I recently came across this internal talk at Google about some of the UX elements of the site:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6459171443654125383
It's almost 30 minutes long and a pretty dry format, but I found it interesting nonetheless -- check it out if you have a chance. It's a good overview of Google's relentless focus on UX. What I found most encouraging was hearing that, like most companies, they don't always get it right the first time. When you see the final products you forget about the several failed iterations they went through, and the hours of design and usability testing that went into creating the final versions.
For example -- the simple "one box" home page wasn't a deliberate move by the company, it was mainly due to laziness -- the founders didn't know a whole lot of html and didn't want to learn. But the simplicity of the Google home page ended up being their most distinct feature and certainly one of the biggest reasons for the site's popularity.
They also speak about some of the things they just didn't plan for -- like how initial usability testing revealed users who never started interacting with the home page because they were "waiting for the site to load." It just didn't dawn on users that the simple home page in front of them is the whole site. The designers then added the copyright (c) Google message at the bottom of the page, mainly to show users that site has fully loaded and they can start typing...
Good to know that no matter how good you are at what you do, you can't always get it right the first time. And, of course, user involvement is essential in the iterative design of products...
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