Jarod, I don't like it. I find it to be .. 1) reminiscent of MS 2) too brash and distracting
More importantly it has in no way shape or form improved my relationship with Google (or diminished it). I think people have missed my point. I think design is not for or against data, but design should always be for imbuing human expressionism beyond the measurable. A designer of worth, merit, etc. should always be encouraged to express themselves in any way that does not break Raskin's 1st law of interaction design (don't fuck w/ the content, purpose or utility of what you are designing [paraphrasing]). When I look at a site like google, I see a souless design. Now, I use google over Yahoo & Adobe for most things but that has nothing to do with aesthetics. But Google would never take a risk like adding a "Liam" (mail spelled backwards) character to their software. They would never use the iconographic vivid imagery of a Buzzword interface (Adobe). Because of this, these applications at least attempt to have soul--connectedness to human expression to the world around them. I think people need to stop lauding Google as a design success story. I think it hurts us b/c it is clear that it is an engineering success story. Does that mean that engineering is better than design. I think looking at Apple, answers that question. It doesn't. There are SOOOO many ingredients that go into success and we would be fooling ourselve as designers or engineers to think that any one of us controls all of them. BTW, the one place funny enough that Google DOES allow for a taste of humanity is on their most precious search home page (Google.com). Their use of holiday and historic event treatments is beautiful!!! However, I can count on 1 hand how many times I go to Google.com (home page) any more. Its in the chrome of my browser or in my browser's home page, etc. Soul!!! Time to swing the pedullum back from the austere periods towards the more expressionist. I think we can do that and still maintain simplicity, clarity, usability, findability, and overall effectiveness. In fact, I'd like to challenge us to do it! -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40237 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
