Google

While doing some research for one of my communication classes, I noticed that I was using Google a lot. I decided to analyze Google to see what kinds of structures the website uses. Structures and designs are used to organize content, but content still needs to be the most important part of a website. In “The Language of New Media Design,” the authors cite an analogy that describes the importance of content. They used the idea that says when an audience sees a theatre performance the actors want them to remember the acting and content of the play as opposed to just the costumes and design aspects of the performance (pg. 19).
Like most websites, google.com uses the given and new structure. In some ways this website is described perfectly by the textbook. While a person conducts a search on Google, the main navigation structure remains on the left side just as the textbook suggest (pg. 16). Also, the things that the user searches for come appear on the left side of the screen because once the user searches for it is considered “given.” Anything else that appears on the screen, like advertisements, show up on the right because those are “new” to the user.
Another structure that Google uses is similar to the given and new, but it is called the ideal and real structure. Instead of separating information from left to right, ideal and real separates information from top to bottom (pg. 20). A common practice in the ideal and real structure is to have the company logo in the top left corner (pg. 22). When a user goes directly to google.com the logo is centered at the top of the page, but once something is entered in the search box, the logo moves up to the top left. Although Google is mostly made up of text, whenever images appear they appear at the top which the textbook claims is another characteristic of the ideal and real structure (pg. 22).
The Google website is not the only website that uses these structures. The structures are like templates that are used by many web designers. The templates are good because it makes it easier for a person to navigate through the page since it is a familiar layout, but in a way templates are similar to the grid. With that being said, web designers should find ways to break out of the templates like publishers broke out of the grid.