Over the last week, a series of fascinating articles have been written about design within the walls of Google. Prior to reading these posts, much of my insight to what design means there has been gossip and assumption. Of course, there’s also what I’ve learned from Margaret Gould Stewart.
MX 2008 | Margaret Gould Stewart from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
The design at Google drama started with a farewell letter from Doug Bowman. Doug was one of the first visual designers to join the ranks of Google. He also designed Blogger and Adaptive Path’s site. In Doug’s post, he didn’t necessarily say that the engineering focus at Google put design in the back seat (though many could interpret it that way). What he noted was a recurring theme of design by data. Design expertise, Doug explains, was often discounted in place of data that supported a particular design direction. This drove a talented designer to leave what one can only assume was a lucrative gig at Google.
Next came a rebuttal of sorts from Graham Jenkin. As a peer to Doug, he saw many of the same things within Google’s hallowed halls, but came away with a different perspective. Graham notes that Doug’s post “contains many truths” but his experience has been quite different. Partnering with product management and engineering is a must for success, says Graham.
The final post I read was a series of short letters written by Kevin Fox. Kevin was a designer who chose to leave Google for greener pastures at FriendFeed. In the post, he directs a message to Doug Bowman, to Google UX, Google Execs, Google Engineers and PMs, the Blogosphere and Google Users. The post questions Doug’s argument, praises Google UX and warns us meddling outsiders to be careful how much credence we give these shallow glimpses into Google’s operations.
All in all, I just really enjoyed reading these blog posts. They were very well written, and very honest. Each had a different perspective and I feel that as a whole, I have a slightly better idea of what designing inside of a large, successful company like Google is like. Mostly, I am just curious to learn more about design at Google.
