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.
A while back, could be some time now, a blogger posted a dozen or so things mentioned in a Mayer talk. One of them being that Sergei’s lack of HTML knowledge also contributed to simplicity. As I heard somewhere else recently, sometimes what can seem like a big decision now, was just a small one based on “made sense” back then.
I just read this morning, in Hollywood Reporter of all things, that Google’s quarterly profits rose by 92%, which reflect “by some estimates, that [they are] grabbing a quarter of all the money flowing into online advertising.”.
I know Google recently announced it was going to focus less on new products and more on new features - having been getting lost in its own volume of product releases. So I wonder how that changes the dynamic of a company internally, from one that was innovating in big steps, now being asked to innovate in increments. Personally, I think ‘Docs and Spreadsheets’ is a perfectly suitable name for an application. Or two.
Most importantly though - it is widely known that the Korean search portal Naver succeeded in Korean language search where both Google and Yahoo! couldn’t - but the Asian model for knowledge search seems to encompass a portal approach, with a convergence of a host of entertainment offerings, so I wonder how that might impact developments in this area. Especially as Asian companies begin to go global.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:38 amDamien: you’re right about the HTML thing. What I meant to say was Sergei didn’t want to creat a “better” page than the one he had already built, which was a lone form field.
Yes, their profits are insanely high. But the revenue is coming from products that they have already proven; not from the newer products, or products in their labs.
One thing Mayer did say regarding Google’s presence in Asia, is that on a recent visit she had requested that they “please change [Google] over there so that it fits culturally. It’ll be interesting to see how that manifests itself.
October 20th, 2006 at 7:31 amDid she say why Google has had no successful products aside from Search and Ad Words? Or why she continues to get so much press attention and uncritical coverage despite this?
Just wonderin’…
October 21st, 2006 at 2:15 pmDan: No one asked that, but I reckon it has something to do with the halo effect around their Search product. It was amazing to watch folks swarm after her talk; like a rock star was in the room!
October 22nd, 2006 at 9:42 am[…] Push Button For: Interaction Design, User Experience and Business » Blog Archive » Notes from Marissa Mayer, VP of User Experience, Google. Thanks for sharing, Gino. google, ia, knowledge+management, productivity […]
October 22nd, 2006 at 11:56 am