More than a year ago, Google’s (then) lead visual designer – Douglas Bowman – resigned from Google after frustration with their decision process on design. Yes, I know that was a long time ago, but I’ve often thought about it since then, and the time has come to post about it. What interested me specifically was what Bowman said about his decision at the time on his personal blog:
When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data…that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions…
Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4, or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions…
I’ll miss working with the incredibly smart and talented people I got to know there. But I won’t miss a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data.
His gripe was that he would design something, then the engineers would do a sample test on what he had designed and see if the “public” preferred the new design or old design, using a battery of statistics and analyses. Presumably the data sometimes won over the designer. As in, it appeared from A/B split testing that on the “old design” the average user : clicks more, comes back more often, bookmarks more …. (take your pick)
Well, even if the data didn’t favour the new designs here’s my problems with the engineering thinking:
- Statistics can measure user metrics for sure, but they can’t come up with the new, creative, out-the-box stuff to measure in the first place. For that you need the artist, and the artists need to be supported in their endeavours
- True artists have always been known as visionaries. What they see is often ahead of what the general populace see. Maybe their design tweaks today will only come into their own appreciation by users further down the line. Maybe the artists can sense and anticipate in which direction aesthetics are moving. Maybe the things that Google is measuring doesn’t cover all the bases. I guess they’ll never know…
My father was an engineer. And one of his favorite pokes/jokes at the Accounting profession went like this:
“If accountants had designed the motor car, they would have put the headlights in the rear to see where they were coming from”
Well here’s another verison of the car analogy:
The Design team is driving the car, with the head visionary at the wheel. Looking up ahead he says “We’re gonna have to change down a gear dudes, there’s a hill ahead”. To which comes the reply from the Engineers sitting in the back: “How can you be sure? Our data through the side windows is not supporting your hypothesis”