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Design: it's not only about what's inside the application.

One of the basic problems I have with OpenOffice: it's called "Office." One of the basic problems with "Google Apps for Your Domain," well in the vein of bad naming, is a comment even necessary? So bad is Google's product design at the identity level -- you know, where you create a great name and logo and make sense of yourself to your target markets -- so bad is Google at this that we are all knee-jerking with "Google Releasing an Office Suite."

Lots of other comments point out correctly, as do all the articles and as does Google, that this is not an Office Suite per se. It's "apps for your domain." When you read from their reps and execs, Google describes well their place in the market, and as other /. comments in weeks past have observed, so it is: not directly competitive with MS for business productivity, rather overlapping in small business, education, personal use, the lighter like. Why did they fail to wrap up this wisdom in a neat product identity?

Some of you are thinking "maybe that's their point. They want to be compared to MS without saying it themselves, they want to be defined as an alternative because they believe most people don't use most of MS and ...."

OK maybe, GOOG is anything but traditional, they move their pieces in combination and they've a history of being steps ahead ... maaaayyybe but I doubt tanking a product's identity to this degree can be a net positive. It's a gambit with a valuable piece, too early on to ensure the strategy's success without an absent-minded opponent (like the Office Lite market?).

My working theory: they're Geeks. As any Google Watcher knows, the engineers run the place: they don't believe in their Sales Force, in Marketing, not even in Customer Service. We all think Google is heavy into user experience, but maybe they're just usability and web analytics nerds. This is not only about "Apps for Your Domain," Google too often misses the boat on product identity. We have seen more than a few of their truly great, charming, promising applications fade away. What if they had been marketed?

It's as if Googlers actually listen to Jakob Nielsen :o while missing how tone-deaf the man is when it comes to pleasing the eyes and ears. Jakob, if you're out there man ... BG

Check out this rewrite of Jakob Nielsen's alertbox on Guidelines for link design.
Original: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040510.html
Rewrite: http://www.designbyfire.com/deye_web/alertbox.htm

The purpose of this page is to direct you to information about web design...so it gives links to articles and conferences. What else could you want? A bunch of animated screenshots of web pages that dance in circles around the text? --In fact, that's what popped into my head when the original poster mentioned "garish"!

There's a common misconception that it's not possible to have good visual design and usability, or that "visual design" has to mean flashing dancing animations. It's a misconception that Jakob Nielson has been at least indirectly complicit in promulgating. And it's very definitely a misconception. A few well-known designers took a stab at making one of Nielsen's Alertbox columns more attractive, and I think they proved that it certainly can be done without compromising usability in the slightest.

The same guys have also done a couple other demonstrations of how high-profile sites could be redone a bit more attractively.

The service and sales pitch are good, but I guarantee you're losing a lot of potential conversions.

Your site design looks like just walked out of 1997, as does your HTML (with the exception of the CSS code).

In order to make a conversion, you have to overcome a few important obstacles. One of them is trust. One of the most important trust factors on the web is a professional-looking design.

Design matters! Check out this before and after comparison. Which site would you be more likely to give your money to?

Improving your design would improve your conversion rate, and that could make a BIG DIFFERENCE to your bottom line. You'll get more sales in less time, improve your ROI for advertizing, build better good-will and brand-loyalty with your existing users, and get more inbound links, which will in turn bring in more potential customers faster.

Get your site a make-over.

It may be "usable", but it is... less than beautiful, to say so. He could take clue from this guys: Design Eye for the Usability Guy

With all due respect to Mr. Nielsen, he could have started by redesigning his own site, useit.com. It may be "usable", but it is... less than beautiful, to say so. He could take clue from this guys:

Design Eye for the Usability Guy and
Reuseit: useit.com redesign competition

I've long held a personal opinion that Jakob Nielsen is the real world equivalent of G.E.B. Kivistik. Finally, someone noted the emporer's lack of clothes, and did it with style and panache.

Compare Nielsen's page to a more effective design. Which one would you rather read? If it's the second, then why are you taking style advice from this man?

I've long held a personal opinion that Jakob Nielsen is the real world equivalent of G.E.B. Kivistik. Finally, someone noted the emporer's lack of clothes, and did it with style and panache.

Compare Nielsen's page to a more effective design. Which one would you rather read? If it's the second, then why are you taking style advice from this man?

Serious question, who got the ball rolling on that horrible style?

Possibly this guy. He was responsible for much of the user interface for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. However, I don't know if he started before or after floating windows appeared.