Careless Design From Google and Apple?

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Today two of my favorite companies decided to tell me how little they care about me and other customers. In my opinion, not bothering users with useless information is highly related to the general design of a website and usability. Keep in mind that a good website should make users’ life easier trying to make processes simple and short and without disturbing users when they are doing other activities. In another example of how design, usability and marketing mix each other I will show you the emails I got from Google and Apple. 

The first mail came from Google, it was actually coming from "noreplay" and the subject was "New Optional Benchmarking Feature Available in Google Analytics". That was it, no link to get farther information, no content in the email. At all. Then I went to my Analytics account, there was an item for the new feature in the menu but nothing inside. OK, this could be a new feature that is coming but the way they announced it was a little bit careless (maybe arrogant?).

Don’t get me wrong, I do really admire Google. They usually make good marketing, they design good processes and they care about usability. And that’s why the following email makes me angry:

Google Mail Example

 

The second email making me angry today comes from the Apple iTunes Store (Germany). Yeah, I love my iPod and I love Apple products but lets have a look at the following email. Apple decided today that they wanted to send me spam, OK, it was not unsolicited email because I signed up for the newsletter, but the information on it was as useless and aggressive as spam could be.

The "iTunes alert me" newsletter should recommend me music I might like. Today, Apple sent me an email offering me an album I already have, one that I listen to very often and one that has been released 4 years ago. I am sure Apple already knows all that, so why bothering me with so useless information?

iTunes Alert Me Mail Example

 

  • http://www.mmmeeja.com/blog/web_design andymurd

    I got that email from Google too and my first reaction was to assume it was spam. Eventually I figured it was legitimate but I still haven’t been To Google Analytics to check out the feature.

    100% of fail.

  • http://www.tylerbell.net tyler

    kill them with fire.

  • Jane

    Hmm, I actually checked that google analytics email first on my phone where it showed up, and then in the gmail webapp..where it was empty. If you show the original email, it’ll show up. Pretty stupid.

    Apple’s recommendations also irritate me. I don’t buy all my music from them (obviously!) but they recommend albums I already have. I suppose it’s a privacy thing not to remember your non-iTunes-purchased music?

  • Evan Wired

    Did you check to see if that iTunes album was a re-release? Quite a few times I have been given alerts for albums that I already had which become “new” on iTunes because they have been re-released, usually with new conversion to digital.

  • http://www.designvsart.com/ Alexis Brion

    Evan, I didn’t check that. Thanks for the detail. Maybe if they are re-releasing the album they should tell the user that, right?

  • Wes

    Personally… not to flame you too hard, but I think it’s just a tad arrogant to think that organizations, even the big ones like Google and Apple, don’t make mistakes from time to time and that their software is flawless. Sure, every programmer would like to think that, but the one who actually does, and expects it to be so, is dangerously arrogant.

    Maybe you’re just having a bad day and that’s why you got angry… but maybe someone at Google was having a bad day too, and accidentally made their day even worse by inadvertently preempting the Benchmarking release with an junk email.

    This blog post doesn’t look professionally at the situation and is nothing more than rant from someone who got their underwear twisted a little too tight.

    I’m sorry if you take offense to this… I just figured I’d let you know why you’ve been voted down lot more than up.

  • http://www.designvsart.com/ Alexis Brion

    Hi Wes,

    Your are totally right when you say that no company is perfect. I also wrote on the article that I admire both companies, Apple and Google.

    Sometimes I present examples of bad practices and as I’ve noticed I always find people complaining about that. Some are in favor, others don’t. Check my article showing how Microsoft Game Zone only works with MS Internet Explorer and you will see that a lot of people complained about that article (is someone really on favor of Microsoft’s monopolistic practices?). I was just showing the reality.

    I love Apple and Google, but I don’t want to be blind to the bad practices or mistakes they could have. Those were just examples, that day I got them from those companies, they could have been from any other website.

    Thanks for you comment.

    Alex