What If Google and Yahoo Switched Designers?

Yahoo has had such a simple Googlesque version for a long time, http://search.yahoo.com

They already do, see http://search.yahoo.com/.

I probably would switch to Yahoo if they had a clean UI like Google.

I’ve been having some issues with Google lately, primarily the fact that my IP seems to be ‘Canadian’ (along with most of the results). I’ve tried switching to Live.com, but the results aren’t what I would call ‘up to par’.

well they certainly do. asked and answered, I guess. I’ll update the post.

This is why I never use Yahoo ever.

All that is is Yahoo!’s homepage with Google’s branding and products, but watch, some people will say how cool and revolutionary it would be, or how much better Google’s designers are…

I like it…:)

The problem with Yahoo is search results, if they were to give users a better result I am sure the world would switch to Yahoo on search.

I’m surprised someone hasn’t made this a Greasemonkey script yet…

I am missing it - it’s Yahoo with slapping the Google logo on it and changing the icons on the left and the video and the mail? It looks the same to me.

But my eyes are old so maybe i am missing it. Certainly looks like it was great linkbait judging from Trati.

Well, I have to say the probability of Yahoo looking horrible after such a swap would be high.

“I probably would switch to Yahoo if they had a clean UI like Google.”

Well call me stupid then

The point about Google, is simple and fast. They concerntrate more on usability. Sometimes, I just go to Yahoo, for design not content. I would say Yahoo is a portal for everything. Google is a windows for something.

Click on the link “ripped off a Yahoo page design” from google watch to get to jeremy zawodny’s blog….. anyone see an ad for google adsense? I tried it several times….. it only happens when you click from google watch …..

screenshot here: http://www.liquidorb.net/zawodny.png

One thing that drives me absolutely bananas about Google is that it’s so damn hard to navigate between services and to find things in the Google maze. I would be in absolute bliss if they actually created a consistent, persistent navigation among their services. The Yahoo-fied design in this article is a funny parody, but I think that I would actually welcome it. Access to all the services from the home page? Yes!

I dislike Google (always have) but do know that they are in talks to purchase a significant share of a both Yahoo and a major media company. No ‘proof’, of course, so it’s just a rumor for now.

Google home page is really annoying.Its simple but people might look for more info.Yahoo I like in those terms.LOl ask them to switch.

This is slightly off topic….. but why would Zawodny use google adwords on his site when Yahoo! has a competing product…..

or am I missing something?
https://adwords.google.com/select/OnsiteSignupLandingPage?client=ca-pub-1611926521527623&referringUrl=http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008122.html&hl=en&gl=US

I actually like Yahoo’s UI better, but I prefer Google for search results.

Don’t be surprised one day you will see this page at http://mashup.google.com/

Rulepark,

I disagree that Google concentrates more on usability that Yahoo. There are a lot of things that Google does very well from a usability/user experience perspective; however, there are also many things that are terribly not usable. For example, they have no consitent way to navigate between services and sections of Google. (Yahoo does.) In fact, for a long time, they never had a link to the home page or personalized home page from Gmail. Everytime I wanted to go back to the home page, I had to type it into my address bar. And there are other huge usability problems that remain. For example, the ‘My Account’ link on the personalized home page leads to one’s general account page, while the ‘My Account’ link on Google Analytics (placed identically on the page) leads to the Analytics account. The list goes on.

I think that it’s a matter of opinion if Yahoo or Google is more usable. However, I follow the work that the usability folk do at Yahoo, and they are very competent and diligent. Yahoo has introduces a number of excellent user experience paradigms over the past few years, and I have great respect for their work.

One important point is that Google is greatly concerned with load times, while Yahoo seems to pay less attention to that factor. That is probably the main reason why Google pages are so minimalistic and devoid of images vis a vis Yahoo.

I think Yahoo’s UI is a bit busy. I think the guys from 37 signals would refer to it as noise.

There is just too much going on and I can see how people might visit Yahoo and get “lost in the sauce.”

Ken, good job spotting those AdSense ads on Zawodny’s blog and preserving a screenshot for historians. Also, everybody knows there’s no better place to ask why site X runs ad network Y than here on TechCrunch. But just in case the authors here might be busy with something else than figuring out such motives, a quick search for “adsense” on Zawodny’s blog actually gets you all the information on his decision.

Mike,
An interesting portrayal of the homepage of Google Search in the format of Yahoo’s portal. The result seems to be a parodied portal or startpage so that a fairer comparison is between the Google Startpage (www.google.com/ig) and the “Yahoolike” Google Startpage. People’s perceptions and conclusions may change when they compare similar startpages or portals. For instance, some people may start to see that it may be easier to see and access all Google applications from one startpage or such a Google portal. I for one would love a Google portal; but a portal without the clutter.

Best regards,
Rod.

yup. google.com/ig and yahoo.com are both dense. google.com and search.yahoo.com are both lite. now it is up to the consumer to decide. i believe it is all a matter of personal preference.

now the question is … what about their mobile efforts? since people are battling for the fourth screen. what should google and yahoo on the mobile look like?

yahoo is going the fat client path while google is just integrating its traditional search into the mobile. who will prevail? or will a third model emerge?

way to go mike. that’s exactly what an average personalized google desktop looks like now, and search.yahoo.com is just as simple as google.com. a-1 job on this post. sigh.

I wish Google actually had a design team that’s good as Yahoo’s design team.

Michael, you’re killing us with these news everywhere ads … aren’t you showing enough ads as it is?

Low news day mike? wtf is this shit - who cares?

Cover some start up for christ sake

I switched from using google to using Yahoo. Yahoo simply gives me better results.

I prefer this design as well. It is a little too busy, but it does tie together all of the Google services, which as has been commented on, Google doesn’t do at all currently which is a royal pain in the ass.

I’d use it. I’m currently using the personal homepage of Google, and while it looks okay, it could of course be better.

I think the point of the parody was to comment on Yahoo!’s excessive use of image ads and general “noise” in their UI. Just from an email perspective, I was yahoo for many many years (I think I got my acount in 1998). I reluctantly switched to gmail after running the two in parallel for several months. Yahoo (their ajaz implementation) is way too slow in all respects. Searching mail in Yahoo is painful. The initial load is painful and the preview feature is painful. They were on the right track with the outlook-like layout, but the performance is a major factor for me. Why should my bandwidth and time be taken up loading a bunch of useless image ads? That all said, google really does need to tie all of their services together…it’s actually quite silly that they are so dis-connected.

Thanks for this post that has made my day as I have always looked at google and thought looking at their homepage (thats so basic) “How can this be a homepage of a company worth billions”, well that photo just goes to show simply can be much better left just simply (Never change google we love your look).

Yahoo has been doing a really good job on design and functionality. Google could really learn from them.

I’d throw up. I love Google’s simple design.

Somehow, makes me think about the competition between, Bill and Steve?Switch place between the both of 2 , what will u get?

What different is using the Google Home Page than adding a search box to your browser. I would never set my homepage to google, because it has nothing to offer me. Much better to use yahoo or msn. That gives me the search function, customization (if desired) and rich content. For all the people who love google’s clean UI, please define clean? If clean = empty, then liking a clean UI = stupid!

I’ve switched my home page to Yahoo from Google now, because when I actually sat down one day and scientifically compared the results for several of my search queries, I found that the top results at Yahoo were considerably better than what Google offered up. There were some overlaps, of course, but in many caes Yahoo had very relevant sites that weren’t in the first several pages of Google. Interestingly, Google often showed a big number of “matches”, but that didn’t translate into what I was looking for, at least before I got tired of paging through useless “adwords trap” site listings…

I haven’t used google in some time now. Back in 98_99 time frame google used to be the greatest search in the world. When you typed somthing in you could actually get good INFORMATION about the subject. Now if I were to ype in the same thing in 07 I get nothing but links to places that I can purchase what I am looking for.
I am personally using Live.com for my searches. It is similar to the “old” google and also includes side searches for those looking to buy somthing.
The titanic sank, so will google. It is the year of Yahoo, Yahoo was beat up to bad over the last year.

search.yahoo.com - Yahoo!’s answer to Google. But nobody knows about it. As for the question of swapping designers, pulease, the results would be the same as they are now (roughly). That’s because the business priorities that are set by the executives provide the framework for the designers. Designers just solve the problem. Swap executives and, well, then you’d have a very different design for each.

Also, don’t make the mistake of believing that both are in the same exact business. Yahoo! competes with Google in search and a few other things. But they have a lot of other compeitors and businesses. It’s apples and oranges, in other words.