As the company’s flagship product, major changes to Google Search take a while to develop and are being heavily tested. Google today announced a significant redesign of what Search looks like on mobile devices aimed at simplicity.
It starts at the top of the screen where the search field is now visually elevated from the company logo, profile avatar and other elements. This added depth replaces how the beam previously used pale gray outlines. The search filters that appear below are no longer used with capital letters, while the current category in the view is only underlined by a narrow black, instead of blue.
Knowledge panels are currently distinguished by a large header that contains the name, category and carousel, while the background has a light theme. The new design drops this separate top section and makes it one with the information and image gallery – which now contains rounded corners – shown below.
One aspect of this redesign is that colors are “used more deliberately to convey important information without being overwhelming or distracting.” For example, it emphasizes the characters of the sub-topics, which each section now displays in individual slides. A range of colors – muted to bold – has been explored for this redesign, but Google has opted for a solid backdrop to keep the focus on content.
Google Search Mobile Redesign
Further on the page, web results now extend from the left-to-right edge. Although still housed in maps, the effect is much less apparent with Google moving away from shadows. In general, it helps to provide more space for content and results in a cleaner look that is less busy.
Another change is that the Google Sans font is being used in more and more weighty places. Text in the exclusive font of the enterprise is easier to read on white backgrounds and in places much larger, such as for Knowledge Graphs. It helps users to quickly scan the results.
“We want to make the search results shine, so that people can focus on the information instead of the design elements around it.”
The purpose of this upgrade on phones and other mobile devices is to make it easier to search by dropping all the others. It launches from today on the mobile web, as well as the Android and iOS Google apps and will be widely available in the coming days. Desktop Search already has a similar redesign, but only for certain types of queries, such as those associated with COVID-19.
Old search
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