According to the New York Times, Google will start rolling out a major new design of its search results page, making it much more graphical in nature.
The majority of the changes will happen in the left hand column (which is currently defaulted as “Show options…” but seems to be from the screenshots to be always on) and will change depending on what type of content is searched for. So, for instance, if you search for the movie Avatar, Google might show you a Shopping icon or perhaps Discussion.
One of the great things about Google has always been its design sensibilities, and the results page has certainly been one place that has lagged behind for some time – it basically has stayed all-text – so this should be a welcome upgrade.
That said, Google has only updated this page a few times for a reason – the results page is what the company’s fortune has been built on, so even a slight change in how effective the page is for AdWords conversions can mean billions of dollars to Google. So we’ll have to see how this new design does from a usability and conversion perspective.
The new design also seems to refocus results onto Twitter, Facebook and other social media searches and, frankly, the whole redesign somewhat reminds us of Friendfeed.
Other features of the redesign will include a more prominent featuring of the previously released Wonder Wheel (a graphical representation of results) and a Something Different button that seems to kind of be like Google’s I’m Feeling Lucky button on the homepage.
Regardless, Google doesn’t make many changes to its search results very often, so this is really a pretty big deal. They’ll be rolling it out gradually over the course of the next 48 hours it seems, so please let us know when you start seeing it and what you think of it.
Here is what a search for “solar energy” might look like:
Images: The New York Times
spotted in the live on google.se
Hi Wendels,
Great! Can you send me a couple of screenshots to chad@thenextweb.com?
I am definitely up for some new super user experience while using Google, but I hope that:
a) they won’t make it grotesque as the so called iGoogle
b) they won’t end up having over cluttered user interface as Yahoo!
Like I said, doubtful that they’ll do too much (they don’t want to mess with the bottom line) – honestly, from the screenshots we’ve seen it looks pretty nice.
possibly also including GMail like keyboard control.. until a few hours ago, this experimental (see Google Search experiments) addon was fully functional, but they quit the experiment.
“The experiment you’re trying to access is no longer available. Go to experiments overview.”
Looks like Bing.com
How?
I’m really liking it to be honest.
I hate it! Go back to normal google please!!!!!!! What have they done to the logo? I mean I can tell that it’s different but what exactly…??? please tell me! thanks!
It’s flatter and the orange in the O’s is different
Hi..
Google has always the radical changes…me too like this design’s & welcome ever the Google…meet again.
Not bad. Don’t like the use of shadows though. It points from right to left, which can feel awkward for left-to-right users, kinda like it’s pointing in the wrong direction. I know its a small detail but it look unnatural and annoys me lol.
Did google forget the TM on their new design
I was very disappointed that Google changed today. As a translator I use Google hundreds of times per day, and the buttons I usually use (search the web, search only Swedish sites etc) under the search bar disappeared and it wasn’t until I got help finding them that I finally saw them on the left. I generally don’t like when sites I use a lot change, because it slows down my work. I wish everyone could just choose which layout they want, instead of just getting a new one without an explanation.
They have been putting this up as beta for hours at a time some times seconds or minutes for the last 5-6 months, I have been noticing it and taking screenshots.
Really don’t care for it, leave it alone google just leave it basic, this new search features and logo changes make me feel like going to a different search provider, location based searches, I would customize my search with a (city, state) if i needed that, wow two words thats really hard.
with an awesomestart google home page i still have the classic google search, no worries here