So they guy got tired of working for a company where design decisions ” lives or dies strictly by the sword of data” … No shit Google has always been an ugly son of a bitch, always will be, unfortunately it isn’t not about design with google, it is about data, admittedly that data has to be presented back to its users in as easy a comprehensible manner as possible, but not necessarily the most attractive way possible. Google is a company that is lead by its technical innovation, not its design flair, just look at that logo for christ sake. However in terms of design effectiveness for purpose the google homepage was revolutionary, but I certainly would never accuse it as being an aesthetic masterpiece.

He also states “Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. ” I can’t help but take that with a pinch of salt, not that I believe or don’t believe it to be the case, I just think that if I had witnessed that particular performance it would have raised such an chuckle from me, and I wouldn’t help but think that the techies and what nots where taking the piss out of the sensitive designer and paused for some self reflection. I know us creatives can be arses about details at times, just as techies can be equally entertaining and frustrating at times, but its these personality types that just come with territory and are there to be enjoyed.

“When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Okay, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.” Lets be honest with our selves here Google is no more likely to make daring design decisions then a tree will dance a waltz, its just not in its nature.

Now I’ve never met Douglas Bowman, not knowingly any way and I’m sure he’s a swell guy, I’ve also not worked at Google, nearly but not quite and I’m sure they are swell folk, and I have respect for both parties, however the thing that bothers me is the gravity that is being imbued on the situation by the twittering design folks.

I’ve parted company with a fair few employers, some on perfectly positive grounds and sometimes not, but I’ve never been tempted to document publicly my reasons for leaving a I figured that when two parties part its generally because of an incompatibility and its best just to accept that, anything else just comes across as sour grapes, and that’s what the story between Douglas Bowman and Google really is and all the attention in my opinion doesn’t really lend a positive light on Douglas or the perception of design professionals.

I suppose in summary I think that it all comes across a bit silly for the guy to publicly grumble so much about a mismact between what he wanted to do and what was the big G nature, it is possiby quite arrogant to assume that he could have changed anything in google’s nature, and it would probably have been best just to move on without comment or embarasing himself in this way by playing to the ‘Creative’ stereotype. I also think that all the rallying to his side by many of my peers is a little disapointing as I would have hoped that they would have been able to see past many of the more simplistic issues raised, but well sensationalism’s just human nature like data fetisism is just googlenature.