There are screenshots at Blog Outer Court and Googlesystem. The redesigning clearly attempts to bring as many Google services in one page as possible. Moreover, it also attempts to reposition the home page not just as the page for search but as an easy gateway to numerous services.

Removal of the panel on the search box to the top left underlines it as a navigation bar for all services than as an extension of the search feature.

Comments

Tag:

The new Google Images is identical to the old one, except all the text that used to appear on the page, save the title of the image, is hidden, and only appears when your mouse is near the image. The redesign does not make for more space on the page, or larger images, or a cooler new look, it just removes info that was always there. If you want to find out what website an image was from, or how big it is, you have to work for it, and there is no way to compare the images against each other.

There’s no real explanation why Google did this. We know Google is obsessed with white space, but this is overkill, actually removing features by painting over them white. This would be the equivelant of Gmail only showing you who sent you an email, and forcing you to mouse over to see what the email was about, or Google Video showing you a thumbnail, with no video title, description, or length information. If Google wants to convince users to stop using Google services, they can start by doing this to all of them.

It certainly seems like Google is ripping off Windows Live Images, and if they are, this is a real crappy way of doing it. Windows Live Image Search shows only thumbnails on an all-white page, but they also let you resize them to show more on the page, the page scrolls into infinity (instead of showing a mere 20, then forcing you to click Next, over and over), and you get a scratchpad which lets you compare images regardless of where they show up.

So, Google has ripped off Microsoft, but did it by removing features it already had and lacking features Microsoft has had for months. Way to show leadership in the industry.

The part that pisses me off is that Google Images (and most of the competition) handles searching for images of similar sizes in a pretty broken way. All of them let you choose between all, large, medium and small (Windows Live adds images equal to your current screen resolution, Yahoo adds “wallpaper”, and Ask adds a buddy icon size), vague ways of distinguishing between them. I have no idea what a “medium” image is, and neither does Google as far as I can tell.

When I’m looking for an interesting image that fits a specific need, Google is always giving me images that are way too small, even when searching under medium (and large is way too big and limited, often). Now, Google doesn’t even show me the image sizes, so I have to guess? Screw that!

Thankfully, there is a solution: Disable JavaScript. All modern browsers give you a way of doing that to specific sites (or a list of sites), and disabling JavaScript for images.google.com brings back the old interface. In Opera, you only need to tick a check-box in Site Preferences; In Firefox, you edit your profile; in IE, you add it to a list of Restricted Sites. My recommendation: Do it fast, and never look back. The new Google Images is a huge blunder by Google, and should not be allowed to annoy you day in and day out.

In the meantime, I’m going to be paying close attention to Ask X, and see how their image search measures up. I’m getting the feeling Google is determined to fall behind and make mistakes with their search interfaces, and I’d better keep my options open if I need to switch one day.

Comments

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

Then there’s the other extreme, where websites haven’t been redesigned since 1996. So how often is too often?

Change for the sake of change is pointless. Do not feel compelled to redesign your site if you are satisfied with its look. Instead, ask yourself these questions:

• Do I like the look of my site?
• Does the design appeal to my target demographic?
• Is the design appropriate for the site’s content and subject matter?
• Does the current design make it difficult in any way to navigate the site?
• Do a lot of impartial people say that the site looks dated?
• Are there any fundamental design flaws, like inconsistency across multiple pages, that are integrated into the design?

There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to redesigning your site. Depending on how it was set up originally, converting a lot of pages to a new design may take weeks, and that’s after the new design is done and approved.

People who come back to your site that haven’t visited it in awhile will be greeted by a look that is unfamiliar to them. Unless you are prominently using the same logo, they may initially be unsure if they have come to the right site.

However, a fresh new look can often help you retain website visitors. Individuals who might have just given your site a cursory look before may be more apt to stick around and look in more detail. And the longer they look around on your site, the more likely they are to buy, to come to your physical store, to submit articles, etc.

If your site design is more in alignment with the purpose of the site, people will be more likely to engage in that purpose, regardless of whether it is shopping online, playing online games, or just reading more about your business.

So do not redesign just because it’s been a few years. Evaluate the current look.

Perhaps you can send a poll to your top 50 clients and ask them questions about your website. See what they think of it. And then, if they feel a redesign is needed and you agree with their reasoning, go ahead and redesign!

Add to | Digg | Yahoo! My Web

Technorati:

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.

Considering Google’s homepage is largely the same as it was when the company started, it can almost be considered dated, and Andy makes good points as to how the extra links are cluttering the page and placed haphazardly. I wouldn’t mind if Google switched on that page immediately. Anyone want to create a working version?

There are good arguements that Google’s homepage is iconic, and it is, but it has gotten more complex, slowly, and it is beginning to suffer under the strain. The blue sheen Rutledge adds provides a nice division that keeps extraneous links away from the search box, and keeps the illusion of massive white space.

Check out Google Redux. His eBay Redux is even better.

(via Phillip > Digg)

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

From developing a strategy for your website functionality to choosing a domain name and a good web hosting company to website structure, design and content.

You can easily find huge amount of articles and white papers on the Internet that helps you step this very important stage of your business successfully. But, regardless of all considerations, there maybe reasons that you decide or have to re-design your website. One big reason is your experience. Every day that you get more involved in your online business and learn new things, you get more near to decision of redesigning your website. It is not a negative step. It is a very important step towards improvement. By taking this step, you would move from one stage to a newer one and so, your online business would grow. To take this very important decision carefully, you should consider many parameters that I have chosen six among of those:

1-Never change design of your website because of your desire. Always consider that your clients and visitors would use your website and you have to consider their needs. If you have no negative feedback from your visitors about your website, there is no urgent need to re-design it. If you have reached to the decision of re-designing your website because you didn’t like it, sit and double check your decision. Maybe you waste your time and energy because of a wrong decision.

2-If your website has been live for a long time and you have periodic and current visitors never re-structure the whole body of your website. Visitors get used to find their interests at specific points of your website. For example, they know that the latest news appears in a box at top right of your website. So, they would directly go to that point every time they come to your website. If you move the latest news box to another position, your visitors would become confused and this makes them disappointed.

3-Do not forget that a re-design process should make your website performance better. So, be careful to keep images smaller, reduce JavaScript codes and remove useless flash animations. Visitors expect to access your website with the same performance or better than previous one. If they feel it slower, they would ignore it. There are lots of better websites that they can go to visit.

4-Use your experience and study the behavior of your current visitors to see which parts of your website are more fascinating to your clients. In a re-design process, keep those parts highlight. Consider a better place for them on your new design. Let visitors find them easier than the old website and see them happier from the new website.

5-Text ads are very attractive to visitors and if you use PPC (Pay per Click) systems like Google AdSense, you can even earn money from your website. Text ads need to be placed in a position that not only do not affect the structure of your website badly but also attract visitors to click on them. In the new structure of your website, consider a good place for text ads.

6-Search engines are your website’s best friends. Never forget them in a re-design process. Meta tags should be refined. Content of web pages that better meets your business and keyword density considerations. Adding new pages to your website that are well designed and optimized for search engines. Re-naming file names of images and pages to be more attractive to search engines. Alt tags of images. Adding footer. Adding a site map with a link from your home page and removing broken links are major issues that you should consider when re-designing your web pages to be more search engine friendly.

Re-designing of a website is like transforming from an old world to a new one. So, do your best to make the new world better and happier. Clients would feel the growth and maturity of your website when they see it re-designed. This process is somehow risky because the new design may fail to be successful than the previous. So you should be ready for a wave and be armed to be able to handle it.

Mahmood Bashaash is the owner of SGNetway company in web address of www.sgnetway.com which is focused on developing web sites and web applications and is
the author of MahmoodB web site and newsletter that reveals hundreds of killer Internet marketing tips and tricks. To access his articles, visit: http://www.mahmoodb.com. His native language is Persian and his web site is totally in Persian language.