ExperienceCurve

In May last year my early experience with gmail prompted me to post google will eat yahoo’s lunch

Now after some preliminary experience with Google Maps I think that google is going to end up eating everyone’s lunch. With some rare DHTML skills they have built a useful, usable, thoughtful interface.

By thoughtful I mean things like, as you move around the image of the map it redraws itself from the center point outwards, rather that the default linear redraw from the top left to bottom right. It’s what I like to refer to as empathic design. Design with empathy for the people using it and is only ever seen in products that have had tremendous thought put into them.

i think google is leading the way in the technology world in what I would call “big balled” product management. In other words product managed by someone who can make the tough decisions to focus on what matters most and not what the management “thinks” will matter most.