The remarkable designer Doug Bowman just quit Google. He published Part One explanation on his blog: Goodbye Google | stopdesign. Doug writes:
“When I joined Google as its first visual designer, the company was already seven years old. Seven years is a long time to run a company without a classically trained designer. Google had plenty of designers on staff then, but most of them had backgrounds in CS or HCI. And none of them were in high-up, respected leadership positions. Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. With every new design decision, critics cry foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in. Instincts fail. “Is this the right move?” 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? Ok, 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.”
Silicon Alley Insider claims Doug is going to Twitter. This makes senses because Evan Williams the current CEO of Twitter has launched Blogger and sold it to Google. Doug Bowman was responsible (before his days at Google) for design of some of the most beautiful blogger templates, including the template I used for my original blog.
Further reading: