GOOGLE REMADE THE WEB WITH A NEW KIND OF LANGUAGE FOR GETTING WHAT WE WANT FROM A WEB BROWSER.
I SELDOM TYPE URLS ANYMORE. I USE THE is like a department store with lots of floors and
Google search window in the Firefox browser. lots of choices. Google is like a fast-food restaurant
Think about how this change reduces the value offering a limited menu. The goal is to get you in
of domain names. When we decided on the name and out as quickly as possible. Yahoo practically
MAKE for our magazine, we looked for the obvious invented the portal concept with a collection of
domain name, which was taken but not in use. Not services all tied together. Google came along and
to worry. Makezine.com was a suitable alternative, got rid of the clutter. It’s the anti-portal. Now they
and as of early March, when I type “make” into are redesigning standalone services, such as email
Google, our website shows up third on the list. Add and mapping, that are fresh and fascinating.
the word “magazine” and it’s first. Having a killer Design is a creative process that continually
domain name doesn’t matter the way it used to. re-examines our experiences and recognizes the
The Domain Name System provides a static binding patterns that emerge from new and old ideas.
address, like when you provide a street address to Architect Christopher Alexander wrote a famous
series of books in which he sought to recover the pat-
“Google is like a fast-food terns that are inherent in buildings. He considered
patterns to be rules of thumb. Every barn shares many
restaurant offering a of the same patterns, but each barn can be unique.
limited menu. The goal In A Pattern Language (1977), Alexander explains that a “pattern describes a problem which occurs
is to get you in and out over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to the problem, in
as quickly as possible.” such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.”
Alexander’s ideas were then picked up by Erich
someone who asks you where you live. Google pro- Gamma, et al. They then applied them to software vides a dynamic binding that changes based on the construction in the book Design Patterns (1995). experience of users, more like the question you’re A DIY project is a design challenge which can be asked when you answer your cellphone: where are described as a set of patterns. In MAKE, we want you now? to develop a pattern language that helps our read-
Google is proving as adept at marrying great ers build on the ideas and insight of others who engineering and great design as Apple and Sony. hack, tweak, and tinker. In this way, you can make The Google search engine is a second-generation technology solve your own problems, but you aren’t web application that reflects new insights on the doing it completely on your own. web, based on experience that wasn’t available to first-generation applications. Dale Dougherty is the editor and publisher of MAKE. He can
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