Colin's Blog My thoughts on everything.

Google makes a change that just makes sense

Matt Cutts posted an article this morning about a change in the way Google handles URL queries. The change makes absolute sense - I'd always kinda wondered why Google didn't do this in the first place.

Beyond explaining the change, Matt makes some very good, and oft-forgotten, points about what he calls N users and M users. N users are the relatively small number of Google power-users who understand and use the myriad of special queries available on Google - info:, inurl: ,site:, etc. The rest are M users - a larger number by several orders of magnitude.

At work, we continually remind ourselves and each other that 98% of the people in our office are N users. Similarly, our friends are likely at least M+ users - somewhere between M and N. Everyone who works on the web in a professional way must maintain a circle of contacts that are clear M users, that they can call on to say "Does this make sense to you?". The challenge is, of course, that people learn and so M user testers have a shelf life - their usefulness expires as they learn how to "do the web." My parents' generation is the best source of M testers, but they are learning too. And, of course, the skill set of the M user is not a constant. A few years ago, profficiency with word processor software was limited to N users - whereas now, these skills (if basic) are ubiquitous at the M level.

The only way to discern the M/N split in skills is to pay close attention to your feedback. Assume that the vast majority of feedback, say 80% or more, is from M users. Those are the users to whom your site/app must make sense. The other 20% of N users will adapt. It is far too tempting to dismiss the feedback that says "I didn't understand", or "I'm confused by..." as a minority that didn't try hard enough.

Congratulations to Google (and Matt) for a) recognizing the problem and b) risking the wrath of their vocal N users in an effort to improve the experience of their M users.

Related posts:

1. Google Enabling Poor UI Design?
2. “Geekspeak still baffles web users”
3. FormSpring API Beta Testers Needed
4. Best. Hack. Ever. (making Google and Yahoo play nice)
5. US Government Website Running Chinese Malware!