The Material Theme rolled out to Google Search on the web in bits and pieces over the past year. Google.com today is A/B testing a visually notable homepage revamp that also separates and highlights voice search.
Google’s new design language first emerged on the desktop search engine in November 2018. It began on the results page with various tweaked elements and a docked search bar as you scrolled through links.
A similar look came to the homepage in March with the search field switching from a box with partially rounded corners to a pill-shaped bar. At the time, buttons for “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” were slightly tweaked, but mostly remained the same.
An A/B test today sees those buttons change and adopt Material Theme stylings. “Google Search” looks more modern by no longer having a background color and just using a faint gray outline and blue text. Hovering over and clicking briefly shades the button blue. Meanwhile, “I’m Feeling Lucky” loses all contours.
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- A/B Test 1
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- A/B Test 2
Another Google Search Material Theme test uses a very blue and bold button for “Google Search.” This iteration is not widely rolled and quickly disappeared for me.
The bigger change is just above with the multi-colored microphone icon no longer a part of the search field. Instead, the button is off to the right in its own circle. This look extends to the search results page. The actual “Search by voice” experience is unchanged from before.
This Google Search Material Theme A/B test is live on a handful of computers we checked this evening, but not all of them.
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