Six Revisions

Looks fresh and awesome!

ELQ

I like it. They’ve kept the functionality while making it seem easier to read and the reduction in shadows makes it look more ‘clean’.

AzeriFire

I was waiting for it :)

Richie

The new design certainly looks neat and appears more user friendly. I like how certain areas of the webpage have been given more attention, like the hyperlinks, footer and stuff. The image search is a lot clutter free too :)

I hope they continue working on this redesign!

Ryan Fitton

I have preveiwed the new google homepage, it was oay but i’m still not used to it.

Alan

Interesting list of changes, nothing mind blowing but its good to see little changes here and there to keep up with the new trends.

Will

I had this pop up for me over the weekend. I really like the simplified approach, and the move away from the previous almost ‘plain-text’ sidebar links for search options. Iconography looks good, adds a bit more colour and personality to the page. My only concern would be for netbook users who lose a bit of screen to the new permanent (I assume) sidebar.

Josh

Really liking the new Google design.
All browsers will display Google to same; it seems Google is catching up to modern design!

Great job Google, hopefully the new design doesn’t have the fade in effect…

Aaron

Wow, very clean and sharp – like it!

V1

So they are finally pulling through with the new design? THe new designed could only be seen if you did a cookie hack for google.com. But its nice to see it finally online. I have been using it for 3+ months now, and i like it more than the “regular” version.

Mathew Carpenter

I noticed the new design the other day and was quite impressed. Although they are subtle changes, I think they look awesome and make the overall design feel cleaner.

Stephan

eigentlich ja egal wie es aussieht oder ? google ist google ;-)

Nedim Sabic

I think it´s fine, just the left bar will be a temporary thing in my opinion. It will have an huge impact on usability and will be dismissed.

Oliver

I already see this new design, when I’m logged in. I like it and feel better with it. It’s cleaner and seems to be more serious.

Jacob Gube

Thanks for your feedback everyone.

@ELQ: “Cleaner” is the one word that would define the new design, you’re right!

@Alan: Definitely. They want to keep it relatively the same to maintain their brand. Just a little bit of a facelift to update the look-and-feel. You see these types of redesigns on well-established company logos, to refresh their look.

@Will: Good point about Netbooks and small monitors.

@V1: This is just my guess (based on my knowledge of Google) — They’re probably split testing, showing the new design to some, and the old design to some, to see what effects the new changes have on interaction. Read about split testing via this article.

Abdelaziz Abdalla Zarouni

Hi,
I have been seeing that from more than one month.
Middle East – UAE
Thank you

Lee

I’ve had this layout showing up on my work PC for a few weeks, I really like it.

Beth

I’ve encountered this design some months ago. The permanent sidebar without an option to roll it up really diminishes the user experience with 1024×768 resolution – that was the reason I went to pains to find a way to turn it off.

Martin LeBlanc

Great walk trough – I like the new design, but the icons for the sidebar is really bad. Both blogs, updates and discussions are all chat bubles. The images icon is very hard to recognize also.

Geeee

That’s how it should look like long time ago :) looks good

Alice

It’s got a clean design and lots of improvements. I really like it!

Daniel15

Haha, the new layout appeared for me on the 13th April. I like it :D
However, one odd thing – It only appeared in Firefox for me. Even after refreshing the page 10 times, Firefox always showed the new one, and Opera kept showing the old one. The URL was identical, and I tried clearing cookies. Very odd.

Here’s a comparison screenshot I did when asking friends about it: http://ss.dan.cx/2010/04/13-21.24.53.jpg

HD Guy

The new Google design looks pretty good.

Darek

Looks nice. Sidebar makes layout more complex in my opinion.

Jakob

This has been in testing for random users since November last year :/

Altan

Very nice.

Thanks.

Corey Ballou

I began noticing the left column quite awhile ago. Either I’m not particularly observant or I just barely got my version of the logo changed. Either way, I must say I like the leftnav and the revisioned logo.

krike

I think the layout looks much better then before.

gale

i like it!colorful and lively…nice that they’ve added buttons for the sidebar and the logo is flat compared to the old one but still i like it..

Rachel

I noticed this on and off throughout last week. I really liked the improvements. It looks much cleaner, more simplified and much more up to date than the current Google. The only thing I’m not too fond of is the sidebar. I think it will be useful for many but I prefer to look through my searches without a sidebar as it is, for me, just easier to look at. If there’s a way to turn this off then it’d get the big thumbs up from me! :)

Jordan Walker

I like the first one.

Mac

This design has been available with the use of a javascript command for a long time now. I’ve been using it and love it.

Sakti DC

i think the new design is better

Yorkshire

Looks very smart and crisp.

Natalia Ventre

I agree with Martin LeBlanc about the icons. The logo is much better, finally they ditch that nasty drop shadow.

Gercek Karakus

New one looks way much cleaner and I am really glad that they finally figured out that underlining links are so old school. Also, new logo is way much more appealing.

However, the use of icons is so confusing. Put the news, blogs, discussions, updates icons in one place without labels and ask people to label them. You will see that it is really confusing for people.

Pedro Lopes

I’ve seen it a couple of times now… but only when I’m logged out!

It looks much more modern… and Google kinda needs it! And specially in apps… Comparing mobile phone’s Gmail with desktop version…

Adam

The new logo looks awesome.

Ethan

This design has been available to Google Chrome users for over a month. I like it.

James

I’ve been seeing this revamped google for a few weeks now and really liking the new results page, find it useful to easily flip between the different result types etc. Also the cleaner (if that’s possible for google?) and more modern looking touch is nice to see. Hope this gets rolled out fully soon.

Scott Petrovic

I really like this new direction. It will be interesting to see the results if Google publishes them in terms of performance. I am not a big fan of heavy beveling or drop shadows with the old design, so the cleaner look is easier to read in my opinion.

Edmundo Junior

Here change last month but now back to the old one (current).

Really like the changes, has some way to test this new interface with cookies or something?

Bob

Yeah, I’ve been seeing that design for a month or so now. Interestingly, it shows up when I use Google Chrome, but not Safari or Firefox.

yonasu

Looks very clean, I like it!

Mike Cane

>>>Search Results Page

I’ve been getting this for the past week. And I really, really, really hate it.

Timothy

Hmm I thought everyone had this already. I got the new look and feel in late ’09. It is a very good improvement, in my opinion.

Addam Hassan

I’ve been using the new Google at home for sometime. I think it’s a lot more user friendly.

@Bob That’s what I have been getting too using a BT dongle.

Rafael Masoni

Finally a redesign I like!

Jaina

I like it – crisper, cleaner and a lot tidier. Updated the look and feel without a drastic overhaul.

Bsu2

It’s already for Opera users, and it’s awesome!!

Manko10

I like evolutionary redesign or realignment. The new design looks fresh and modern but I think Google shouldn’t change it’s logo. The new one looks like (sorry for political incorrectness) a cheap Chinese plastic imitation.
Maybe it’s just me but I think the new logo looks like sleazy toy. In my humble opinion it would be better to leave the logo as it is or to make it in solid color.

Jeeto

I’m looking forward to the cleaner look, should Google decide to keep it. It appears to become less “techie” and more stylized in a sense.

V1

@Jacob;

Since nov 2009 ;)

David

This looks great, especially the left sidebar, very useful indeed :) 10/10

Christopher Burd

All the changes seems good, but let’s face it: these are minor tweeks, nothing to swoon over.

Toning down the junky 3D effects on the wordmark makes the colours seem harsher. I wish they had reduced their luminosity a tad. While they’re at it, find a new font.

Kat

Well over a month ago I started seeing the new design on my work computer. I liked it. I got used to using the new sidebar on the search results page. I wanted it to stick around. Then one day it disappeared.
I’ve been hoping it would get the green light to replace the current design. Waiting and hoping it would come back… Glad to see its making progress :)

Liam

personally i think the sidebar is a waste of room, as it has the same options that are already at the top of the page. the new logo is also a massive mistake. it looks tacky. and the buttons? square?! please keep to round and ‘bubbly’. i had this layout as one of the split-testers, i just deleted the cookies and am now back on the old, better layout.

abhishek

Wow you gave explained look but I think you have missed something in the time measurement part . I have captured those and they are available on my blog http://xpressabhi.com/new-avatar-of-google-search/ Generally it measures time in seconds but here google termed them in very interesting ways like..microweeks , parsecs, epoches, nanocenturies, warp and many more. They are listed at my blog post. Link is above.

Louis

http://twitter.com/ImpressiveWebs/status/11869389905

I noticed this “redesign” on April 9th, early in the morning (Eastern Time), and it was only appearing on Google.ca (I’m in Canada). When I switched over to .com, I didn’t see it.

Here’s my tweet about it:

I was a little upset that I didn’t screen grab it, because it disappeared after only a few minutes.

Carlos G

One big change that would suggest Google would be placing the next page buttons on the top of the page. All navigation and search options in a fixed place on my monitor. My mouse wouldn’t have to move at all for displayng the next page search results. No scroll and click, scroll and click, just click, click, click.
And it would be perfect to have also that next button on a keyboard hotkey. But I guess that would implie my operating system, browser and Google altogether.

dq

Looks nice on the whole but the drop shadow on the search field is unfortunate. The text field should be recessed in the page not sitting on top of it.

Gabrien

Thanks for such a thorough comparison Jacob.

Links look so much cleaner when they aren’t underlined.

Joel Kidd

It’s funny how such a minimal design to start with can have so many changes and how much these changes improve the site. It goes to show how less is often more!

Cook

the logo looks cool….really liked it

Henrique

I’m afraid to say that I’ll miss the current one :)

Taranfx

This is NOT new, it has been around since november 2009. Here’s how you can try it http://www.taranfx.com/try-new-google-search-caffeine

Buckeye Express

small stuff matters. i love it.

Yui Mousa

I noticed some time back. Almost a month ago. I found a guide on how to search google from the firefox address bar and all of a sudden everything looked newer. It looks exactly like the new site of which you have screen shots. I thought it was just me but not so. Anyways its a cool design :)

Derrick

I’ve been getting this design for at least a month as well. I live in southern Indiana.

zilti

I had it, too, since saturday.
I don’t like that they removed the Buttons “[ ]Search all pages [ ]Search only pages in german [ ]Search only pages from Switzerland” (I’m from Switzerland). I hope they’ll add them again. It’s not that I’m using them everyday, but from time to time it’s really handy and then I don’t want to first move over to the extended search.
But besides that it’s a really nice redesign, the bigger result titles which are at the same time the only elements underlined and which don’t stick at the left border anymore really enhance the overview.

Anna

Agreed with Mr Burd. Good Day -

Francesco

Personally, I’ve got it since a couple of weeks…
In Italy

Ronald

I’ve had this for weeks as well. What’s interesting for me is that the new design shows up in Firefox, but not Chrome.

Wickerpedia

As I say in my post:

The new Google logo no longer has the 3D-rounded look. While this was trendy a few years ago, now 3D images should go the way of stick-figure clip art. After all, once something is added to Microsoft Office it generally means it has lost all design appeal.

http://wp.me/pi0M0-4i

thenonhacker

The new design reminded me of Bing. Competition is great, and Google is reacting!

steve

Nice upgrade, think the new logo looks cleaner and like the blue around the suggestion box. Good work google

Bryan

I’ve already seen this live somewhere maybe it was using linux? I think the new changes are good and probably increase load time to be faster. I’m a big fan of HTML5 and CSS3.

Jacob Guite-St-Pierre

Oh very interesting, I didn’t see that. Thanks for the quick article.

Max

I have seen this design 1 or 2 weeks ago already for a few days… today again.

Ctax

Photoshop!

This is so obviously fake. There is barely even a shadow!

Bryan McAnulty

I noticed this redesign at the end of last year on my laptop. Hasn’t changed on my main workstation yet. I’m surprised they are going through such a long testing period. I definitely like the new version better.

David Shellabarger

I just got the new design and it has a new feature as well.
For certain search terms it has a “Not entirely unlike” heading in the left side bar. It shows synonyms.
http://www.google.com/search?q=test for example shows” assay exam and personality quiz.

Paul

I want to go to there

Alessandro Bahgat

I understand they have been doing slice testing on this design, but how would you *measure* the impact such changes would have on user’s behavior and experience?

I mean, is there any directly measurable effect when changing this kind of things?

dcolumbus

So is this what bloggers mean when they suggest to “make sure you write every single day on your blog – no matter how simple.”

So they lost the bevel… Shocking. Yet this article has had over 80 comments thus far. What am I doing wrong? :P

Thanks for the rundown!

NickDesign

Great post!!!I like it better. Google’s colors are fresh and more alive.

Faizal

Look better with not closer shadow and lesser emboss

Steven

I have been using the new design for a while now, and I have really liked it. Having the sidebar for search results is really useful.

Greg Babula

New page is looking sweet!

reezluv

I am really surprise when google make a transformation. While browsing, I didn’t realize that they have changed!Great!

chris

this is news? i thought this had been deployed worldwide. i can’t even remember the last time i saw the old one.

Jigar Chauhan

New look is Cool..

Subhan M. Ali

Looking at the search I felt this: seems like moving towards a yahoo kind of search interaction. (esp the left menu options with icons)

WebG4

Well google is known for its innovation and they are planning to make evertime new.

rory

I like the new changes, sadly I can’t see the live version but getting rid of that whack drop shadow and underlined links is a step in the right direction. GO LIVE!!

Nice spot by the way sixrevisions.

Rupert

Looks more fresh and lighten. I think the feeling to search is now more pleasant…

Jonzie

I have been tested for quite a while actually but I had no idea it was a test. I just thought google came out with new graphics. Then some time ago it went back to normal, and yesterday there it was again.

Jacob Gube

@dcolumbus: This being a website about web design and web development, something like a Google re-design is pretty good news. It shows us how companies evolve their design over time, and most importantly, why. For example, on the sidebar with the other search options and giving them icons. I would hazard a guess that they would like their users to use those alternative searches more.

It’s about usability and how to guide the user experience. So, it’s not because of the logo change… it’s why they decided to change it in the first place. The way you phrased it, the changes are superficial. But if you inspect the before and after, the changes are very purposeful.

TimHolmesDesign

Great article and something which I missed yesterday, I am clearly not searching google enough :o)

I do prefer the new lower shadow on the logo, much cleaner and am now keen to see and test the changes to the search if I get the opportunity.

Nice article Jacob..

Tocki

http://tocki.posterous.com/th-google-website-redesign

I’ve seen this on April 1st in Stuttgart/Germany, too.

Ali Tabibzadeh

It’s fantastic !
I hope google take it as a suggestion …
it’ll be great if google Update itself to the new generation of Design !

Fərhad

I had been tested about two months before and wondered why nobody talked about it. Yeah, split testing…

Husein Yuseinov

Definetly look better, clean and simple, thats the key to the better UX.

CrocodileJock

I like it a lot. A subtle evolution, rather than a whole new look, but everything looks cleaner and more considered. Just wondering, if they are losing underlines from some hyperlinks, why not do it for ALL? (especially the top navigation) Makes everything a little more consistent. And Wonder wheel (seen in the left sidebar) has passed me by… I’m off to Google that now to find out more…

Katrina Thompson

Thx for this post. I am a Google fan and I like their new look. A little cleaner and a little less cluttered. A little more modern. Nice :)

quewelcy

I prefer new design of Google. It looks much better and brighter. Ok, I like this.

mAzzam1988

OK… now Google is adding more images…. small ones, I know, but would that mean that in the near future there will be more?!

bigjobsboard

Wow. I should say that the new one is better. Fairly fresh and cute. Thanks for sharing the news.

Nombres

New design is awesome. But these testings started maybe few moths ago. Maybe today is the day when this new look rolling out to all datacenters?

Gustavs Cirulis

It’s great! Especially the logo redesign and icon use.

Joe Payton

is it me, or is the text a little off on the buttons shown in the “Front Page with Suggestions” images?

other than that I like the new design. A lot softer and warmer for a stark white background site.

Arthur Brown

I’ve been seeing this design for a little while now randomly here and there. I hope it catches on as I really like this design. My friends were telling me they hadn’t seen it yet glad someone else was seeing it besides me.

Ram Clotario

Nice. I like it! :)

AJ Batac

This was available http://www.thewebshop.ca/blog/2009/11/experience-the-newly-redesigned-google-home-with-the-always-visible-sidebar/” rel=”nofollow”>using a Javascript hack sometime mid-November 2009.

I liked the design. Hopefully it’s gonna be permanent.

Regards.

Cister

I’m not at all impressed.
Logo: to go from 3-D to 2-D is a step backwards, like to kindergarten.
sidebar: takes too much room to be the default display
sidebar icons: look too simplistic in design
Buttons: see Logo comment

I like the old design, compared with this one. Try again.

Stephen

My first reaction when I saw the story listed on the main site was “Why would Google do a CSS rotation transform on their logo and search box and put a yellow stripe in the background?” Haha.

cooljaz124

Clean , a simple redesign. Im waiting for a complete redeisgn from them :)

JuliannTrott

I really prefere the new design!

lava360blog

thanks god they are thinking about removing the logo shadow :-)

Lesley

I got this new design already for some weeks on my computer at work. Is that possible?

Michelle

I like the upgrades. They are clean and light, and make for a better experience.

Andre Alforque

Google has been doing split testing since at least last November.

There was a new Google homepage where you load the page and nothing but “Google” and the search box appear (no buttons, no text). Only when you move your mouse into the content area does everything appear. They pushed this into production, but added the buttons back in.

A couple features you didn’t mention:
1. if you return to the search results page, you may get a prompt for more recent news.

2. integration of social networking if you’re logged in.

Hugo J

I like the new features of the new Design

JollyMail

hmm, not much difference, it looks as though touchup work only.

Stijn

Seriously. I’ve been getting this for months now. Very easy to get used to. And ’bout time they got rid of that shading. So 1990′s.

Sasa

I have this interface as default on Google Chrome almost 3 months already.

Dean Pugh

Looks fresh and clean. I like it, but then I usually like new things.

Does adding the “Show more options” by default clutter up the results page a bit though?

Waseem Bashir

At present the too much shadow effect is old school.
I like your version pretty much

I think google should buy this version from you :)

Denise Lavery

Nice design. My only quibble is the glaring white background. This can be troublesome for people with a visual impairment.

Mostafa Omar

really very nice

STUDIODAR

Fresh and better!

Samantha, Grafdom

Nice, fresh and visually more appealing.

I would seriously suggest they look into revamping their Webmaster Tools Dashboard though. I think they should have columns of data to make it easier for developers to spot errors and alerts from the dashboard and then delve in for further investigation.

Janet Moody

Simple and clean — definitely more appealing and contemporary. Nice job, Google designer!

Zak Groner

I’ve had this theme showing up on google for months now, but only through firefox. It doesn’t appear like this in any of my other browsers.

sinisterdesign

much better. logo sucks LESS now, but still one of the single worst logos for a company of that magnitude. love the removal of underlines & reorg-ing of the results, though.

Midhun D

Yes, Its looks more cool. Fresh, neat & clean! I loved it….
I’m using this feature on Firefox/3.6.3. really great work Google..

Pavan Somu

The new design was looking clear and sharp.

Imad Mouaddine

I like google for the fact they care less about the look and give more attention to functionality.

googlove

This design has been around for a while:
http://gizmodo.com/5412801/how-to-try-the-new-google-search

luismcara

I like the new one best

Askar Sabiq

April 23rd, 2010

waw, very nice and clean design !

Fikri Rakala

April 23rd, 2010

Simple and modern

Nick Clark

April 23rd, 2010

So much better, what an amazing difference a few simple changes makes. My only issue is that we don’t end up with a browser with so many lists of side categories actually making it harder to find what you wanted in the first place.

All in all better.

Karen

Yes, Its looks more cool. Fresh, neat & clean! I loved it….
I’m using this feature on Firefox/3.6.3. really great work Google..

Alan

waw, very nice and clean design !

Joseph

Yes, Its looks more cool. Fresh, neat & clean! I loved it….
I’m using this feature on Firefox/3.6.3. really great work Google..

bob

The old one is dull and bland, this one is more simple and colorful.

Matt

April 26th, 2010

waw, very nice and clean design !

Ian

April 27th, 2010

Yes, Its looks more cool. Fresh, neat & clean! I loved it….
I’m using this feature on Firefox/3.6.3. really great work Google..

Deadwin

April 30th, 2010

its nice design…

Darcy

April 30th, 2010

The new ‘options’ look particularly good. I’ll like the visual nature of them.

Adel

May 2nd, 2010

Hi,

Im not English and i dont speak very well english,but Google to me dont changed nothing ! :( why can you tell me.

Mike Key

Wow, I didn’t even notice that mine had changed until this article. I do like the new side navigation. Huge improvement in neatness.

Jbow

Ilike the new Google look !

William Patton

doesn’t look to different on the surface but I like the new sidebar options, although it’s not that different to clicking the “+ show options” it’s right there with no messing.

The logo looks so so different *holds up sarcasm sign* lol

Misha Rabinovich

Hello,
Great job, and it looks like Google took your design?
Misha

Albert

Okay, why do people like this new design?!
The new GOOGLE logo is flat and boring. I like the 3rd aspect of the current logo. But who cares about that, what really is annoying is… the new search left hand side bar! Now that just sucks!
I don’t want to see that every time I do a search. I want to see my search results, and as many of them as possilbe!!! Don’t waste my precious space.

And then there is the search text entry box. They’ve gone and done something weird there with the box line thicknesses. It is irritating. It seems to make the eye not want to go down, but up! But down is where the search results are going to be.

Crappy design, imo. I’ve already put google in IE’s “Restricted Zone” and I am deleteing all google cookies everytime I close my browser, just to get ride of these changes. But it is not 100% effective. May be time to try out BING.

- Possibly Former Google Fan.

Albert

Okay, why do people like this new design?!

The new GOOGLE logo is flat and boring. I like the 3rd aspect of the current logo. But who cares about that, what really is annoying is… the new search left hand side bar! Now that just sucks! I don’t want to see that every time I do a search. I want to see my search results, and as many of them as possilbe!!!
Don’t waste my precious space.

Crappy design, imo.
I’ve already put google in IE’s “Restricted Zone” and I am deleteing all google cookies everytime I close my browser, just to get ride of these changes. But it is not 100% effective. May be time to try out BING.

- Possibly Former Google Fan.

Arefiev

The new design sucks in two important moments:
1) Hyperlinks should *ALWAYS* be underlined. It’s a reflex for people who started using Internet before 2003-2004.
2) The left navigation panel. I like the idea (I don’t use most of that but I imagine a lot of people do), but why should it be on the left? Eye naturally moves top-to-bottom, and I want to see the results right away. It’s like in Amarok2 where they decided to devote 70% of interface surface to things that have nothing to do with music.

nome

This site is full of bots or what ?
The new look is UGLY and it SUCK !!
It doesn’t look modern at all, it looks old-fashioned and cheap. No shadows ? Big flat buttons ? It’s an old design, not a new one.
And this left bar piss me off ! I can’t hide it even if I want to.
I want my old design back.

H