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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-com-history/1998.jpg

I think the OP has his answer.

In any case I do not agree. Design does matter even if there are outliers that break that mold. If you have no funding then you have to do what you can given your resources. If you have money you can allocate it wisely which is not the same as throwing it away.

Why are you citing something from 1998 as an example of successful design in 2012?

While I agree that pg's example is a bit extreme, the point still stands. At the beginning stages, great design won't determine the success of the product. Having customers will. So time and money is better spent in other areas. This isn't to say they won't come to you eventually when a better design is needed. Great design is still important, just not at the stage this company is at.

> At the beginning stages, great design won't determine the success of the product.

People hear 'design' and just think it is just the prettification of a product and not the actual usability and utter simplification of it. Maybe it's because there are so many designers that focus on gradients and drop-shadows anymore instead of the what and why, but design is imperative to the success of a company. Even though PG's point was that it doesn't matter (if I understood it correctly?), Google's minimalistic homepage compared to other search companies' sites in 1998 (bold colors, links everywhere, multiple functions/offshoots of the site) is part of what made it so popular; it did what it said on the tin and it made sense doing it.

That's not an example of successful design. That's an example of a successful company for whom design was secondary. I think YC founding teams in a field where design is of primary importance generally have design talent in the team.

That's the thing though: it's not an example of a successful company for whom design was secondary. That page was considered excellent design -- in 1998.

No, actually that was a very crude looking page in 1998.

It was simple -- apocryphally because Larry or Sergei weren't familiar with HTML -- but I don't see what makes it crude compared to the competition at the time (http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/popular-search-engines-in...).

Exactly, the simplicity and clarity, as I recall, combined with page rank of course, where the main draw of Google.

It's evident in comparison, that simplicity pioneered by Google, has been a significant principal in modern web design.

While a lot has improved in the design of Google's image over time, mostly aiming towards simplicity, the essence of Google's design, remains unchanged.

Count the cute icons.

So my prodigious gut agreed strongly with you and I was all psyched up to write a snarky comment with Archive.org links to other, better-designed search engines --- because I remember simplicity being one of Google's hallmarks when they launched.

But no, it turns out, 'thaumaturgy is right. Go look at Lycos and Altavista. It's hard to make a concise and compelling argument for Google's design being worse than its competitors. This was what professional web designs looked like in 1998.

One can claim Google's design was crude without claiming its design was worse than Lycos and Altavista.

It's especially easy to claim one without the other when the whole argument is that design is not a competitive edge for search engines.

Sure. Then you should be able to go find the top sites in 1998, select somehow for the sites where design was a competitive edge, and find among them many examples of designs that are better in some way that is straightforward to explain.

I gave up trying, for whatever that's worth. 1998 just looked crappy. Great year for indie rock! Neutral Milk Hotel! Bad year for web design.

"citing something from 1998"

Of course if one is going to use an example of where design didn't matter in 1998 you could always counter with an example of the imac, circa 1998, of which the design was key to the success of the product. (I won't even get into the other apple products).

http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/online/jonathan-ive-on-a...

Apple wasn't a startup in 1998 either.

Nobody but designers care about a "successful design". They are supposed to be caring about a successful business, which means a good enough design.

The point is not that startups should make sites that look exactly like that, but that initially they can get away with similarly low production values.

"startups should make sites that look exactly like that, but that initially they can get away with similarly low production values."

I'm assuming that that statement refers to YC startups as opposed to "startups" who may seek VC or angel funding (who may have limited knowledge and be more impressed with visual slickness). In that case the design, usability and appeal of the site matters much more.

If a startup gets something done well, no one will notice their uglyness unless beauty is a non-trivial part of getting their job done, initially.

The important thing about Google from 1998 was the fact that it was one box in which you typed what you want.

99 designs probably isn't going to help someone who doesn't know how to make a usable product, but YC has enough mentors that it's not an issue.

I have a similar image from Facebook posted up above my desk: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CSGOgp31KQE/TXzi88yH1XI/AAAAAAAAO7...

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