Today I am attending the WebGuild Silicon Valley Annual Conference in Santa Clara, CA. One of the keynote speakers was Marissa Mayer. Marissa is the VP of User Experience at Google. The format of the talk was a directed Q&A session, and then they opened it up to the audience at the end of her talk.
Marissa had some really interesting things to say, and I think that it is worth noting a few of my key takeaways. They are nothing but common user experience sense; Product managers everywhere should take notice.
On Google’s homepage/search simplicity
Google’s simple UI went like this: Sergei was an engineer, and didn’t want to build a “better” page. He just wanted to test his search engine. Initially Sergei didn’t even have a Search button. He figured the search field was enough, since the Return keyboard key worked well enough.
On Designing, Developing, and Launching products
Don’t overinvest upfront. Don’t overthink a product. Think lean from the getgo - not about everything it could do. Get it out there early, change it often. Getting it out there will determine if it’s going to take off; getting out there early will also beat the competition.
Google often walks away from revenue for the sake of the user experience. They believe that if they nail the user experience first, the revenue will come. Never compromise the user experience for the sake of immediate revenue. User experience is the best investment they can make.
Speed is at least important in user experience as any other factor. Don’t forget about speed.
On Social/Knowledge Search
Google is focused on social/knowledge search, and they’re looking at companies in Asian countries who have done a great job with the concept.
On advertising
No ads on the homepage. Why? There’s no content, so how could ads be well-targeted? It simply makes no sense. And if there is content, it still isn’t well-targeted, so ads might still not make sense. Wait until the user gives you explicit input about their interests; you can always target ads better that way.
– END NOTES –
You might hear people say that Google is a cold, machine-driven company that is solely focused on technology; that they don’t have any user experience representation or focus. Don’t believe the hype. They’re a big company that still operates its product teams as lean, mean, aggressive-as-hell user experience and business and engineering monsters.
As they spread themselves thinner, and become involved across more and more disparate verticals it will be interesting to see if Google can maintain their momentum.