

Google’s Search Results Ditch Underlined Links, Increase Font Size - anigbrowl
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/12/googles-search-results-ditch-the-underlined-links-increase-the-font-size-more-in-new-experiment/

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smacktoward
I know the graphic designers have long since won this battle, but I still feel
like there's value in underlining links.

Underlined links are _discoverable_ \-- it's obvious at a glance that they are
links, rather than body text.

Underlined links are _noticeable_ \-- they stand out from a sea of non-
underlined text, drawing the eye to them.

Underlined links are _self-explanatory_ \-- it's obvious what you're supposed
to do with them (i.e. click).

These are all valuable UI benefits.

The solutions that most sites that have abandoned underlined links have taken
up in their place all have drawbacks compared to the good old underline:

 _Underlining the link on hover /rollover_ reduces discoverability -- you
don't know for certain whether something's a link or not until you investigate
it.

 _Making links a different color_ reduces usability for the color-blind; red-
blind people have no idea that your red links look different than your black
text does.

 _Making links bold, italic, or a different size_ all leave the possibility of
confusing the link with body text that happens to share the same typographical
presentation. (You can underline text too, of course, but that's relatively
rare on the Web because of the strong association of underlining with links.)

Nobody cares about this argument anymore, I know, so I don't expect anything
to change because of it. I just think it's worth noting that there are good
reasons to prefer underlining links that don't boil down to "stuck in 1996".

~~~
agumonkey
First time I met this 'new' design, I thought it was a rendering bug[0]. Next
time I understood it was testing, and I just thought 'why' ? Google seems
desperate to find things to tweak while ignoring things that I find obvious:

    
    
      - right click event turns the url in a trackable monstrosity [1]
      - shortened url can't be copied [2]
      - no, sharing doesn't only mean 'publish on g+'
      - filters could be made faster [3]
      - g+ has comment notifications, gmail has nothing
    
    

[1] facebook =>
[https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=facebook&sourc...](https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=facebook&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCYQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F&ei=AhoiU53iBcSo0AWp4oCIAQ&usg=AFQjCNGug_CqO9cxLI8dHdn-
CceO8_ie5w&sig2=iGblH1CoFfkWGoFpmAMIKA&bvm=bv.62922401,d.Yms) and

[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook...‎)

[3] instead of submenus that pops at opposite side, toggle buttons for
instance year|month|week , or local|global . The old right side vertical list
was better (even though lacking features).

[0] Chromium had some issues on my platform (or maybe just my distro) recently

~~~
existencebox
A personal anecdote: I was an avid youtube user, but their nearly ceaseless
iteration of everything from sidebar contents to full on page layouts and link
availability (I remember a time when one could go from the video listing of
one channel belonging to one user directly to another channel's usable video
links. This now takes 2-3 clicks, depending on your definition of usable.) has
me at a point where I get frustrated when I have to use the service, and am
actively looking to migrate off of it.

Soundcloud has almost entirely replaced youtube for me in the music sense, the
problem seems to be that there's no video service "core" enough that
"everyone" uploads "everything" to it. A lot of handwaving there, but youtube
has a certain amount of critical mass in that area, AFAIK. (if I'm living in a
little google bubble, I'd appreciate other video services, but I feel like I'm
aware of most of the main ones ala vimeo, and as I said, critical mass.)

Note: I feel like google treats most of their services like this. I personally
have felt nothing but decreased usability since the not-TOO-far-removed-from-
pure-html days of gmail. (The pinnacle for me was shortly after the
integration of gchat and the polish that came after, but before the great
whitespace apocalypse.)

~~~
agumonkey
Everything you wrote resonnates with my experience.

Youtube still gets my love because of the amount of obscure old songs you can
find there (forgotten videos, LP). AFAIK SoundCloud is full obscure recent
songs :)

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jimmaswell
Google making meaningless changes in the direction of minimalism like always.
I find the google search of today no more usable or intuitive than that of 10
years ago. Minimalism is such a plague. It assumes people can't deal with the
mildest hint of non-mission-critical information on the screen, which is
false, or at least it used to be; if it catches on too much people's minds
might get so rotted that they get confused navigating a web page with more
than two buttons. Arguments about "visual noise" are such bumpkis. We've been
good at dealing with visual noise forever, before computers, before
civilization.

~~~
dfxm12
_I find the google search of today no more usable or intuitive than that of 10
years ago._

Do you find it any less usable, though?

 _We 've been good at dealing with visual noise forever, before computers,
before civilization._

Then we should be good at dealing with Google results without underlines too,
right?

~~~
jimmaswell
Its usability has gone down a bit. [http://teacheralanblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/09/2004.j...](http://teacheralanblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/09/2004.jpg) Now some of those links are hidden behind
that vague square button thing at the top-right. It took me a while at first
to figure out that's supposed to be like a phone's app screen and thus that's
where you find the rest of the apps. It was better as a text link that said
"More applications" or something. The current square thing doesn't even invite
me to try clicking on it; it looks nothing like a button.

The lack of underlines doesn't really impact the usability at all except that
it's an unneeded change that some are going to find jarring. Looking at google
results myself now, it feels "off". That's a lot more "distracting" than the
presence of admittedly not really necessary underlines. But change for its own
sake, especially in UI, does more harm than good often.

------
Legion
I have to say, the little yellow "Ad" badge actually jumps out at me a lot
more clearly than the colored background.

It doesn't _seem_ like that should be the case, but I felt my eyes hitting the
Ad badges and more easily filtering the ads from the search results.

------
Leftium
Already found user scripts to revert to the old-style results [1].

I also found a user script to conveniently put the search options on the left-
hand side again. It saves me two clicks when I limit the date range of the
search results. (I had to tweak the scripts to get them to work in tandem.)

Here's what my Google search results look like, now: [2]

[1]
[http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/409199](http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/409199)

[2] [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/508947/google-
userscript...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/508947/google-
userscripts.png)

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geertj
The adds are bigger and a lot less distinguishable as ads. The only thing
distinguishing them now is the small "Ad" bubble.

At my screen resolution, about 70% of real estate is now filled with ads. I
get an AltaVista deja-vu.

Google, for the record, I used to like your non-invasive, targeted ads, but I
now installed AdBlock as a direct result of this change.

~~~
rryan
OTOH, now your LCD's gamma can't make the ads invisible. My guess is this
change makes ads more recognizable because they say the word "ad" on them.

I visited my family over the holidays and was shocked to see that the ad
background was completely invisible on their crappy Dell LCDs.

------
arikrak
I used to disable adblock on Google since I didn't find the ads intrusive.
However the ads blends right into the results with the new changes, so I'm re-
enabling it. Though overall I assume Google will get a revenue boost from
their change to the ads.

~~~
Karunamon
Blend right in? They have a bright yellow lozenge that says "Ad" next to each
result on mine. The ads are even more distinct then they were before.

~~~
arikrak
It's that you can't see the yellow mark, but it's much harder to just skip to
the results.

~~~
Karunamon
I still don't understand what you mean. Look at this page:

[http://gyazo.com/ed84537df50abd7f0d34212a6ba6a497](http://gyazo.com/ed84537df50abd7f0d34212a6ba6a497)

How long didyou have to look before realizing where the ads stop and the
organic results begin? For me it's dead easy...

Note this may be a bad example, because if I'm searching for "insurance", an
advertisement for an insurance company is actually a relevant result.

------
smackfu
The bolding of search terms sure seems like it would be a good idea, but it is
very distracting to me.

~~~
anigbrowl
Same here, I hate it. Perhaps it's just resistance to change, but have been
acutely conscious of seeing less information (due to the larger font size) the
last few days and feel less inclined to search iteratively.

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Zelphyr
If you hadn't mentioned I wouldn't have noticed. Guess underlines aren't all
that significant an indicator of being a link to me anymore. That or Google's
design works as intended.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
well, no, not for a list of links that you know in advance is going to be a
list of links. Body copy is another matter.

~~~
NigelTufnel
Wikipedia doesn't underline links either. They're doing fine.

------
xpose2000
I imagine this will lead to more ad clicks since people know by now that the
peach background means that's an ad.

Also, it makes more sense to go to the real source:
[http://searchengineland.com/googles-new-look-search-
results-...](http://searchengineland.com/googles-new-look-search-results-
still-experiment-186338) which has covered this many times before.

~~~
ben174
And this is what scares me. Google ads are just plain dangerous. If they
removed the malicious results this wouldn't be such a problem, but turn off
your ad blocker and search for VLC.

Your top result will be malware and that's what most of my friends click. Any
step to further disguise ads is a step further in this malware propagating
itself.

~~~
tonfa
No ads when searching for [vlc] here.

------
wmblaettler
I have noticed this for the past few weeks. I guess I am in their test group.
It's definitely a step backward from the previous version. At first I thought
it was a change to the spacing. It's hard to really see the delineation
between results, it all just merges together. It makes it harder to scan the
results for the desired one.

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mrmondo
I personally quite enjoy the look, however I find the general inefficient use
of screen real estate annoying. There is so much unused white space on the
right hand side of search results.

~~~
dfxm12
What do you want there? More results? Ads? Something else slowing down page
load times?

Google wants to deliver relevant results, and fast. Anything else is just
slowing them down.

~~~
mrmondo
More horizontal text from the search results would be nice, this would allow
you to read / skim the results slightly quicker

------
bluecalm
Maybe I am just older and grumpier every day but every UI change Google does
be it Hangouts, Youtube, Gmail, Maps and now Search make their services less
attractive and less comfortable to use. I like underlined links. It was easier
to distinguish between actual links, descriptions and ads. Now it take more
focus from me to just skim the results looking for the right one. Sucks!

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rblatz
This has been bothering me for the past few days. Broke my extension to hide
results in google (w3schools.)

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ilbe
The ads are also bigger, no?

