Bad design: not the secret of their success

Here’s an incendiary post from US designer Andy Rutledge, who argues forcefully that the success of sites including eBay, Google and Boing Boing is not down to their design, but rather in spite of it.

“Those who say that poorly designed websites are partly responsible for some companies’ success are feeding you a load of crap. And too many of you are eating it up… What kills me is that I continue to see designers, some of them professionals, buying into this drivel and helping to perpetuate it. This whole business of contemplating the elusive wisdom of bad design and ugly layout is amateur hour on parade. It’s time to call bullshit.

[...]

“We have a responsibility to avoid pseudoscience and pseudointellectualism as it relates to what we produce for our clients and what we share with our fellow designers. If we’ve not got a sufficient grasp of things to see through this sort of drivel, perhaps we should go back to school or find another line of work.”

A tirade aimed at the likes of Jakob Nielsen? The author doesn’t say.

But in this BBC news story (among many other places) Nielsen, one of the most lauded web design gurus, praises Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo! for their uncluttered, “undesign” look.

“”Those four sites are extremely profitable and extremely successful,” said Dr Nielsen, adding that they have largely defined commercial success on the net.

[...]

“None of them have a fancy or glamorous look,” he added, declaring himself surprised that these sites have not been more widely copied.

It’s certainly silly to attribute those sites’ commercial success entirely to their design, but one would imagine it’s a factor in those sites doing well. Maybe how big a factor is open to debate, but bad design has been implicated in the failure of other sites, not least Boo.

And let’s not forget that Google’s front page was a design revelation when it first launched, after years of increasingly cluttered everything-to-everyone portal pages. The notion of having just a logo, a search box and a couple of buttons was quite something… even if that initial early impact has been diluted by Google’s recent expansion.

But is this proposed redesign any better?

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COMMENTS / 5 COMMENTS

As Alan Vega once said, “minimal is maximal”. The redesign isn’t bad, not mad on the blue though. Incidentally Boo’s back: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/24/boo_com/

pieman thought this on Feb 10 06 at 1:48 am

The problem with Andy Rutledge argument is that he does not mention any sites that he feels are well designed, and successful! The winners always seam to have minimal design… google. Del.ico.us… etc…. I think the really important gage for success for a site is that it looks simple. I remember doing some focus group studies back in 1997 and what came back every time was what people wanted was simplicity. Making something look simple is extremely hard to do.

james thought this on Feb 10 06 at 6:34 pm

The winners always seam to have minimal design… google. Del.ico.us… etc….

Yeah, but del.icio.us works in the same way that Craiglist works - everything you need is right there at your fingertips. On, eg., Amazon and eBay, I often have to spend a while hunting around for the link I want - I think the point Andy Rutlegde is trying to make is that simple sites are good, but that some of the sites lauded for their simplicity aren’t as easy to use as they could be. (Shouting ‘bullshit sandwich!’ gets more attention, though.)

It’s a shame he muddied the waters with his Google redesign, really - there’s no need for the blueness, but his points about keeping everything clean, simple and centred seem valid to me.

Jack thought this on Feb 12 06 at 2:46 am

If Google’s design is/was so wrong… how come both Yahoo and MSN (now with added whiteness) are still moving ever closer to it?

Simon Dickson thought this on Feb 20 06 at 3:24 pm

What’s really funny is that Andy Rutlegde’s proposed redesign is both crap and nonsense. I wonder if he ever tried it.

To be specific, it’s completely moronic to redesign Google’s front page without showing how the results pages look. Is that going to be half blue as well? Will users be brain-damaged by flicking between the home page and results pages?

He also seems to be completely unaware of how the Google front page relates to other Google (non search) pages. Which is not to say I think Google has done a particularly good job and couldn’t do better. However, the idea that you can change the home page without consequences shows an appalling lack of understanding of the basic points of web design.

Yes, things should be simple, as the other Jack says. But there’s no virtue in being simple if you’re simply ignoring the bulk of what’s really going on.

It reminds me of children “designing” supercars with no understanding of the mechanics of construction, the laws of physics, the nature of roads, government safety regulations, existing driving skills etc etc.

And unfortunately this seems to be a common characteristic among Web designers….

Jack thought this on Feb 22 06 at 1:17 pm

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