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How Facebook and Google manage users who hate every redesign
Michael Oliveira
The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, Jun. 07 2012, 2:37 PM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Jun. 07 2012, 2:44 PM EDT
Jon Wiley, the lead designer behind Google?s home page, is used to taking heat any time he fiddles with the search giant?s iconic stark-white design ? no matter how small the change may be.
Early on in his tenure, in the fall of 2009, he came up with a simple tweak that he thought would have a major impact on user behaviour. He decided to make the search box wider. No big deal.
?It seemed like an obvious thing to me, this is the place where our users are having dialogue with Google. You don?t want to be interfacing through this very tiny window. So I made it bigger,? recalled Mr. Wiley in an interview.
The change wasn?t immediately apparent to all users but once the tech blogs noticed, the negative feedback ? which Mr. Wiley has come to expect, even for the most trivial of tweaks ? started hitting the web.
For web designers, particularly those working for large, popular sites that have legions of repeat visitors, it?s a major headache: it seems there?s no pleasing an audience of web surfers who are perfectly content with the status quo.
?I think any design change I?ve ever made there?s always someone, whether in Google or outside of Google, for which that change is controversial,? Mr. Wiley said.
Read more about: http://www.theglobea...article4239399/
Michael Oliveira
The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, Jun. 07 2012, 2:37 PM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Jun. 07 2012, 2:44 PM EDT
Jon Wiley, the lead designer behind Google?s home page, is used to taking heat any time he fiddles with the search giant?s iconic stark-white design ? no matter how small the change may be.
Early on in his tenure, in the fall of 2009, he came up with a simple tweak that he thought would have a major impact on user behaviour. He decided to make the search box wider. No big deal.
?It seemed like an obvious thing to me, this is the place where our users are having dialogue with Google. You don?t want to be interfacing through this very tiny window. So I made it bigger,? recalled Mr. Wiley in an interview.
The change wasn?t immediately apparent to all users but once the tech blogs noticed, the negative feedback ? which Mr. Wiley has come to expect, even for the most trivial of tweaks ? started hitting the web.
For web designers, particularly those working for large, popular sites that have legions of repeat visitors, it?s a major headache: it seems there?s no pleasing an audience of web surfers who are perfectly content with the status quo.
?I think any design change I?ve ever made there?s always someone, whether in Google or outside of Google, for which that change is controversial,? Mr. Wiley said.
Read more about: http://www.theglobea...article4239399/
