There are two major camps in the field of inferential statistics, or using sample data to infer about the sampled popula

After spending a while trying to create usable icon designs within Google’s icon design framework, I realised it’s just too restrictive for its purpose. Icons are often used in small sizes of just 16 x 16 pt in case of the favicon in the browser. For such a small area, an icon design system needs to leave enough flexibility to create clearly recognisable icons in at least one of the categories of distinction listed above. — Let’s look at the issues in Google’s approach:

Most other brands use colours to differentiate between their apps. Each app gets one primary colour—a system that is established and works very well. Google misses this opportunity by forcing all of its primary colours into each icon. It’s nearly impossible to create distinct icons when every icon ends up being a rainbow.

Bayes’ Theorem is my all-time favorite statistical theory. It helps us understand what seems like straightforward problems in probability with counter-intuitive solutions! Like what is the probability of having a disease if tested with a 95% accurate test? Lower than you think!

Bayes’ is all about calculating conditional probability, i.e. the probability of one event given another event. That’s what the | (pipe) symbol denotes in the equation. So P(A|B) is the conditional probability of event A occurring given that event B occurred.

I’m a big history nerd, so I have to talk about Reverend Thomas Bayes a little. Bayes was a Presbyterian minister, statistician, and philosopher in 18th century England. He formulated the titular theory in “An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances” (I vote to rebrand statistics as the “Doctrine of Chances”), trying to solve a problem of “inverse probabilities”, or given that x has happened, what can we say about y.

Such blunder is especially uncommon for Google, which usually priorities usability above almost anything else (apart from profit?). This goes to the extent where even shades of colours are tested instead of having a designer chose. It’s really surprising Google didn’t test and spot the issues with its new icons before releasing them.

Google could fix this by allowing a greater variety of stroke widths, allowing more distinct shapes (as seen in the Gmail icon), creating a finer grid allowing for more weighted colour distribution, etc.

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ginary standard of “perfection,” one that will never be attained because my definition of perfection will always change. Yet who I am as a person is constant. There is no level of achievement that will make me more worthy as a person.

I think that’s the wrong approach. Users are rarely using multiple providers equally. Google users will primarily use the Google tools, therefore primarily need to distinguish between the Google apps, rather than distinguish them from say Microsoft Office apps.

Unfortunately there’s even more problems with the new icons. Google is very conservative in how it places its new app logos within the ‘app icon box’ in iOS: Within Apple’s frame, Google creates a huge protective zone around its icons, instead of fully using the available space. In many cases this leads to Google’s icons looking out of place or even being plain unrecognisable. Just have a look at the Calendar icon in a notification:

When designing ‘logos’ it’s important to understand their context. In the case of the Google Workplace logos they are mostly used as icons instead of brand logos, and should therefore be designed primarily with usability in mind.

Every icon must be constructed using thick lines and all should have a negative space in the middle. — How many distinct shapes does this allow to create in the limited space of an icon? You’ll always end up with something square-ish or circle-ish. Not enough variety.

The bottom line is simple and very surprising for Google: The icon design system is designed so users can easily differentiate any Google app from a non Google app. It’s not designed to differentiate various Google apps from each other.

When designing ‘logos’ it’s important to understand their context. In the case of the Google Workplace logos they are mostly used as icons instead of brand logos, and should therefore be designed primarily with usability in mind.

Google could fix this by having a better distribution of colours, where each app gets assigned a primary colour which needs to make up around 80 percent of the colours in its icon.