Google has made a refreshing change to their start page: they took everything away except for search.
That’s all you see when you hit http://www.google.com, there are no links to news, images, email or your account. Nothing, that is, until you move your mouse.
Is Less More?
I was immediately taken by the simplicity of the page, which is a stark contrast to the factoid-a-day implementation of Bing:
Bing’s front page is often an inspiring, if not productivity killing, start to your search experience and gives you something new and worldly to learn each day.
Change (Un?)Apparent
The new Google start page sure feels clean. I don’t know if that’s better, but it is different and eye-catching in its simplicity.
It is also short-lived, as moving your mouse fades in the same-old burdened UI that continues to grow as Google crams more features in. On one hand it looks like they’ve nailed something and made it fresh, on the other they missed a chance to push a new UI.
Either way it’s showing that two leading companies have a very different take on what user experience should be.
I've avoided bing most of the time, but I've used it a couple of times. I agree that bing can be very distraction and to me just puts up another potential roadblock to actually getting things done. But this also comes from someone who uses WriteRoom to block out everything when I'm writing something.
ReplyDeleteGoogle and Microsoft have different ideas which is good, but for productivity, Google still trumps Microsoft. (In this aspect: Office > Google Docs.)
hehehe...well, i'm not sure bing is YOUR problem, lol!
ReplyDeletenot sure what you mean on your last comment, we should hash it out over coffee. i'd love to know your thoughts on office v. docs.