Google is today rolling out a redesigned version of the account switcher across its web apps. If you use Gmail, Drive, Calendar or other Google apps on the web (on your personal account, no G Suite accounts yet), you may notice the new design which matches recent mobile designs.
Last week, we told you that a former Google employee managed to buy the Google.com domain name via Google’s own Domains service. While Sanmay Ved may have only owned the world’s most-visited domain for just a minute or two before the Mountain View company caught on and cancelled the transaction, it appears at least some good came of this story.
Once Google acknowledged the mistake, they rewarded Ved with some unknown sum of cash — but the company decided to double the reward when Ved generously suggested it go to charity instead…
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Material Design–announced at Google I/O 2014 in June of this year–was introduced as Google’s new way of presenting a coherent, beautiful user experience across apps, and one of the first pieces of software to exemplify the new look is the latest release of Android, version 5.0 Lollipop. But Google is going beyond Android and has already started incorporating this design scheme within many of its other products, including the online interface for Google Docs, for instance. One place that hasn’t seen a Material overhaul (yet) is Google’s main search engine, but thanks to designer Aurélien Salomon, we have an idea of what it might look like–and it’s gorgeous.
Search Engine Land discovered Monday that Google is experimenting with a brand new black navigation bar. Today, the revamped bar goes live for some as the company gradually rolls out the changes to everyone. The search firm rarely messes with its legendary homepage design, so their creative director Chris Wiggins lays out in a post over at the official Google blog the main principles behind the redesign. It’s about focus, elasticity and effortlessness, he explains:
We’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.
He says the new design lends itself to a consistent visual experience across desktop and mobile, “without sacrificing style or usefulness”. Google says a crucial part of the new experience is the use of the latest technologies like HTML5 and WebGL so “you have all the power of the web behind you”. They will roll out the new bar over the course of the following months to other properties, including Google Maps and Gmail.
The original Google.com homepage in 1997.
