What Google needs to learn from Microsoft

As far as I'm concerned, Google leads the way with innovative new web tools and technologies. The tools are extremely useful, fast, and intuitive. Microsoft spends much of their time figuring out how to catch up.

HOWEVER, there is one area that Google fails miserably, and this will continue to inhibit adoption, and continue to steer people to similar tools provided by MS. Where they fail is in design. As in graphical interface design.

Take a look at Gmail. It's ugly. Look at the Google homepage vs live.com. They do exactly the same thing. But live.com looks slick, looks pretty. Same with talk vs messenger.

Google needs to take a little of the money they're pouring into engineers, and hire a few decent designers. Then my eyes will never wander again.

 

I agree about the visuals....Google could definitely put a face lift on it's UI.

 

Disagree.

UI is different from graphical design... prettiness.. or slickness.

Google has an effective, simple, easy to use UI. Microsoft is showing is shiny and rounded but easy to use? No... they're trying to reinvent things like the scrollbar and making it work differently than every other site the visitor has ever used.

 

I disagree with that. If there's anything MS is good at, it's allowing people to do exactly what they want to, without even thinking about it. Look at XP. The reason it's got the market share is because everyone finds it so easy to use.

They invest millions into heurisitcs, and Google should do the same.

The fact that it's sexy is going to catch the attention of the large number of users who don't care about the extended functionality.

 

I agree with TheHoff, simple and fast is what made google: google.

 

I'm not saying that it can't be quick and fast....you can't get much more stripped down than what it already is. I just think they could maybe make it more user friendly with regards to all the other junk they are working on and allowing end users to access...like gmail, base and such.

 

just because something is fast and simple doesn't mean it can't be beautiful

 

Suggesting that Microsoft knows UI is pretty funny to me. Every new version of Office looks worse to me. And personalized menus are the worse UI invention ever in my opinion.

Where Google fails is that they have so many services and they all login differently. If I log into Adsense it does not let me stay logged in, I have to signin again. Adwords is different. Sitemap is different. Then there's GMail. If Google is to become the main app on your desktop it needs to be all integrated like MyYahoo or something like that. Imagine a single login and an option to add different Google services to a homebase type of site.

 

I'm sure they are working on centralizing your logins along with the rest of your data... and it will be called biGBrother.

I gave Live another chance... 10 minutes of adding feeds, reading feeds, and doing searches. I still don't like it. The scrollbar is annoying whether you mousewheel it or grip-drag it. The feeds were not as easy to read or add as Netvibes.

 

I'm still not sure what people are referring to as 'the scrollbar'
I just see a scrollbar...

 

Do a search with the top search box. The results are displayed in what looks like an iFrame and updated on the fly (oooh Ajaxian delight). Kudos to them for making the back button still function, but that scrollbar.... while a nice attempt at crossbrowser programming... fails because it is not what the user expects, does not work as expected, and makes the scrolling stepped and jagged.

 

I completely disagree about the visuals. I hate using MSN and Yahoo because of the visual clutter. I remain a fan of Googles visually simple, quick loading interface. Change that and I will more quickly start looking for alternatives.

The proof is in the company's dominance of search. Market share declined last year for both Yahoo and MSN and grew for Google.

I do not care how relevanet Yahoo or MSN search results are. If it continues to takes a noticeable amount of time for their pages to load on DSL or cable, people are going to travel elsewhere. Despite what designers think, great graphics are not want you want when you just want to search for something or read your email. You want a simple, clean, responsive interface.

 

But that's because you're not a typical user, you're web-savvy, you're the minority.

live.com is simple, clean, AND beautiful. And as for relevance, I have spots 1, 2, and 3 for certain search terms, so I'm happy!!!!

 

Its clean for now, wait until they put some ads..

 

After playing around with live.com for about 15 minutes I am impressed by what Microsoft has accomplished. I like the interface and I even like the scrollbar and I am not a huge Microsoft fan at the best of times.

 

Is the little +/- sign the reinvented scrollbar that people are mentioning? If so it's not so much a scrollbar but a fairly common toggle trick.

I do like Gmail but don't like the use of iframes in Hotmail, seeing several scrollbars in a screen isn't the best UI design.

 

Do a search, you'll see the results contained within a frame and bordered by an annoying "infinite scroll bar".. which might be fine if it weren't so beta.

 

Although there are a lot of people out there that care about looks, theres more that care about speed. Sometimes complex is great, and looks good, but that dpeends on the audience. Google products are very simplistic, and very plain. And most computer users don't care if its pretty or not, most care if it works and if its fast.

What microsoft is good at is not only a nice design, but marketting, they have gained a lot of peoples trust. But google is good at making things work, with speed, and simplicity.

Sure Google can spend the money on making their UIs even cooler, but that would be at the cost of speed and there are some that don't want complex art.

But like i said it depends on the audience. My own site, is wayyyyy too graphical, but that's because it appeals to graphic designers that like complex 3D layouts. However, i must admit it probably does not appeal too much to business people, but that's not exactly my audience. Google has probably thought of what you said, maybe someone on their team already suggested making a better UI, but perhaps it was debated and decided this way.

 

I think live.com looks great too. It's very clever and designed quite well. But I don't see any motive for me to use it. I'm sure lots of people will want something like that, but i don't see any BIG reason for me to use it at all.

 

I tried Live and found it much much slower than Google. Particularly when you refresh or click on the back button. All these fancy tricks are slowing it down.