#1
The prime reason the Google home page is so
bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a
quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time
coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
#2
Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in
early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a
minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to
which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that
particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude
end of page marker.
#3
One of the biggest leap in search usage came
about when they introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to
the “Did you mean…” feature. This instantly doubled their traffic, but they had
some interesting discussions on how best to place that information, as most
people simply tuned that out. But they discovered the placement at the bottom
of the results was the most effective area.
#4
The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never
used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the
Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
#5
Orkut is very popular in Brazil. Orkut was
the brainchild of a very intelligent Google engineer who was pretty much given
free reign to run with it, without having to go through the normal Google UI
procedures, hence the reason it doesn’t look or feel like a Google application.
They are looking at improving Orkut to cope with the loads it places on the
system.
#6
Google makes changes small-and-often. They
will sometimes trial a particular feature with a set of users from a given
network subnet; for example Excite@Home users often get to see new features.
They aren’t told of this, just presented with the new UI and observed how they
use it.
#7
Google has the largest network of
translators in the world
#8
They use the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20%
of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need
to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the ‘Advanced
Preferences’.
#9
They have found in user testing, that a
small number of people are very typical of the larger user base. They run labs
continually and always monitoring how people use a page of results.
#10
The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the
original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’
#11
Gmail was used internally for nearly 2years
prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types
of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
#12
They listen to feedback actively. Emailing
Google isn’t emailing a blackhole.
#13
Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their
time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of
projects that grew from this working model.
#14
This wasn’t a technical talk so no
information regarding any infrastructure was presented however they did note
that they have a mantra of aiming to give back each page with in 500ms,
rendered.
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