Google Replaces the Top Horizontal Black Bar With a New Google Bar
If you thought that Google’s redesign spree of its services – that has so far involved changing the user interface design of almost all of its popular services like Google Docs and Gmail – has stopped then you are wrong. Google has announced what they are calling “the next stage of redesign” and it has begun with a new look for the ubiquitous Google bar.
Below is a picture of the dropdown menu from the new Google bar that appears at the top of its services like Gmail and Google search. I am yet to get it on all my Google accounts (yes, I have a few) but I got it on one and grabbed the screen quickly to share with you folks here.
The above menu can be accessed from the top left of the bar. On the right, there’s a small profile picture and a newly designed share button which can be seen in the example below.
As they explain in their official blog post, the motive behind re-designing the Google bar is to make navigation and sharing simpler. I think I’d agree with them. All those links at the top, often of the Google products that you usually don’t use (for example, I had Orkut among those links and no Google Reader!), did make it look cluttered. This new cleanup drive of the Google bar isn’t bad according to me.
However, I am yet to start using it so I won’t form any firm opinion at this point.
What about you? What are your first impressions of this new Google bar?
Don't miss another post! Subscribe by RSS feed or by email today!
Share this post! 2 comments, add yours!
I was kind of a fan of the new black Google bar. It seems to me that now they’re almost hiding their services. In fact, I’ve been using it all of today and I feel like the drop-down menu is so well hidden, you forget to use it, whereas used to, most of the big services were posted on the black bar. The drop-down menu just adds one more step to accomplish the same thing.
I think it’s all in what you get used to, but I have to wonder if this, too, will be redesigned in a few months like the black Google bar was. It’s time to settle on a design, implement it and be done with the cosmetic changes for a while.
Yes, I noticed this bar a couple of days back. A few of our computers show this and few don’t. I quite this bar.