Google gets away with wacky home page stuff - most of us don't

For the past couple of days the Google home page has had a bar code in place of the usual logo, apparantly to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the bar code. It's the latest in a long line of tempoary logo changes for Google, with others inspired by all kinds of birthdays, anniversaries and topical events.

Google is a very powerful brand and most people are used to these logo changes, so visiting a home page with a bar code won't be too much of a problem for most visitors. But for most organisations, coming up with something as obscure as this is rarely the way to go.

Last night I was at a gathering held once a month that's attended by the same people each time. The room where the event is held is always set up in the same way, with chairs and tables in the same place. But last night it was all set up in a different way and people's experessions and comments as they entered the room showed how uncomfortable they were with the changes.

We are creatures of habit. We generally like things that are familiar. Online, that means we like the company logo in the top left corner and navigation along the top or down the left hand side. We also like to click on words that tell us where the click will take us, rather than strange and confusing words or pictures.

Of course there is room for creativitiy. But creativity for the sake of it, just to appear 'different' or even 'cool' (yes I have heard web designers say they came up with a design because it's cool) is dangerous: it runs the risk of achieving the one thing any online marketer wants to avoid - making people click off the page that's taken so long to design.

Does it make sense for Google to break the rules and in effect remove their logo from their home page? Sure - they have the brand and the prior experience to get away with it. But should other websites look for wacky approaches to their website design? It depends, but it's not something to do without a lot of thought and some user testing.