This post was originally published in April of 2004, but since the archives from that year are only accessible via search engine I thought it was appropriate to post it again with the “relaunch” of Kinja. If you were around back then you may recall that I got hammered in the comments because I didn’t understand the project and something like what they were trying to build should have taken 15 months.
Well over a year now we get a redesign and some other new things. Imagine what these guys could accomplish in 5 years ;-).
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Summary: Trying to figure out how a project takes 15 months.
I read a story a couple years ago on the project development of Microsoft Word 1.0. Bill Gates thought that he could design and develop the product and have it shipped in 12 months. To say the least, this never happened. It took at least 3 years for Microsoft to finally get it right and have a product that they were capable of shipping. (Disclaimer: I searched for this information again and was unable to find it, so I am going on memory, which may be poor.)
The problem more than likely involved project management. Without a solid project management structure, almost any project is guaranteed to fail, even the small ones. Don’t believe me? How many of you out there still have “unfinished” personal sites? We don’t think about project management when it comes to our own sites, but even when we are designing something just for us, there is still a process that is followed.
In a past life, and hopefully future life, I was involved heavily in project management. First let me iterate that software project management is different than website project management (that is another entry though). This is one of the reasons why I am always curious about the thought process of a designer. I enjoy learning processes and finding ways to make them more efficient. That is what good project managers do (I think).
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I think it would be good to start this entry off with a summary of why people think Big on the web is a good thing. Big in this sense relates to big font sizes, big buttons, big forms and other big things on a website. This message has been brought to you by Garrett Dimon.
Big is simple. It’s easy. It’s friendly. And it’s practical. Big is easy to click. It’s easy to read. It’s focused. It’s direct and too the point. It forces you to make tough decisions with your real estate leading to more signal and less noise. Bigger is better. (Yes, there are exceptions.)
–Garrett Dimon
Yesterday when I wrote about the new Odeo redesign I questioned whether less always equals simple and in the following discussion it seems that many of you agreed that just because you do less of something, that doesn’t make it easier. I believe the same goes with big. While big does help you focus more on how to more efficiently use your screen realestate I have to feel a bit worried as to why any designer or IA would ever stop worrying about that in the first place. Do you really need Big to force you into that mode of thinking?
Odeo obviously showed some concern for screen real estate and they did so at the expense of getting enough information across on their site to actually make it valuable. If you don’t really have anything to say and feel that certain big items can convey your message then by all means go for it, but getting your idea across effectively and efficiently doesn’t necessarily mean doing it bigger.
Potentially stupid question, but if Big is so great why do we all want monitors with higher resolutions? So we can make those Word documents bigger or because we wish to fit more stuff on the screen? Maybe it’s both.
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You may or may not have noticed, but Odeo has had a redesign of their website up for a couple of weeks now and although I am a fan of simplicity, I fail to see how this redesign makes their site any easier to use. I can’t speak as if I know the goals of the site, but I can talk a little about why I think it fails in achieving my goals as a user.
I will admit that initially when I saw that site I thought it was a brilliant tactic to take everything away and simply give users 5 options:
- Record Audio
- Share with People
- Podcast to the World
- Discover New Audio
However, after the first click I began to see the flaws in the design. If you are going to make a site this simple then the whole user experience should be simple. When I hover over any section of the Record Audio option and the whole section changes background colors, I expect to be able to click on any section of that option. However, I am only allowed to click certain parts to get me to the next step.
When I see “Record Audio” on such a simple site, I would figure that the next screen would be a place where I get to record my audio immediately. Instead I come across three “Record” buttons and none of them are clickable. I guess I have to signup to get to this option, but why tease me with a record screen that has 3 buttons that make me want to click on them?
Wouldn’t it be possible to let me record some audio, save it, and if I want to use it make me signup then? If I don’t signup just simply delete it. If you are going to streamline the site you might as well streamline the process as well.
Almost reminds me of the mid-nineties when websites were simply online catalogs.
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Remember when one of the arguments against Open Source software was that there were simply too many choices for software (wait was that ever an argument)? If you wanted a text editor you had a 1,001 chances to find one and I know in my case many times when another came out I just asked myself why? Why would you even bother becoming text editor 1,002? I guess people feel that they can always create something better or maybe they just are creating it for themselves and releasing it to the public. Scratching an itch I suppose.
I get that same feeling with all of these “web 2.0″ websites, but even worse because they don’t improve upon anything. Rarely are there more features than the competition and if you are lucky the design might be a tad bit better, but nothing really stands out that makes you want to switch over from web 2.0 product A. What makes things even worse is that you get the feeling that the creators of these products aren’t doing it for themselves to use, but doing so because they believe they can make money from it.
Look at the eHub list provided by Emily Chang and you can see how many sites all fit into the same category and offer the exact same thing. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t bother developing web applications that benefit just them, but if they wish to do so and make a business out of it at least focus on both the design and featureset. In this case the featureset might actually be less features and pushing the product to be more streamlined (*this sentence has been endorsed by the fine folks at 37signals).
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Time for some Friday fun. Being super busy with 9rules and Fine Fools I haven’t had time to patrol the CSS galleries to see what are the hot new designs out there. Maybe you could help me out. What are the hottest new designs that you have seen in the last couple of months?
As of right now I am feeling:
I’m sure there are more but those are just off the top of my head.
It has been discussed here many times that the allure of Google was the simplicity of its homepage. However, that homepage was created long before any ads or other Google products so it made sense to do something minimal. However, now that Google offers over 20 digital products does it make sense to keep the simple search page? Would it even be possible to change or would users revolt too much? Can something be done to make users more aware of their current offerings without having a diverse effect on the homepage?
What Do They Do?
Okay so besides basic search what else does Google offer?
- Alerts
- Answers
- Blog Search
- Book Search
- Catalogs
- Directory
- Froogle
- Groups
- Images
- Labs
- Local
- Maps
- Mobile
- News
- Scholar
- SMS
- Special Searches
- University Search
- Web Search
- Blogger
- Code/APIs
- Desktop
- Earth
- Gmail
- Picasa
- Talk
- Toolbar
- Translate
On Google’s homepage a user is immediately aware of six of these. A public company that releases new products on a monthly basis it seems and it only pushes 6 of its services in front of the millions of people that visit the site daily? It’s tough to say that Google doesn’t wish to run the company for its stockholders, but I would think that as someone with a stake in the company you would want new products to last beyond their buzz/hype period.
Is Change Possible?
I once read somewhere that there are people who constantly watch the Google homepage code to see if it has increased in size at all and if it does they email Google with complaints. Sure their are some passionate users out there so I wonder if it is even possible for Google to make any drastic changes without going overboard and upsetting a large majority of their userbase. It’s definitely not an issue I would want to tackle.
As you can tell I don’t really have any answers to these questions (pathetic) and maybe none need to be found if Google continues with its success, but you have to think sooner or later they will have to extend their reach as Yahoo continues to raise the bar. So do you think any change is possible and if so how would you go about it?
