How Would You Redo the Google Interface? (2004) | Hacker News Reader

How Would You Redo the Google Interface? (2004)

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30 pointstmslnz8 comments

Wow, those are all terrible.

Although I guess the first guy's idea was ok (even if the design itself was terrible) as google actually do something similar now

I'm assuming the link was posted since the one at the bottom pretty closely resembles what we're at now, with Google Now available everywhere

I liked Marissa Mayer's design sensibility.

The new design (circa google plus and later) is sacrificing usability for visual beauty. Sometimes precisely one for another. Gmail? What a goddam disaster. Want to add a CC or BCC? a few clicks away. Want to format text? A few clicks away (if you can even find it) Ugh!

Not sure about what she did for Google but I personally think Yahoo's current design shows poor taste, from the logo (redesigned in a weekend) to the huge purple shadow when you scroll. And it's not even that functional: the layout feels cluttered, there is no real hierarchy between elements; overall, it just feels like no one really knows where they are going.

Their weather app was really nice though.

Jenny Holzer's piece is by far the most interesting and opinionated, and still relevant to current discussions on security, leaks et al. Love her take on this.

Sherpard and Davis' are trite in both concept and execution. IDEO's is prophetic, but they're a pretty good forecasting company. Truly disappointed with Sherpard and Davis' though, walkover commercial designers.

Showing random surprises on the main page is related to what they are doing with the doodles, I think thats quite nice.

The physical Google button is a somewhat terrible idea, I think someone tried something similar a while back http://bit.ly/1rZkPdO

> The physical Google button is a somewhat terrible idea, I think someone tried something similar a while back

The idea is the same as Google's Voice Search (and Siri).

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/voicesearch/

The first one was just an early-2000s Google Now. Actually, scrap that idea, it's a beige text iGoogle.

Shepard Fairey's one isn't too bad. I can imagine Google having been like that, even if it never was.

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