Google's pragmatic, data-driven approach to user interface design
Marissa Mayer director of Consumer Web Products at Google, spoke at BayCHI on Tuesday evening. Some interesting points she made:
(a) When she first got involved in User Interface Design at Google, she was asked not to spend more than one day a week working on the interface! Also, she was asked not to give her opinions, but to provide data. So right from the beginning, design at Google has been very data driven.
(b) They do a lot of usability testing (mostly discount tests), both task-based and think aloud. From what I understood they do look at statistical significance of such test results.
(c) The method she talked about the most was fairly sophisticated log analysis (seems to be Google's staple method). They make small changes, present it to sections of user population and watch the results (both the log based metrics, and emailed customer feedback). Also, they use the logs to understand any user experience problems on the site. Based on such tests, they decide on design direction. (Via Rashmi Sinha)
(a) When she first got involved in User Interface Design at Google, she was asked not to spend more than one day a week working on the interface! Also, she was asked not to give her opinions, but to provide data. So right from the beginning, design at Google has been very data driven.
(b) They do a lot of usability testing (mostly discount tests), both task-based and think aloud. From what I understood they do look at statistical significance of such test results.
(c) The method she talked about the most was fairly sophisticated log analysis (seems to be Google's staple method). They make small changes, present it to sections of user population and watch the results (both the log based metrics, and emailed customer feedback). Also, they use the logs to understand any user experience problems on the site. Based on such tests, they decide on design direction. (Via Rashmi Sinha)
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