Douglas Bowman, Visual Design Lead leaves Google (and joins Twitter)
I’ve just learned that Douglas Bowman is leaving Google – Friday was his last day at company. What is the reason? Design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data. Douglas has made some really interesting points and made me thinking this Saturday morning.
Douglas started working at Google almost three years ago and he is credited for introducing Visual Design as a discipline to Google. He joined Google because, among other things, he wanted to impact millions of people (almost the same reason I love my work at Microsoft!). Google was 7 years old when he joined it, and Google was all that time basically without, as Douglas puts it “classically trained designer”. And designers that were at Google were low on hierarchy, with none of them being at respected leadership positions.
But something was really interesting with design and Google – at least that was the impression I’ve got by reading Douglas’ blog – design decisions and design philosophy was governed by data and data exclusively. Google tested 41 shades of blue to see which one performs better - you can read about that on NY Times where Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products & User Experience and a first female engineer at Google, explains it.
Anyways, back to Douglas Bowman – recently, he writes, he had a debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or perhaps 5 pixels wide – he was asked to prove his case. Obviously Google relies heavy on data (somewhat understandable taking into account their core business) and even tries to impose that on (visual) design discipline. I can agree with Douglas when he says that Google know what is doing, but seriously, don’t you think that discussing about such miniscule design decisions and trying to connect them with some data company has gathered makes lot of sense?
Personally, I am a huge fan of data (not really surprising fact taking into account my science and physics background) and I can see that data gathered by, for example, Microsoft Dynamics UX team about our users (through extensive research) has basically laid foundations for something we call RoleTailored user experience. And there is probably more other examples – but – then again – to rely so heavy on data and model whole visual design discipline within one corporation makes me wonder about the perception of visual design in environments like that…
Google has, obviously, and that is what Douglas claims too, already created its own “design philosophy” when it was founded, 7 years before Douglas joined them and it was extremely challenging to change it at any later point in time.
Take a moment and read about it on Douglas’ blog. It will probably make you think and ask yourself some questions about the perception and the role of visual design…
EDIT: Douglas is now at Twitter!
12 Responses to “ Douglas Bowman, Visual Design Lead leaves Google (and joins Twitter) ”
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Design is not only decision making; results should be measurable. In the case of Bowman’s high-profile exit, I see both sides. But in his goodbye letter there’s no mention of qualitative metrics, which is interesting. “Trying to push” Google sort of tells the story; both he and, as he indicates, the company had an agenda, putting them at odds. Would you put money on the “dinghy” or “aircraft carrier.”? While generally a proponent of Google, design acumen is NOT the reason. But I don’t think Google will capture this data.