Destroying Good Design?

Not sure how I feel about this company (link at bottom).  They create website walk-through assistants for “complicated web pages” (think Microsoft Office’s little paper-clip assistant).

I’m sure there are applications out there that are extremely complex and very difficult to figure out…but shouldn’t that be a challenge for the design team?  Isn’t it there job to make the complex seem simpler?  Isn’t that what great designers get paid to do?

And taking this to another level…what if there’s a web app that’s difficult to use, but only because the UI sucks?  Does this site give those apps a pass?  Do they now get to shirk the responsibility to build elegant interfaces for their users?

Thoughts?

Help Gratefully Received: On-Screen Web Guidance System WalkMe Picks Up $1M+ From Mangrove

howiechang:

via geminiscotty:

A great presentation on Google UI design change started when Larry Page became CEO, it’s actually a really interesting story and great to see that the “designers got let out of their cage”!

I love how this shows all of the seemingly insignificant changes these guys made to their homepage over time, but altogether probably made a big difference in click throughs and conversions.