Why is Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button still next to the search bar?

Question

I'm sure that Google must put a lot of thought into the display of its homepage. With such a minimalistic design, every element matters.

So what's up with the "I'm feeling lucky" button? Why is it right next to the search bar?

Before Google Instant, the button could be clicked to go directly to the page of the first search results, but now as soon as you start typing, the search results begin to display and the page changes to one without the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

Nowadays, the button serves a new function. If you hover over it, it changes to say something else, such as "I'm Feeling Wonderful," a link to Google's World Wonders Project or "I'm Feeling Trendy," a link to Google Trends. This seems like an effective way to bring traffic to some of Google's pages that users might not know about, but it doesn't explain why the button is right next to the search bar when it's no longer related to the search function. (It also doesn't explain why the working "I'm Feeling Lucky" button is sitting next to a button that does absolutely nothing.)

I know that in 2009, Google tested removing both buttons, but decided to keep them for now, so my question isn't just why the button exists. I also wonder why it exists there. Since it's no longer related to the search function or to the "button" next to it, it seems like it would make sense to move it elsewhere. Maybe shift to one of the large side margins and give it a color and shape that draws attention to it. If Google really wants users to know about the sites the button links to, wouldn't it make more sense to emphasize that the button no longer serves its former function?

Answer 1

Sometimes things exist not because they still make sense, but because their presence is an affordance -- i.e. it works not because it's good, but because the visitor understands what it is, what it does, and how to use it, because they've been inculcated over years with this knowledge.

The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button is a grand example of this, because as you've mentioned, it's pretty useless as an actual feature -- but it exists as part of Google's branding at this point. After all, it's something that you only see if you're going to Google's home page now, which most people don't even use for the majority of their searches anymore unless they have Google as a home page -- after all, this button isn't visible on mobile phones or built-in search bars in the browser. Thanks to Google Instant, it doesn't even affect people's ability to search anymore.

Hey, reinforcing "Yes, you're at the Google site, we even have the button" is as good a purpose as any.

Answer 2

Interestingly, the button costs google up to $110 million per year.

In 2007, Google search boss Marissa Mayer estimated that 1% of all Google searches go through the I'm Feeling Lucky button – skipping Google's search results pages entirely.

That meant that Google showed ZERO ads (and therefore got ZERO ad clicks) on 1% of all Google search queries. Back in 2007, an analyst suggested the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button probably cost Google as much as $110 million per year.

So they must have a good reason to keep it.

Answer 3

After thinking about this question for the last couple months and reading some related literature (Stephen P. Anderson's Seductive Interaction Design in particular), I've decided that the continuing existence of the button is likely due to a combination of three factors:

1. Branding - As @RachelKeslensky writes in her answer: keeping the button says "Yes, you're at the Google site, we even have the button." Maintaining the random nature of the button even though its function has changed keeps with the branding as well.
2. Surprise gifting (It's a "delighter") - By sending users to a fun new site that they might not know about, Google creates a pleasant surprise. And because that new site is also created by Google, such linking feels like a personal gift. The most unanticipated gifts are the most emotional, and emotion helps ensure you remember the experience and maybe even tell others about it.
3. Variable rewards - Because the site the button links to is random, innate curiosity compels you to try clicking on it multiple times just to see where it leads you. Not knowing what you'll find makes you explore more. I've even gotten into the habit of returning to it from time to time to see if any new links have been added.

Answer 4

I think it all comes down to "progressive enhancement". You are quite right that across Google domains it automatically begins to search....in modern browsers. But in older browsers, users still have to click search or hit enter. And so the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button is left as a valid alternative option to retrieving search listings.

For example, so many users search for 'Facebook' to access it, so for users on older browsers it makes more sense to hit 'I'm Feeling Lucky' and go straight to Facebook, rather than actually performing a search and then clicking on a result.

As Jimmy mentioned, it's important to keep it alongside the Search box, because its function is directly related to what you type in.

You ask: Why still display it on modern browsers? We can only speculate. Maybe it is just a matter of consistency. So that whether you use Google at home on your new computer, or at a hospital on a ten year old machine running IE6. The view remains the same: one search box, two buttons.

Answer 5

Why is the button near the search field? Because "I'm feeling lucky" still takes an argument from the main search field, so it needs to be grouped with it in order for that interaction to be understood.

Why don't they pull it away and emphasise it? Because that would remove focus from the main field, or worse, have the user pulled in two directions simultaneously. That's bad.

Answer 6

Google Instant doesn't apply to everyone -- it's disabled for those with slower connections. And that's exactly who the "I'm feeling lucky" button is for -- people who want to avoid a potentially slowly loading results page and jump straight to the website.

Answer 7

I believe it is left there to let users feel good. Since its been there for ever they dont want to take any chances and induce anxiety in users.

1 little bit of anxiety = major net loss for google.

Perhaps they ran the same tests they did when they tried to figure out if a "slow" page (100ms slower) affects user behaviour. It sure does, in fact the test probably costed them millions.

I would imagine there to be a monitery statistically proven reason for the lucky button to be kept.

Answer 8

Why is there a "Feeling Lucky" button that no longer even does the inscrutable thing it was originally designed to do, but merely changes to some other "Feeling..." label when you try to click it, and then whisks you away to some page you couldn't care less about?

Because Google programmers are just as clueless about user interface design as all the other programmers who learned to program in the internet era. Hey, man, like, principal of least astonishment is so last century, dude!

It's the same reason you can't read the page you spent all afternoon looking for because it keeps jumping around as all the ads slowly trickle in and change the geometry. It's the same reason the javascript of every third-party ad seller, opinion poller, and identity hacker on the planet must be run before your keyboard will function, every time you change pages. It's the same reason that your pop-up blocker feature is about as useful as your appendix. It's the same reason that the vendor who sold you that long forgotten widget in 1998 still sends email to your junk mail folder every day. It's the same reason something quits working every time your computer automatically takes an update, even though automatic update is turned off. It's the same reason you have to pay a virus scanner company to degrade your desktop supercomputer performance so that it matches a 1985 IBM AT. It's the same reason you dread buying a new computer because of all the new "annoy me" features you know they have invented since the last time you bought a computer. It's the same reason your next phone will force you to buy something expensive to stick in your ear if you want to listen to music because they removed the headphone jack. It's the same reason something else disappears from your phone every time you break the last flimsy one they forced you to buy but now you need a wagon to carry the damn thing around because its too big to actually carry on your person. It's the same reason...