Simply Google!

I always remember the first time I've opened Google's homepage. All I could see was its colorful logo, a textfield to type in something, and two buttons (Search and the famous "I'm feeling lucky!"). Many other websites were also quite simple at that time. However, the advances in the web design caused many websites to change, but Google is still as simple as it was.

Every now and then, I visit archive.org, a great project aiming at archiving books, articles, webpages and a lot more, and most importantly, it's free! Now, have a look at Google in the late 90s. This is what Google looked like in 2006 and that's what Google looks like now.

A few weeks ago, Google made its webpage even simpler. Whenever you open it, all you see is the logo, the text field and the world-known pair of buttons it provides. Now if you move your mouse pointer, a few more options would appear (the dedicated fade-in effect is actually a brilliant idea). What do we learn from this?

When it comes to search, what people want is to do it quickly. What matters is the results, their accuracy and relevance and the speed of their retrieval. Designing an eye-candy website with lots of features won't work. Take a look at Yahoo. I was a fan of its old-style homepage. Although people were referring to it as a cluttered website, but I liked it, as it was simple and easy-to-use. It didn't require a fast connection. I was on a dial-up at that time and Yahoo was one of the fastest websites I was able to navigate through. If you take a look at its webpage today, you might see an advanced homepage that is leveraging a lot of AJAX features and stuff, but it's not simple anymore. I reckon this is one of the reasons of Yahoo losing its image and position as a leading company in the cyber world.

This is what us, web developers, have to learn. Designing a website is not as easy as it seems. We have to distinguish between simplicity and weak (and primitive) design. Simplicity should be studied by putting ourselves in our website users' shoes. Web developers should think how users might be able to use their website conveniently and effectively, without being confused or lost. This is not an easy task and it requires lots of knowledge and skills. People come with different IT background, many of whom might even be using English as a second language. The designed website should satisfy both experienced and novice users, and this is not easily obtainable!

Google was and is an amazing example of a website that could achieve such objective. Microsoft has learned the lesson and has recently done a great job with its Bing, but there are still many other websites that need to be redesigned in order to be more productive, yet easy-to-use. Like what? Ebay and Amazon! These are two examples of websites that are most likely to confuse their first-time users!