Andy Hertzfeld was ready to retire back in 2009, following a momentous 30-year plus career where he worked side by side with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to design the revolutionary user interface of Apple’s (AAPL) Macintosh computers, before launching several startups and going on to Google (GOOG).
But Google co-founder Sergey Brin had other ideas. Brin wanted to graft Hertzfeld’s Apple-bred sense of aesthetics and function into the new social network that Google’s leadership was just starting to think about, a top-secret project that a year and a half later would become Google+.
“It was really Sergey who was the person who had the idea that if we build a social network, organizing your relationships is going to be important,” Hertzfeld said. “That can be very dull and tedious and thankless, so if we could come up with a way to make it thrilling, exciting, and fun, that would be cool.”
Hertzfeld spent the next four months working on his own, designing the prototype for what became the central action of Google+ when it launched in June 2011 — the “Circles” editor in which people drag and drop their friends into separate relationship circles.
A Silicon Valley legend, Hertzfeld is witness to the ongoing debate about Google+, called a “virtual ghost town” by the Wall Street Journal and among the fastest growing websites in history by others, including analysts and social media watchers.
Google social executive Vic Gundotra recently said the 8-month old social network has broken 100 million users who connect at least monthly, with 50 million using Google+ or its links from other Google products on a daily basis. That’s far less than Facebook’s 845 million regular users, but an impressive start for a new network.
“I think it’s going great, really,” Hertzfeld said of Google+. “We had a time in the early fall where we weren’t sure it was growing as fast as we would like, but starting maybe in the later fall, we’re very pleased with the adoption, the engagement. People are resonating with the product.”
Hertzfeld has also gotten credit for Google’s wholesale visual transformation in the past year — far too much of the credit, Hertzfeld says — as Google revamped the colors, layout, buttons and other aesthetic and functional features of all of its online properties, a project backed by CEO Larry Page that was internally code-named, “Kennedy.”
Google+ was the first redesigned property in the Kennedy project, and Hertzfeld remains the heart of a four-person team that works across the Google+ staff to make sure aesthetic and functional design are woven into the social network.
“We try to operate at the intersection of design and engineering. One of the reasons why things aren’t as good as they could be sometimes is that the engineers and the designers don’t work closely together enough,” said Hertzfeld. His 2005 book, “Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made,” documents the creation of the Mac’s ground-breaking graphical user interface, (UI) which introduced the system of clicking icons on a screen to activate software, opening computers to everyone.
“The real breakthrough of the Macintosh was that we cared about UI,” Hertzfeld said. “I learned in a formative experience that caring about UI matters, and if you do care about UI, you can make the world a better place.”
Hertzfeld is a short, stocky man who brims with enthusiasm, whether talking about his personal memories of Jobs’ “life like a Shakespearian play,” or his current work for Google+. “I love Google,” he said unapologetically. “I believe Google is a mighty force for good in the world.” During an interview, he toyed with his silver Apple laptop with a big “Google+ Project” sticker on top, as if aching to flip it open to show off something really cool inside.
“Andy is a tremendous talent,” Bradley Horowitz, another Google+ executive, said last year in an interview. “His spirit, his whimsy, his approach shines through.”
Just as he incorporated what he learned from Jobs and Wozniak at Apple in the early 1980s, Hertzfeld said he has also learned from people like young Google+ designer Jonathan Terleski, who suggested the idea that became the playful “+1” bubble that rises up when users add a connection to their circles.
“He’s immersed in video games,” said Hertzfeld, 58. “So that’s really a trope from video games, that little bubble floating up.”
But Hertzfeld said the most formative lesson he learned from Wozniak and Jobs, who he remained close to until Jobs’ death last fall, was to bring emotion and art to computer design.
“First and foremost, you are your own customer: You build stuff that you love yourself. What Woz did with the Apple II was he just filled it up with so much love — love because it was his lifelong dream,” Hertzfeld said. “That’s the basic approach I learned, to work from your heart, and to really, really care.”
Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories, Facebook and view his Google+ profile.
