Why does Google do this?
You know what irks me about Google? Ok, it’s not the only thing, but it’s something that definitely bothers me. They have all these different sites (search, reader, calendar, etc…) and each one is quite simple in terms of design (far from meaning that in a bad way, I think it’s great). Each site, is very specific to what it needs to do and presents a clean and generally white space laden environment. What bugs me to no end is that each site, from a design perspective, is completely different from the next. There is absolutely no conformity to the design.
It would be so easy to come up with site guidelines that could make all these sites feel like google sites, part of the branding of the company. The way, all the UI in OS X is standardized so when you open a Mac app it feels like a mac app because things are built the same way. They could be using the same gradients, the same curvy cornered boxes in the left nav, the same tabbing systems. That is - they could create style elements that are reused everywhere.
Look at the difference between Reader and Gmail, these apps have a very similar interface, grouping and navigation along the left leading to the main content panel in the right. But they look totally different. Even when they have boxes in the left nav they look different, sometime there’s boxes in boxes with curvy corners. Why?
It really wouldn’t be hard for them to come up with a standard library of widgets and css styles that they could apply to all their applications. This would help brand these pages as google and make all these disparate sites feel more coherent. It would aid in usability as functional cues would make it easier to use a new app when you already know the basics from other Google sites. And each one is so basic (and I don’t mean easy to build) that I really don’t believe it would be hard for these super geniuses to make them work together.
Doing just this would also make it easier for them to roll out good looking sites as the component bits and styles will be premade. It will be much easier for them to avoid the second class citizen/eye sores like webmaster tools and the control panel of the Custom Search Engines. These guys would simply be able to take advantage of the existing design conventions to make their site.
C’mon Google, if it makes you better hire some Design/UI Ph.D and call it a visual language. It’d be so easy for you and in my opinion would measurably improve all the sites.
Google has always had a very simple view of design and it’s really done well by them. As other sites became more and more jam packed with features, Google remained minimalist. Instead of trying to make a catchall site that could do everything, they’ve elected to make a series of sites that each focus on one thing. Now they need to take it the next step and create a stylebook for all their sites. Please!
July 17th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
could always type in google gothic :)
They tuned down my design of unicorn tiled backgrounds and Homer Simpson animated gifs, and flowers with glitter on them. Bastards.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:52 am
[...] an update and a facelift. Mostly it’s the same, but a slightly cleaner look (although still not consistent with any of the other Google apps) and a little more [...]