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Google's House of Cards

Posted by Unknown on from the remembering-webos dept.

theodp writes "In 'The Design That Conquered Google,' The New Yorker's Matt Buchanan reports that 'cards' — modeled after real cards — are set to become one of the dominant ways in which Google presents certain types of information to users. The power of a card as a visual-organization metaphor according to Matias Duarte (lead designer of Android), is that 'it makes very clear the atomic unity of things; it's still flexible while creating a kind of regularity.' Hey, maybe that Bill Atkinson was really on to something with that dadgum HyperCard software of his back in the '80s!"

10 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Words by Hypotensive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The main advantage of presenting something as a card is that the word "card" is different from the word "page", and people are kind of tired of hearing the word "page" now.

    1. Re:Words by tnk1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, for those who remember actually making out notecards for school work, there was a sense that a "card" actually represented a different way of presenting data that was more concise, and the understanding that space was at a premium. You also were able to manipulate them a lot more easily than pages of paper, as they were both smaller and made of more rigid stock, so the understanding was that ordering would not always be sequentially in a fixed page order.

      Whether that is what people are thinking of today when they talk about "cards", I don't know. It did make sense as a metaphor back in the days of HyperCard, though.

    2. Re:Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Googler here. Actually, the problem is internal to Google -- it's too easy to confuse (web) page with (Larry) Page.

  2. WebOS by dloflin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also sounds like the dominant paradigm in WebOS...

    1. Re:WebOS by noahisaac · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, Android became significantly more webOS-like when google poached him from Palm. I hope it continues that trend. I'm very sad that webOS is essentially dead now. The multi-tasking elements of webOS are far superior to that of Android and iOS.

    2. Re:WebOS by Sabah+Arif · · Score: 5, Informative

      The similarity to WebOS is no coincidence since Matias Duarte was the chief designer at Palm before moving to Google. He even gave demos at the Pre/WebOS launch.

  3. Metro by jader3rd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The power of a card as a visual-organization metaphor according to Matias Duarte (lead designer of Android), is that 'it makes very clear the atomic unity of things; it's still flexible while creating a kind of regularity.'

    So... they're Live Tiles?

  4. Points for style by Halo5 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't really have an opinion on cards one way or another but, as a Southerner, I applaud the proper use of the word "dadgum." I haven't seen that one in a while...

    --
    665: The mark on the forehead of Satan's slightly less evil brother, Stan.
  5. Will he change his name now, by fredrated · · Score: 5, Funny

    to Larry Card?

  6. trello by thegreatemu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As a good example, you should take a look at trello , which is basically an organization/design/progress list tool, where each atomic activity is represented by a card. I've been using it extensively for about a year now, and the card+board metaphor really seems to make intuitive sense to everyone I've introduced to it.