

Ask HN: What do Google, Facebook, and Amazon have in common? - famfam

These companies more or less eschew "graphic design" (not saying they eschew or ux or "just design") - they constist mostly of content with the tiniest bits of chrome to demarcate things.<p>Is this a function of catering to the lowest common denominator? Page speed? Is it what's made them successful? Is it a reflection of the fact that graphic design just <i>interferes</i> with app functionality or tries to obfuscate bad app functionality?<p>I think about all the sites that have whimsical designs, with arbitrarily chosen motifs, and think -- this is so subjective. Not everyone will like it. Some people will love it. Why risk it? White backgrounds verifiably do not <i>not</i> work, so why use background images?  Why have clever iconage? It's bound to confuse at least a few people.<p>Can <i>graphic</i> design only impede "transactional" websites?
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ErrantX
Google and Amazon (I'm not so sure about Facebook...) have realized that,
while design is nice, usability hooks regular users.

Take Amazon; technically not a very "beautiful" interface - but it is
functional. And if you read their occasional technical posts from the UX side
of things you realize quite how much effort went into the placement and
wording of buttons.

Certain sites require great (subtle) graphics (I think Apple have always done
this very well; their graphic designs are pretty complex but still look simple
and elegant) either as part of their brand or because their demographic
demands it.

But Amazon is not a place people sit and read for a few hours (for example).
They go on, search for something and want to see all the information presented
as fast as possible. Same with Google, except you spend even shorter time on
their sites.

As to Facebook; I think in the past they have displayed little consideration
for design OR good UX/UI in previous incarnations. Some of the changes they've
made in the past were hilarious :P but recently things have improved and I
think they figured much the same thing as Google et al.

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coryl
Your notion of graphic design alludes to the idea that more is better, while
all good designers and artists know less is more.

All the sites you mentioned do have beautiful graphic design, clean style, and
usability.

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buster
Because what Google and Apple have shown everyone is that a great interface is
minimal, neat and efficient.

The most useful webapps i've seen where always also websites with a minimal
design (soup.io and animoto.com are examples of those, love the UIs, animoto
is rather simple when editing.. startpage is overly complex to advertise the
features)

~~~
MisterWebz
Is it just me or are a lot of web apps using the same layout as animoto.com?

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mbrubeck
See also: <http://craigslist.org/sss>

