Last week Doug Bowman let us all know he was leaving Google as their “Visual Design Lead.” I don’t know for sure but it sounds like he’s been Google’s Art Director. He had a pretty specific reason for leaving as he noted in his blog post:

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.

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

The reason this is interesting to me is that at our own company we’ve been getting more and more into testing out design changes and validating them against real traffic data. This isn’t anything new, 37signals talks about how they use A/B testing to figure out the best way to convert signups for their apps. There are blogs almost entirely dedicated to the subject of analytical review and testing and Google even has a product that lets you easily test out changes to your website.

In a New York Times article Bowman linked to, Google’s Chief Designer Marissa Mayer describes the situation Doug Bowman was talking about.

A designer, Jamie Divine, had picked out a blue that everyone on his team liked. But a product manager tested a different color with users and found they were more likely to click on the toolbar if it was painted a greener shade.

As trivial as color choices might seem, clicks are a key part of Google’s revenue stream, and anything that enhances clicks means more money. Mr. Divine’s team resisted the greener hue, so Ms. Mayer split the difference by choosing a shade halfway between those of the two camps.

Her decision was diplomatic, but it also amounted to relying on her gut rather than research. Since then, she said, she has asked her team to test the 41 gradations between the competing blues to see which ones consumers might prefer.

I can’t fault anyone for this kind of move, Bowman’s or Mayer’s. Never mind the implicit politics at Google, that’s not really the subject of my post. I believe there is value in testing design choices and implementing those which have proven successful.

In order to do this you have to have the right situation. Testing out design changes in one of Google’s apps is likely a huge effort to evaluate and will have grand unforeseen implications to their user base. Testing out changes on a new client’s first time website on the day you launch it is probably an exercise in wasted effort. Those are extreme examples but there’s such a difference between how you would approach either situation. I think what it all comes down to is finding the right balance between the two so that you don’t feel like you’ve lost that “spark” that drives most of us to design websites in the first place. Call it creative freedom.

I couldn’t function in an environment like Doug Bowman describes. Don’t get me wrong, I know the decisions I make while designing a new client’s website will have an effect on their ability to make money. It must function equally as well as it looks. I also know that if there’s a chance to make the client’s website better by testing and evaluating based on real data then I have to seize that opportunity and implement the changes.

In the end, I’m advocating finding the proper balance. Do it for the love of design but at the same time, don’t ignore the opportunities to make things more effective by using data to influence your design. I respect Doug Bowman’s choice to leave Google, that has to take guts. It is Google, after all.

Do you use data to drive design decisions? Is it something you really think about or do you just go with your gut?