New - "Fading" Google Home Page

[Judah_Ben]

Apologies if this is old new, but has anyone else noticed the newer style Google.com home page?

It looks like G got rid of the search buttons, and the utility links in the top and footer links in the bottom fade in slowly.

Currently, I'm only seeing this happen in FF.

[tedster]

Thanks for the post. Yes, this is new - an experimental test for only some users.

TechCrunch Article [techcrunch.com]

YouTube Video [youtube.com] (for those who can't see the test)

Google Help Forum Post [google.com] - from Google employee, Jaime

[swa66]

Clean!

[inbound]

Very nice, but there is a bizzare contrast to the "Holiday Logo" of the day (it's a barcode, which has no relation to the Google logo at all) - so on one hand you have Google trying to clean up their homepage and on the other hand they are making it look so bad some people will think it's broken (not everyone will immediately realise what that barcode is).

[mack]

The barcode actualy contains a plain text output of the word "Google". Pretty sad that I actualy took the time to scan it lol.

Not sure about the fades though. I can see them from here, strange that nothing apart from the search box and logo are visible until you move your mouse pointer into the page area.

It draws your attention right to the search box, then as you move down to type semething the rest of the links come into view. Almost like a secondery distraction.

Mack.

[Robert Charlton]

It's actually a variation of a cinematic technique, where, during a transition like a fade or a dissolve, important objects are faded in before less important objects.

I'm only able to view the YouTube video, though, and I can't quite tell whether the cursor move causes the fade-in, or whether the fade happens on its own. Since they're testing, they could play with both approaches.

[keyplyr]

Now I feel left out. Firefox displays the same ol' Google home page for me.

[piatkow]

From the YouTube video it appears broken. Seeing it without warning I would have gone off to Bing.

[johnnie]

What's next? Adwords fading in before organic results?

[vordmeister]

I noticed the buttons were missing for a while the other day on google.co.uk. They reappeared on refresh. For a page that is essentially a text field with a submit button it seemed an obvious omission.

This morning it took a few tries to get to the button - it kept being hidden by a drop down box suggesting that I might want to search for something less relevant.

[Brett_Tabke]

<diagnosis>
Google is suffering from Bing homepage envy.
</diagnosis>

[mack]

<2nd opinion>
I concur
</2nd opinion>

I imagine they will use this to collect data on how the fade in effects cliks to on page links, but I suspect the main reason for this is to get people looking again.

Bing have stolen the thunder by supplying eye candy.

Mack.

[limbo]

If you don't move your mouse, nothing happens. Just in time to coincide with the first custom logo that uses no colour to denote brand.

This was bad planning. I can see a lot of confused people staring at just an input field and a barcode and wondering if Google has been hacked.

[mack]

limbo, When I checked this out I also found that the fade in doesn't happen until you drag your mouse over the page. It took me a few refreshes to find this out. My mouse was placed over the refresh button. and on refresh all I saw was the search box, bar code logo and the two buttons.

This made me think something was broken, I didn't expect to need to being the muse over the page before I could see the fade.

Mack.

[skipfactor]

I got the fade last night. Still seeing it today but the buttons are back (w/o mouseover).

[Color7]

I thought I was seeing things last night :) I had to check the URL to make sure it was really the Google homepage.

[thor_swe]

Wouldn't it be smarter to remove some of the junk from the startpage?

[TheMadScientist]

<diagnosis>
Google is suffering from Bing homepage envy.
</diagnosis>

<2nd opinion>
I concur
</2nd opinion>

I imagine they will use this to collect data on how the fade in effects cliks to on page links, but I suspect the main reason for this is to get people looking again.

Bing have stolen the thunder by supplying eye candy.

Mack.

Uh, if this is their answer to Bing I think they should 'keep searching', so to speak...
Maybe they should even *look* at other search engines rather than just searching Google for: visual improvement suggestions?

Of course if the #1 result had a TBPR of 10 I can see how they were confused.

[Hissingsid]

I have it on Safari 4 but not Firefox 3.5.3 and it doesn't matter if I'm signed in or not. Is this effect something that works better on webkit?

Cheers

Sid

[dudibob]

Only seeing it in Safari too, looks... weird, can see the priority on the search box with the blue highlight, but the buttons aren't appearing, even after mousing over which would confuse most 'Mum & Pops' as the majority don't use the enter button

[Alcoholico]

Does this mean no one will be feeling lucky anymore?

[Robert Charlton]

Does this mean no one will be feeling lucky anymore?

No... that will fade in for some but not for others. ;)

[mcneely]

Silly toys .. I thought that this sort of nonsense went away with dhtml.

[TheMadScientist]

At least they opted for a fade-in rather than a scrolling status bar message and we should probably be really glad the whole screen doesn't fade out to YouTube, GoogleMaps, GoogleEarth or some other Google property depending on your query and the 'one right answer' they have for you, YET...

[TheMadScientist]

I know I've capped on this idea a couple of times, but I saw it live for the first time tonight. It's going to be tough (see below) but I'm going to try and refrain from saying much except: whatever... why didn't you take the button off the inner pages too?

You geniuses... I clicked back on my browser after using your search engine for the first time in days (maybe I hit the delete key or something), and then couldn't click anything to search again, so I pressed the return key to re-complete the same search, because back wasn't where I wanted to go, and nothing happened. See the little magnifying glass over there on the right of Bing's Search box, kinda like the ones on FireFox and Safari? It makes it so I can click somewhere to use their search engine. (erm, uh, duh) What's going on? I'm a Mac user, don't like M$ and use Bing instead of Google now, because it makes more sense to me... I'm completely confused ¿ I should not have to be posting this! What are you guys doing?

[dreamcatcher]

Its total garbage and a stupid idea. It serves no purpose. I had made Yahoo my new homepage, but then realised Firefox`s alternative homepage with the Google box is fine.

dc

[mcneely]

I had made Yahoo my new homepage

I must be way behind the times here.

I've had Alta Vista as my start page since .. oh .. I can't even remember when.

[dreamcatcher]

lol. Well, I decided to go to Firefox`s alternative homepage instead as thats ok. Prefer the Google one though, but not with silly fading effects. Ironically its fine in Google Chrome.

dc

[dreamcatcher]

I just found out that if you clear the Firefox cache and remove the Google cookies, the page reverts to back to how it was. Good.

dc

[TinkyWinky]

This is cr4p - sorry - I like minimal but why remove everything and then have it come back as soon as you rollover...

Garbage...