Don Norman questions the conventional wisdom on Google:

Anybody can make a simple-looking interface if the system only does one thing. If you want to do one of the many other things Google is able to do, oops, first you have to figure out how to find it, then you have to figure out which of the many offerings to use, then you have to figure out how to use it.

My first reaction was, “But the user’s always right!” If users think it’s clean, then it’s clean by definition. And it is users who sing Google’s praises, not just the usabilerati.

But when you think about all of Google’s other services, how many people really use Google for anything other than search? I bet people use a lot more of Yahoo’s services.

Take another careful look at Google’s front page. Want a map? You have to click once to be offered the choice, then a second additional time to get to the map page. Want to use Google Scholar to check references? Um, well, is that “Advanced Search” or “more.” What about their newly announced blog search? Why is Google maps separate from Google Earth? (Oh, those were purchased from different companies. Yes, but why should I, the user, care about the history of Google’s acquisitions?)

All of these things require you to click on “more” which gets you to the options page where there are 29 alternatives, plus links to “About Google,” “Help Center” (if Google is really so simple, why does one need help?), “Downloads” and then a special section on “web search features,” which has another 24 links of web features, a book search toolbar, and then another 23 sections of text — not links, text descriptions and an entire meta-language you can learn to improve the searches.

This made me think, why isn’t Google of all people playing the URL as command-line game with their own products? Sample searches:

  • “groups” - Yahoo Groups first, Google Groups 2nd.
  • “map” - MapQuest first, Google Maps 7th (Google Moon 90-something).
  • “news” - BBC first, Google News 5th.
  • “images” - YES! Google finally made it to no. 1! (Quick, get the SEO lawyers, Google’s cracked the Google algorithm!)

Now, this is all very nice and integral of Google to provide honest results rather than sprinkle in their own services. But what gets me is that they often provide no relevant link to their own service. I wouldn’t expect Google to show all of their services on the homepage, but I would expect it to point me to Google Maps when I search for “map”. And when I search for “Paris Map”, it’s nice that Google offers some images in the results, but I can think of something more relevant.