Forbes' article entiltled "GOOGLE's Simple Life" discusses their plans for growth in terms of products and services, however, they approach the design of their interfaces and products as "easy to use".
What do you thik of this design philosophy?
How will GOOGLE fare?
Gene A. Wright
Sunday, October 15, 2006
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7 comments:
Since Google wants to expand the internet (which means more searching using Google), making interfaces and products easy to use seems like the smart thing to do. Consumers can easily become overwhelmed if the products or services are too difficult or cumbersome to use. If this happens, the customer will move on to more simple products and services provided by the competition. It seems in Google's best interest to capitalize on the "ease of use" strategy and it appears they understand this. I think this is a good strategy and one that will allow Google to "monetize" (love that word) their business.
With a large number of people searching for homes, jobs, and everything else under the son on the internet why not capitalize. The possibility to advertise and post items in a local paper, along with other major metropolitan areas with a big selling point that I believe consumers would like to have. It allows a individual or company to reach more markets then they are used to. I also believe that there "easy to use" strategy is a good one, since people are more likely to at least try the technology. Google will succeed because the tend to do some research before even "letting the cat out of the bag"
I believe that Google's easy to use strategy is a good one. if you look at the population, there are still more people over 30 that probably grew up without computers than there are under 20 that came out of the womb holding a PDA and a cell phone. The idea of making the interface easy to use allows the less tech-savvy people to feel comfortable with using the website. Nobody wants to use something that will make them seem dumb or outdated, so the easier the product is to use, the more people you can attract.
I think there are two reasons for Google's success in the internet search market.
1) The interface is simple. One graphic, one text box, and two buttons that both make sense.
2) The simple interface returns very accurate results based on a few words.
Who wants to learn .AND.OR. +and not on Tuesday syntax when you can just type what comes to mind first and get a match.
Most of the other tools they provide also seem simple to use however I have noticed the search page occasionally showing up with customize options as a teaser to get people to build their google portal. I have resisted so far. Has anyone else taken the bait?
You typically have a 1/2-second to grab your audience’s attention before they get bored or frustrated and move off your page. more. Google gets their audiences' attention by reinforcing key messages, but do it simply.
Look at the Google homepage versus Yahoo!, for example. With Google, there is only a white background with a search bar and very minimal copy. That’s it. No bells, no whistles.
Google includes buttons linking to the bare minimum of what people come looking for. The strategy will work for Google... Simple, in this case, is definitely better.
-Sameer Mustafa
With today's society moving at a fast pace creating products or service to be simple is going to be key. As they stated if you have 5 or 6 things to remember it is not as easy as 1. Also the more complex it is the less likely one will use the product or service. It's like the "Easy Button"
RB
I agree with a.popchock comments about Google approach. Google approach making it easier for customers to make their own ads would be a great success. Quad Graphic and the Journal Sentinel have this similar feature in creating your own advertisement on their websites as well.
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