
The Google design, turned up a notch - madh
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/google-design-turned-up-notch.html
======
pg
The reason the new design is so much worse is that it uses the most valuable
space on the screen, the left side (since we read left to right), for stuff
users don't care much about. What users care about most on a page of search
results is the search results. Those should get priority. Instead the prime
space is given to stuff that's boilerplate, or only tangentially relevant, or
both.

I'm surprised Google would make a mistake of such magnitude. Anyone who's read
Tufte would know not to do this. They've effectively reduced the data-ink
ratio of the page, when you weight each pixel by its proximity to the upper
left corner.

<http://www.infovis-wiki.net/index.php/Data-Ink_Ratio>

[http://inspiredimpressions.files.wordpress.com/2006/04/Googl...](http://inspiredimpressions.files.wordpress.com/2006/04/Google%20heat%20map.jpg)

Oddly enough, it would actually be better if the left bar were entirely
boilerplate, because that would make it easier to tune it out.

[http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/eyetracking_corporate_site_...](http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/eyetracking_corporate_site_about_us.png)

Then the new design would merely waste space. Filling the left side of the
page not merely with crap, but with _changing_ crap, is the worst case
scenario.

~~~
ugh
Google actually tested this, you didn’t. So while the reasons you listed might
be valid and a good reason to scrutinize the redesign with the literature in
mind, I have a very hard time believing that Google didn’t do just that.

I would argue that there are consequently very good reasons to believe that
the problems you described are not a issue with the redesign or that there are
certain advantages to the redesign which make up for other disadvantages.

~~~
plinkplonk
"Google actually tested this, you didn’t. So while the reasons you listed
might be valid and a good reason to scrutinize the redesign with the
literature in mind, I have a very hard time believing that Google didn’t do
just that."

And yet it moves! (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pur_si_muove!>).

Google "testing it" isn't an iron clad guarantee that the feature doesn't
suck.

Anyone who has worked in a large company can well imagine how "tests" can
support predetermined positions of higher management (say). I suspect the
reason is simpler - these days Google is fat and slow and infested with
mediocre MBA types who love nothing better than to "launch an initiative" like
this. Never attribute to malice etc.

Irrespective of how well Google tested this, if enough users say "And yet it
sucks", then that's that.

You could argue about how many users are "enough", but "Google tested it so
they have to be right and everyone else is wrong" is a very fragile argument.

~~~
ugh
I never said anything about anything being “iron clad”. PG could be right but
I think there are good reasons to believe that this redesign might work.
Probably.

------
supaflyhigh
I find the sidebar annoying, but perhaps more so because we have used google
without it for so long. I tend to agree with techcrunch that there is
redundancy in the side and top bar. New logo is good, search box is ok...but
this modern style of it and the buttons seems out of place and more
distracting then anything.

The search features on the side are nice...but I used them so rarely in the
past and don't see myself using them any more now. It seems like google wants
me to spend more time searching then clicking links, when in reality I usually
use google as a quick 10 second shortcut to finding info. The last time I
clicked "next" on a search was........a long time ago.

~~~
bbatsell
I use the time-based filtering all the time now. I didn't really expect to
when I first started in the beta. It's incredibly helpful when searching on
topics that undergo wholesale changes often (e.g. the vast majority of
technology). Without using the filtering I get frustrated with Google results
with high PR that end up being horribly outdated.

~~~
_delirium
I've been using it for the opposite reason: I'll see something in a news story
and want to search on it for some background, and all I get are 500 copies of
the same news story or commentary on it. Being able to exclude anything from
the past week or so makes it easier to filter all those out. It is slightly
more awkward to use it that way UI-wise, though: there are quick links to
press for "last X hours/days/etc.", but no quick way to get "older than X"
without typing stuff into the "custom range" thing.

------
abstractbill
_we tried to take all the things we strive for at Google and make them better:
powerful technology, snappy results, simplicity and a fun and quirky
personality_

Yes! This is totally what was missing for me. I had great search results from
Google every time, but where was the _fun_? Where was the _quirky personality_
damn it?

~~~
keltex
I thought we'd done away with Quirks mode, but looks like Google has brought
it back.

------
fjabre
Is there a way to hide the left hand column? I actually find it really
distracting.

Also in FF 3.6.3 the text is not centered vertically in the search box. It's
an FF CSS issue. I've seen it a few times before.

~~~
landyman
Yes, we had several people at my office say the same thing so another
programmer and I wrote a couple of plugins to hide it (FX and Chrome only):
<http://www.seotools.com/hide-google-options/>.

I personally like the sidebar, I think the date-based filtering is great.

~~~
asmosoinio
The tool does not do the trick for me... Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta on Windows
Vista.

Screen shot here, the Extension seems to be enabled.

<http://asmo.kortis.to/misc/shot_07052010_125200.png>

I guess it's time to start using duckduckgo.com for real.

~~~
landyman
Right now, it's only enabled for google.com -- we'll be adding all the google
search properties in today.

~~~
asmosoinio
Got it, thanks! I hadn't even noticed being redirected to the local page..

------
jmulder
The biggest change in their redesign has nothing to do with the new logo,
redundancy in navigation (because that can't be an issue) or making the
different search tools more discoverable.

The biggest change is the top left position of the first search result
relative to the top left position of the document. In other words, the average
scanning pattern has completely changed with the addition of a fixed side bar.

It will take a lot of people a long time to adjust and its effectiveness can't
be judged by a couple of hours of usage. It's not unlikely to assume Google is
very willing to take a slight hit in this area and win in the discoverability
of their different ways to use Google, hopefully, eventually improving a
person's overal searching efficiency.

Time will tell, but we all know Google tests these things through and through.

~~~
pavs
> It's not unlikely to assume Google is very willing to take a slight hit in
> this area

What hit are you talking about? Are people willing to leave Google to use
another search engine and get used to their UI?. Unless they royally screw up
with the design (which they didn't IMO) they have almost nothing to lose.

If you compare this with bing, you will see that they have a lot of
similarities.

~~~
jmulder
A hit in efficiency of the user when scanning the search results.

And you're right. People won't leave Google over this. But Google has done
extensive testing on page speed in the past and measured its long term impact
on pageviews per search. I'd argue that a change in scanning patterns like
this one affects the perception of speed of the interface and might impact the
aforementioned metric.

Overall, it should be a change for the better and i'm sure that Google wants
to increase the efficiency per search to increase the overal number of unique
searches a user might do -- while caring a bit less about the number of
pageviews per search.

As for Bing, in interface design for a company like Google --a company that
effectively dominates the market and sees marginal loss of users-- the
competition is irrelevant. Especially for simple UI changes such as this one.

When doing a change such as this one Google is its own competitor. It needs to
find a way to transition their user's habits to what they believe is a more
usable one. This is by far always the hardest part and really what we are
discussing right now :-)

It's awesome to see though. I'd imagine it's incredbily hard to convince a
board of such changes, especially in an engineering minded company such as
Google.

------
cia_plant
I hid the left sidebar and expanded the results column by adding the following
snippet to 'userContent.css' in my 'chrome' directory (for Firefox).

    
    
        @-moz-document domain(google.com) {
         #leftnav {
          display:none !important;
         }
         #center_col {
             margin-left: 0 !important;
             margin-right: 0 !important;
         }
        }
    

I think the ads to the right were already hidden by adblock, so you may need
to tweak this if you want to preserve ads for some reason.

------
cstuder
They removed the trademark ((tm)) letters from the logo.

I'm wondering why corporations keep plastering those all over their designs.

~~~
mcav
I was under the impression that it was good practice to use those marks,
primarily to make sure people _know_ you're presenting a trademark (registered
or not). Obviously Google's big enough to not need that. Legal hounds: Is
there a time when one does or doesn't need the ™/®?

------
abstractbill
I just noticed this redesign removed a feature I used all the time - you used
to be able to type a word into Google, and then hit the "definition" link. As
far as I can see, they removed that.

~~~
nostrademons
define: word still works.

------
puredemo
I honestly can't stand it. I want my 100% screenspace back.

Why can't I hide this fucking left panel?

------
blhack
The search box on the left is dreadful. Why can't this be hidden the way it
could (for me) yesterday? It's almost headache inducing (although that sounds
crazy), it's like my eyes don't know what to do...they've had almost 10 years
worth of training showing them to look in that _exact_ spot on my screen, and
now it has changed...

It's really, really distracting. If I can find out a way of hiding it, I
absolutely will.

~~~
nooneelse
"Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens." Seriously,
these threads are sounding like a bunch of angry grey-back gorillas. Our minds
need to stay limber. Break up the routine. Tie the other shoe first, go to the
other coffee shop, pull off the road somewhere you've never stopped before and
write a poem about what you see, etc. Keep those neurons plastic and alive.

------
blehn
From a visual standpoint, I think the most interesting change is the shading
on the search bar, which makes it look raised on the page. It looks a little
awkward to me, I'm sure because almost all form inputs are either flat or
sunken into the page. I do think being sunken into the page is a more
appropriate metaphor... I wonder how they came to that decision.

~~~
nooneelse
What more appropriate metaphor is that?

Writing on a piece of paper underneath the top one that I can only see a
little bit of through a little window? Putting words on a shelf and the shelf
needs to look like it is deep enough to hold the letters so they won't fall
out the front and down the page?

~~~
blehn
Well, more like, you have two sheets of paper, the top one has labels with
boxes cut out so that you write your answers on the bottom one. when you lift
the top sheet off (click submit), you're left with only the raw data.

------
spot
heh cool the first image result in there was made with my software :)

~~~
nostrademons
The results were made with my software. ;-)

(I've been on the team that did this since we staffed up engineers, and did
the first functional demos of the new design.)

~~~
plinkplonk
"I've been on the team that did this since we staffed up engineers, and did
the first functional demos of the new design."

So do you think you could get us a user setting to turn off the new design and
get back the classic minimalist one? Right now you have to install browser
extensions etc.

------
tybris
Disneyfication.

~~~
yanw
c'mon it's a much needed and a good redesign, I suppose the top navigation bar
is kept unchanged for further testing, it might eventually include only non
duplicate function; gmail, docs, calendar etc.

~~~
puredemo
Why was it much needed? What reflected this?

------
icco
I really like the color change on the homepage. I've been on the beta for this
for about a month and I've enjoyed it for the most part.

------
j00lz
As screens are now coming in a wider format i.e 16:9, there is generally a
large amount of wasted space at the sides in a lot of webpages. Adding the
sidebar is making better use of that space.

------
ck2
Stylish plugin to the rescue!

First I hide all the left column sidebar nonsense with adblock.

Then I do this:

    
    
          #center_col {margin:0 !important;}
          .gl,.sla    {text-decoration:underline !important;}
          .tsf-p      {width:65% !important;}
    

Problem solved. Back to wide.

------
NiekvdMaas
TechCrunch's take: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/06/google-redundant-ui/>
(tl;dr side bar + top bar = redundancy)

------
drenei
I really like the left side bar. I prefer it to the top bar when it comes to
focusing my results - its closer and has more options. As for the design — it
feels cleaner, but thats subjective.

------
sankara
I'm feeling too much blue! Cached and similar links for example could have
been gray instead of the blue variant. IMHO, those links need not be so
prominent.

------
Judson
I was actually a fan of the "horizontal bars" design they prototyped... Guess
that one didn't have enough _personality_

------
karlmarks
The single biggest change is the top ads are now barely delineated, this whole
redesign is a cash and "stickiness" grab.

------
asmosoinio
(Google Chrome): Right click on address bar / Edit Search Engines... / select
Duck Duck Go / Make Default

Fixed!

