There's data and then there's data. Rereading the original article, I realized, they're unit testing. These blues will be tested out of context, like the border widths, shades of green, whatever. It's impossible to get full data on everything because of all the permutations and combinations will quickly balloon out of size. But unit testing is good for discrete modules. It shouldn't be used for UI. Otherwise, you get a sum of parts, not a whole.
For something like search, this is good. The search won't ever win any design awards, but as a tool it's second to none. You have the advertising separated from the content, and each entry is its own island. Get in, search, click a link, get out.
But for something like mail, when I have to use Gmail, I use mail.app instead of Google's site, just because of all the clutter of dozens of little, unit-tested buttons and statistically validated borders. That for optimization reasons, the search field is static, and things are grouped into packets of fifty. And yet, no drag and drop, nor sorting by anything other than date, nor autoupdate. But the advertising is well-integrated.
by Blain — Mar 23
For something like search, this is good. The search won't ever win any design awards, but as a tool it's second to none. You have the advertising separated from the content, and each entry is its own island. Get in, search, click a link, get out.
But for something like mail, when I have to use Gmail, I use mail.app instead of Google's site, just because of all the clutter of dozens of little, unit-tested buttons and statistically validated borders. That for optimization reasons, the search field is static, and things are grouped into packets of fifty. And yet, no drag and drop, nor sorting by anything other than date, nor autoupdate. But the advertising is well-integrated.