Google’s choice of utility over beauty

Bruce Temkin, whose blog I follow fervently, just commented on the design approach taken by Google.  He felt conflicted after reading insights into Google’s method and raised the question of whether good design needs a soul.  It’s a great question. Here’s the comment I made:

There’s no question in my mind that Google does indeed take the soul out of their design. They’re so good at speed and utility that they can get away with it, but if it were an even choice between Google and another search that worked just as well, that had a more delightful design, there wouldn’t be any contest.
That said there’s always a tension between beautiful design and practical utility, and more often it’s better to achieve one really well than make something halfway between which is half as good. That Google chose to take the utilitarian approach meant they could focus on doing their thing without distraction, and clearly it worked out well. It’s a very rare company that can achieve both utility and gorgeous design.

My response is largely based on witnessing attempts (including my own) to achieve both utility and beauty that end in a disappointing compromise.  Apple is the company that does both utility and beauty – and proves it is possible to have both – but it’s very difficult to achieve what they do.  It’s no mistake that few other companies also achieve it.

Filed under: creative delivery, method, style, user interface, user-centred , apple, beauty, compromise, delight, design, google, method, soul, utilitarian, utility

I love-hate MSNBC’s new visual newsreader

I’ve just played with MSNBC’s new ‘visual newsreader’, which they have named Spectra.  

I love…

• simplicity and elegance of the design – it’s one visual concept, uncluttered by controls and embellishments – which I’m a big fan of
• gorgeous use of colour reminiscent of Adobe’s new product branding – adding the slight gradient to each colour block makes it vibrant and delectable
• the third dimension – perhaps inspired by Apple’s forays into 3D like Coverflow (although why couldn’t they have put more 3D in the Apple TV interface?) – adds a delightful sense of depth in a natural, instinctive way

I hate…

• The inappropriateness of this as a news reading device!  I scan through probably 50 to 100 news stories on my feeds each day, which I could never do with this
• I chose ‘order by time’ but I can’t tell how the order is represented
• Clicking on an item before it flies by can be pretty challenging
• When I pick an item it flips over as it comes to the foreground – so shouldn’t it now be upside down or back to front?  
• Even though it’s 3D I can’t zoom in or rearrange it – which I would like to as half the stories are off the top of the page

The mere fact that they’ve built this is very exciting, and I see on Organic’s blog that it was made with Papervision, which is a very neat extension of Flash that I’ve been watching for a while.  This is definitely one of the most interesting projects built on PaperVision but it saddens me that they were so carried away with the high concept that they couldn’t keep it practical too. 

P.S. For this topic I’ve created a new category – Folly – in the architectural sense 

 

Filed under: creative delivery, folly, style , 3D, adobe, apple, apple tv, coverflow, folly, msnbc, newsreader, papervision, rss, spectra, usability

The death of windows

I believe we are seeing the creeping and not-distant demise of windows.  I’m not talking about Microsoft Windows specifically (although I’d be fairly happy to see the creeping death of that particular product) but in general I’m referring to the windows GUI.  Anyone with a little knowledge of UI design history will be aware that the window metaphor was developed at Xerox PARC and was brought to the mainstream in Apple’s early products.  It was revolutionary back then but today there are better, more user-friendly ideas arising at the forefront of software design.

I’m seeing more and more software using full-screen configurable spaces instead of small, layered windows, and this is where we can expect the future to lie.  Examples are the tabbed interfaces like Firefox and the new Thunderbird. There are also iTunes and the iLife consumer suite produced by Apple, where each program takes on the full screen and lays out it’s features in a simple, configurable format.

The most innovative interface designs I have seen – period – come from 3D software.  I’ve been working on some 3D modelling the last couple of years and I’ve been blown away by the sophistication and configurability of the software UIs.  For example, Bodypaint - the UI is an incredibly configurable and malleable workspace that takes up the screen but let’s you lay it out how you wish.  This isn’t the scatter of floating palettes and views that is the norm with 2D image editing software. Instead, the palettes and views may be added, moved, grouped and collapsed at the user’s will, and the screen layout shifts to accommodate.  

I also believe that the full-screen UIs of mobile devices and interactive TV will have a major influence on software design in the next few years.  Digital designers take inspiration from the devices they personally use and the more they are exposed to the latest mobile and TV interfaces, the more we’ll see it rub off on other UI designs, especially considering the new ideas that are coming out in those areas as they go through rapid innovation.

 

 

Filed under: 3D, general, revolutions, style, trends, user interface, user-centred , 3D, apple, bodypaint, design, firefox, GUI, ilife, interactive TV, thunderbird, windows