Wes Cutshall

Google AdWords is riddled with interface design faux pas. Below are two images representing one of them. Image 1 shows the page when the mouse is not over the “Enabled” label. Is there anything about “Enabled” that makes you think it might be an interface control? No. Then if you happen to mouse over it it suddenly becomes a custom interface control dropdown. What!? Why? Why would it not just always be a dropdown? AdWords is full of “hidden” controls like this that appear to just be text until you mouse over them. The usability suffers at their attempt to “keep the page clean”. This is what is known as a “false goal”.

Image 1:

Image 2: