Tags: feeds, Google Reader, RSS, subscriptions

Google Knol – Wikipedia killer?

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Google

From the official Google blog:

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling “knol”, which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word “knol” as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we’ll do the rest.

Sounds like Google’s Knol is a direct competitor to Wikipedia if I’ve ever seen one.

Tags: distribution, Google, information, Wikipedia