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Google Introduces, Then Scraps, Bing-Style Background Images
NIN1385 writes "Google has scrapped the now infamous background image option on its homepage. After 14 hours of a scheduled 24-hour experiment to see how people liked (or disliked) the new homepage layout, the company must have found out it was very disliked. I guess the fact that 'remove Google background' was the seventh most searched for phrase today might have had something to do with it."
Google was browser sniffing again and didnt offer this "feature" to Opera users (who could get it to work simply by identifying as any of the supported browsers,) Opera users rejoiced.
"His name was James Damore."
The feature still seems to be available - so you can set an image if you want, but I guess they won't be providing you with one of their own picked images as a default.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Now if only they'd get rid of that awful text fading in. What's that about?
First, Google seems to have forgotten the early days of the search engine wars in which Yahoo, Excite, et al vied for the most user-hostile, craptacular portal landing pages. I believe it was primarily their choice of a minimal utilitarian design that made people flock to Google, and the quality of the search results, good as they were, was a distant secondary factor among typical users.
Secondly, the actual execution of this feature was terrible. Not only were the images bright, garish, and distracting, but there was NO option to turn it off. Sure if you spent a few minutes digging you could find the "editor's choice" images, and if you scrolled all the way down to the bottom you could find white. But then if you picked that, you would get white text on a white background. Brilliant.
Google has said in the past that they use an empirical, incremental approach to UI design where user actions are studied and these guide decisions down to the level of how many pixels to make a line or what font size to use. Some have rightly pointed out that this will cause you to get stuck on local maxima and you need to have a methodology that allows for some creative design. But forcing such a butt ugly intrusion on all users for the purposes of a trial is ridiculous. If they really wanted to do a trial they could have simply served this to, say, 1 in 10,000 users (based on IP+useragent hash, for example) and got the exact same information.
No, this could only have been the brainchild of a marketroid who thought it would be necessary to "make a splash" and get some "buzz" going. Well congratulations, you got your feedback and the answer is a resounding "fuck off". Google has officially run out of ideas if this is the best they can come up with.
I only use the Pac-Man page.
I just checked and Google.com still shows a "Change Background Image" link in the lower left corner, so it looks more like it's still an option, they just realized they confused people by defaulting it to on for a few hours.
Anyway, it's just an option now. Nobody's forcing you to use it. I suspect the Slashdot crowd keeps it pretty real on the "give me a plain white background or give me death" tip, but a lot of people like this sort of silly eye candy.
Anybody else remember back when we all switched to using Google *because* of the plain white background and simple layout?
Honestly, I haven't seen the main Google page in a while. Had no one sent me the link, I would've missed Pac-Man day.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I thought this was just a one-day thing they were doing to show they're aware of the oilpocalypse. Bing has pretty pictures but I don't actually use it for anything. As Stephen Colbert said "Bing is the best search engine. I know because I googled it."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
That's a pretty false dichotomy. Yes, the majority of people do seem to like Google better than they like Bing, Yahoo etc. But that doesn't mean all those people think everything Google does is perfect and they never want anything changed or have any new features added. Ultimately, if Google took your advice and search development became completely stagnant, then eventually the other search providers would improve over time and overtake Google.
http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&client=google-coop-np
I use this uri no adds, no fuss, simple return of search results. The way it should be.
See, it was all a plan - give us a day of "Google as Bing" and demonstrate with cold hard data that people don't like Bing's style and prefer Google. Shut up carpers among stockholders that were screaming "do something!" to respond to Bing grabbing 2 percent market share, AND wipe MS's nose it it.
Yeah, that was the plan all along.
This space available.
Haha, yeah, I'm sure MS if gloating about how Google copied them. On the other hand, the response to the 'Bing' flavored Google was overwhelmingly negative, which can't make them feel too good. Especially since a lot of the comments that I saw were along the lines of "If I wanted this crap I would go use Bing".
But the whole google search sidebar was ripped off from Bing and seems to be very successful. You'd be in far more trouble if you refused to consider an idea just because it came from a place you didn't like.
Update June 10, 11:31AM: Last week, we launched the ability to set an image of users’ choosing as the background for the Google homepage. Today, we ran a special “doodle” that showcased this functionality by featuring a series of images as the background for our homepage. We had planned to run an explanation of the showcase alongside it—in the form of a link on our homepage. Due to a bug, the explanatory link did not appear for most users. As a result, many people thought we had permanently changed our homepage, so we decided to stop today’s series early. We appreciate your feedback and patience as we experiment and iterate.
Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Google's homepage is the dial tone of the internet.
> I recall reading that they would like to remove the "I'm feeling lucky"
> button (because no one uses it), but they can't. Users simply can't
> handle large changes.
Well that's an easy one to handle. Just remove it gradually. Every week, take off 1 letter.
I'm Feeling Lucky
I'm Feeling Luck
I'm Feeling Luc
I'm Feeling Lu
I'm Feeling L
etc.
In just a few short months the button will be worn down to a nub and can then be safely removed without causing stress for users.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.