A new contest has been launched at RedesignGoogle.com that invites designers from around the world to give Google’s design a makeover. The reason for launching this contest has been stated in TechCrunch as under:
“There’s no question about it: Google is great at search, and its huge lead over competitors is well deserved. But the site’s spartan design can sometimes leave something to be desired — sure, the company gradually makes tweaks to it, but we haven’t seen many radical changes in a very long time. Now WebMynd, a Y Combinator startup that launched back in early 2008, is looking to help spur the search giant to make itself a little better, or at least give it a few ideas to help.”
Let me point out emphatically that Google is what it is today not only because of the highest quality of its search engine but also because of simplicity of its design. People search Google not for its design but for the high quality of its search results. In fact, a complicated design (or for that matter, a design full with graphics or a design that looks too good or too tempting) will distract people from the search results. A simple design for Google Search means people can simply view the results without any distraction whatsoever and then click on the desired search results to visit the pages they were trying to search. People do not go to Google Search for any other purpose. Further, search result pages should not be too heavy on your bandwidth due to graphics, keeping in view the fact that not many people have broadband connection barring those in a few advanced countries.
Moreover, you check any other search engine and you’ll find that they too have simple design. In fact, it is sine qua non for a search engine to have a simple design. Bing does, of course, show a new image (which keeps changing every day) on its home page but then luckily that’s the end of additional design since its search result pages are more or less as simple as those of Google. But then, putting a nice-looking image on the home page of Bing is different from putting heavy design material on its search result pages. And, thankfully, Bing also maintains a simple design for its search result pages, as it should be.
Then, there are legal issues relating to tweaking the Google pages by a third party because these RedesignGoogle people are not stopping at merely suggesting a redesign of Google Search. Look at what TechCruch says in this regard:
“The nice thing about the contest is that it isn’t purely theoretical — you’ll actually be able to start using the new design in your browser, using a stripped down version of WebMynd’s browser plugin. …”
I wonder whether a third party can change the design of Google search pages without their consent and then start delivering these pages to general users with new designs (which may even affect the placement of Google’s advertisements!!!). One has to be fair to Google. Let them have the right to present their pages as they wish. A third party cannot change the design suo motu. I can understand if a third party uses the changed design for its own internal use but it cannot do it for people at large without Google’s consent. This is what I understand from my basic knowledge of what the law is.
I visited RedesignGoogle.com just to have a look at what is being suggested in the name of redesigning Google. Frankly, what I find there is some graphics-heavy designs in the name of redesigning Google, including some indecent graphics too, which can never be suitable for all age groups.
It appears that WebMynd and others, who have thought of this contest to redesign Google Search, have perhaps not understood the logic behind a simple design for Google Search pages. Let it be pointed out at the cost of repetition, and with full emphasis that the greatness of Google Search is due as much to its high quality of search results as to its simple design.
Therefore, no effort should be made to play unnecessarily with its simple design. In fact, I very much doubt whether the people trying to “redesign” Google Search have themselves got a hidden “design” behind that!!!
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