in the march 2004 edition of WIRED the “godfather of innovation + technology magazines” is presenting the “Complete Guide to Googlemania”.
according to WIRED “Google’s a library, an almanac, a settler of bets. It’s a parlor game, a dating service, a shopping mall. It’s a Microsoft rival. It’s a verb. At more than 200 million requests a day, it is, by far, the world’s biggest search engine.”
the article is divided into 13 chapters ranging from Google’s upcoming IPO to Google fight vs. Microsoft. however the most interesting article from a design management perspective is the chapter “Redesigning the Interface” where four graphic designers share their (re)visions about the “Google Web Interface”.
the four approaches differ very much in their underlying concept: joshua davis tries to “Map real physical information to the virtual space of the Internet” as he promotes a kind of “Edward Tufte” visual information graphics style.
in contrast to that the concepts of artist Jenny Holzer and designer/artist Shepard Fairey are playing with artistic or styling approaches. while Holzer proposes that Google searches should present unexpected copies of original documents from political and cultural debates Fairy is favouring an “emotional attachment with the user” by sustaining the structure of the interface but making extensive use of colour and type.
what all of the previous proposals have in common is that they stay on the level of “refurbish the interface”. the fourth proposal however goes beyond this attitude. and it is no surprise that IDEO the design and innovation company that “helps companies to innovate” positions Google as a global infrastructure that provides a physical, context-aware link to relevant information.
their idea is that a kind of “red Google Emergency Button” becomes embedded in ordinary objects like (real) shopping carts, remote controls or school desks. even though this concept is very visionary and maybe not feasible it demonstrates a real strategic approach to design.
it’s the ability to think “beyond the product” and to create a “value chain of visual and physical experiences” which makes a designer or manager a “design manager”. educational design management programmes like the ones in Rotterdam/NL or Solothurn/CH are certainly built around this credo and mission.
