Google Interface Changes

If you’ve been to Google lately, and I’m sure you have, you might notice the slight fade in effect of the home page. On loading the page, the web page is missing quite a few of the usual links, titles, buttons and other options. You can type your search terms and keywords in the search field and press enter to search or if your mouse enters the page the other fields will show.  Everything “fades” in and gives you a nice visual instead of abruptly pooping onto the page.

I have read that it is causing a bit of confusion among users. I have to admit, when I first notice the effect I thought that my system was hung up or the page stopped loading. I thought was odd being that it’s Google, and I don’t recall a time that they were ever down. Also, some users may not be seeing this because it is based off of browser and system. I don’t know whether Google is rolling this out or just testing it. It may be a Google Labs project but I’m assuming that it will make it’s way past that and be part of the regular page.  They don’t make too many changes to the interface and if it’s made it this far to the public, you can be certain that Google is behind this 100% and only a major backlash from the web community would kill the new feature.

See The Google Fade In Live

Here’s a video of the effect if you aren’t seeing it on your computer:

I am getting used to this visual effect and actually like it. But that may be because I like to keep things simple.  One thing I was thinking would be to keep it empty until you type your search terms and then provide butttons to search based on your needs. So instead of pressing the “Google Search” button, you would press the “Web Search”, “Image Search” “Video Search”, “Blog Search”, etc. buttons. That would limit the need to switch search engines and thus eliminate one more unncessary click.