Google gives a lesson in user-friendly design

Just now I was searching for a particularly clever luggage tag I'd seen in a catalog when something struck me from out of the blue: the power and elegance of Google's site design.

• Easily understood distinction between paid links — up top and to the side — and objective search results

• No animation or movement to annoy or distract from the search

• No Flash — ever — to slow things down

• Easy-to-read typeface

• No pictures

• Speed

Many of the very brightest people on the planet are up at the Googleplex in Mountain View and other locations spanning the globe, laboring long hours seven days a week, to make things as transparent and easy to understand and use as possible.

So simple even a

can do it the first time without reading any instructions.

There can be no higher accolade for any company engaged in creating something that has to do with computers.