Hi: Re-reading Doug Bowman's post you can really feel his frustration.
Reading between the lines I hear: * A culture that was born in Engineering (and still very much i that space - which is what makes Google great) * A culture that is looking at ways to embrace Design and User Research (and not purely relying on data and statistics to back up everything) * Understanding when to rely on data for large design decisions and when to go with best practice and the expertise of the Design Team * Looking at how to promote consistency across many product sets * When to hold onto what consumers understand as the "Google Brand" and when to start to try something new (but not for the sake of a re-design) * When to rely on Data to drive new products (would love to dig into some of those Search logs :) * Getting your top Designers working on harder, challenging and strategic problems * Giving your top Design Team the political power they need to experiment and make change happen Some interesting complimentary pieces - 94% of Facebook users hate new design - http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/web/94-of-facebook-users-hate-new-design/2009/03/20/1237055063673.html Google's Irene Au: On Design Challenges - http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2009/id20090318_786470.htm?__vid__=Y29sbGVjdGlvblR5cGU9YWxpYXMBY29sbGVjdGlvbklEPXNodWFubG8Bc291cmNlPXkuZGVsaWNpb3VzAWNsYXNzPWJvb2ttYXJrAXR5cGU9Ym9va21hcmsBc3VpZD04ZjVhYzU1ODA1YjcyOTkxNGU5MGFiOTAwZjRjMjMzNQ-- Some of this also comes down to the question of "who owns/drives the User Experience in an organzation?" and then "How do you get everyone (product teams) onto the same page?" - have seen these same patterns repeat for the last 10-15 years. Data is superb, when you understand what you need the data for, how it will be interpreted and what it really means for your products. rgds, Dan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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 ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help