User Experience.UX Design

Yes, Google is very Googley. As Yahoo! is Yahooy, I suppose. But could Yahoo! be Googleyer than Google? Let’s use a simple UX score card, and see.

How well does Google measure up against its own ux design principals? Let’s compare Google’s and Yahoo!’s top tier services, search, and later, search engine marketing (SEM). First, search, to evaluate Goggle against their own standards. Then, we’ll look at Yahoo!, to see just how Googley they are in comparison.

If we give the ten principals each a 1-10 score we have a simple, subjective, UX score card. Okay, I’ll go first, scores below, in parenthesis. But the more the better: please follow this format in your comments. Three months from pub. date, we’ll total all entries.

Open Google.com, first for “classic” search, then iGoogle.com for personalized “home page” if you like, in another tab. Ask yourself, honestly, is it:

1. (8) Focused on people—their lives, their work, their dreams?
2. (9) Does every millisecond count?
3. (10) Powerfully simple?
4. (6) Engaging beginners / attracting experts? (9/3 respectively. Avg. 6.)
5. (7) Daringly innovative?
6. (8) Designed for the world?
7. (7) Planned for today’s and tomorrow’s business? (A very subjective 7)
8. (6) Enlighting the eye without distracting the mind? (3/9 respectively. Avg. 6)
9. (8) Worthy of people’s trust?
10. (6) Adding a human touch?

Total UX score: 75

Let’s break it down a bit, to justify (or just defend):

1. For “classic” search, it seems fair to say that by getting out of the way, they are focusing on people and their efforts/desires. iGoogle.com, too, is extremely customizable, so ditto. Nice.
2. They are the uber server geeks (that’s a complement!) after all. So yes, always with room for improvement.
3. Can not deny them that.
4. Too bad this is a two parter: one is tops, the other not. Google doesn’t, in my opinion, attract experts. Average of the two equals average.
5. Google was once daringly innovative. Most stars, once successful, struggle to keep their edge and stay inspired (inspiring). No exception for Google.
6. If the center of the world is Stanford Univ., or Mountain View CA, USA, certainly yes. If centered in Fortaleza, Brazil, or Bratislavia, Slovakia, I’d think less so. I know they take pains to mitigate the Stanford-centricity, but it is certainly the dominant culture, as manifest by their hiring practices.
7. Yes, to a degree.
8. On not distracting the mind, well… Google is an advertiser, primarily, so seems a contradiction. On “delight”? Well, if for the immediate visual sense; not much. And I have found the secret search sauce less than inspiring lately, quality-wise, too.
9. Google has done no known evil yet. Though privacy concerns are valid, in my view, almost without qualification.
10. How is this manifest? For information design and usability the effort shows, even if it seems UX doesn’t get to design first. I have run in to dead ends with Google analytics, which is improving. For visual “look and feel”, however, I see Google as reflecting its true colors: engineering.

Now for Yahoo.com’s search portal:

1. (7) Focused on people—their lives, their work, their dreams?
2. (8) Does every millisecond count?
3. (5) Powerfully simple?
4. (8) Engaging beginners / attracting experts?
5. (9) Daringly innovative?
6. (8) Designed for the world?
7. (8) Planned for today’s and tomorrow’s business?
8. (8) Delighting the eye without distracting the mind?
9. (8) Worthy of people’s trust?
10. (8) Adding a human touch?

Total UX score: 77

Breakdown:

1. For how people apply the web to their lives, work and dreams, I see Yahoo! doing well, if with more of a “push” (portal) mode… UX quality, for me, is mitigated by obtrusive ads and fluffy—if assumedly click-driven—news content.
2. When it comes to performance, Yahoo! is very Googley. More images slow browser draw, though not perceptibly.
3. No. But powerfully clear, yes.
4. Yahoo! engages beginners, certainly. And allows us to advance quickly, too.
5. Innovative, certainly, as a UI (YUI) design leader, yet appropriately safe.
6. No less than Google. Perhaps my dear global readership can offer other perspectives?
7. Yahoo! gets credit for being first in this space. Otherwise, no less than Google. Maybe more.
8. Delighting the eye… relatively, yes. Score diminished by animated/image paid content.
9. A solid player on the trust vs. personalization front. Better public perception from length of stay with fewer concerns.
10. I do perceive Yahoo! as having a more human touch, visually, and for their service strategies. Google culture, for all it’s great and visible UX philosophy, remains primarily computer science/engineering-centric.

So on the search service, yes, Yahoo! is very Googley. By definition, no one can be Googleyer than Google. And Yahoo! shows it’s roots by sticking to the old portal format, however it has improved over the years. But does Yahoo! represent a less favorable user experience, according to Google’s criteria for Googleyness? I don’t think so. For all Yahoo!’s efforts in UI innovation, though, it hasn’t pulled far ahead of Google in terms of popularity, either, as perhaps it should have (not for lack of effort).

For my part, I don’t care for the busyness and populist content of Yahoo!’s search portal. A lite (classic Google) version would be smart (probably I just haven’t found it, yet). But given the “portaly” visual noise, clarity remains, improved by advanced, yet solid UI design using AJAX patterns. In all, I consider Yahoo! a more consistent, usable, useful, and even a slightly more delightful experience, in all.

Next; comparison of AdWords and Yahoo! search engine marketingsponsored search, or search engine marketing (SEM) services, their real cash cows, measured again by Google’s standard of Googleyness.

Socialize Googleyness and Yahoo!

Comment RSS Feed | Add Comment | Trackback URI