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Google Tests New, Slightly Prettier Design

by Amar Toor on April 21, 2010 at 10:54 AM

Few websites feel like home to us as does Google. There's comfort, after all, in familiarity, and that's exactly why Google is so reliable. The search engine may have added new features over the years, but never at the expense of its classic layout. While most other sites have gone under the knife in an attempt to keep up with the times, Google has always seemed supremely comfortable in its own skin. It's the Judi Dench to Facebook's Heidi Montag.

You can imagine our horror, then, when we read about the new, revamped interface that Google has begun courting. The thought of an unrecognizably collagen-lipped, Botoxed variation of our beloved site was nearly enough to send us into an epileptic fit. But, once we caught our breath and bit our tongue, we took a closer look at the screenshots -- and, much to our delight, the makeover doesn't seem that extreme at all.

For starters, the Google icons on the homepage and in the footer are only slightly altered, with the subtle shadowing around the letters having been removed. The search box is also longer, and, according to SixRevisions, the design replaces the buttons from a user's default browser with a more universal CSS-styled set of buttons, making it more compatible with different operating systems. Fortunately, the always-entertaining search suggestion drop-down menu is still intact, except with a light blue border replacing the gray one that no one ever noticed anyway. Perhaps the most noticeable changes, though, come on the search results page, where you'll now find an expanded "show more options" menu automatically placed on the left sidebar, larger and more prominent. All underlined hyperlinks have been removed from the search results, except for the search title, itself.

If you don't notice the changes, don't bother adjusting your set; Google is only rolling them out today to certain visitors, using split-testing to gauge how successful it is. Even if it does eventually decide to institute the alterations full-time, it'd be fine by us. Then again, Google could've put on a frumpy nightgown and a set of hair curlers, and we'd still love it just the same. But if it needs to periodically trim the hedges to feel better about itself, so be it. [From: SixRevisions]

Tags: design, google, redesign, search, SearchEngines, top, web, webdesign

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