"Before Google Instant, probably the most infamous example of Google's design-by-testing approach was the "41 Blues" --- Google's engineers apparently couldn't decide on two shades of blue for showing search results, so they tested 41 of them to see which attracted the most clicks. (They eventually settled on a blue that is basically the average of all the blues used in hyperlinks across the web. Duh.)"
I don't see why this would be subject of cricism. User testing is the one and only validator for good design decisions. Every designer knows this, especially when the decisions closely pertain to User Experience.
Comments
"Before Google Instant, probably the most infamous example of Google's design-by-testing approach was the "41 Blues" --- Google's engineers apparently couldn't decide on two shades of blue for showing search results, so they tested 41 of them to see which attracted the most clicks. (They eventually settled on a blue that is basically the average of all the blues used in hyperlinks across the web. Duh.)"
I don't see why this would be subject of cricism. User testing is the one and only validator for good design decisions. Every designer knows this, especially when the decisions closely pertain to User Experience.