Google Bar: The next stage in Google redesign

I'm not one who hates on new things just because they're change, but I hate this already.<p>Windows 95 brought us the Start Menu. This is a Google Start Menu. It's based on hierarchical menus that are fiddly to navigate, especially if any terms are long and you have to stay in a narrow row to not have it undo your last movement. You have to move to the top, select something, move down, then if there's a sub-menu, move right. Why not make it e.g. a 3x3 grid so I have to move less with fewer errors and the blocks can be bigger, and you can add more default icons without it scrolling halfway down the screen?<p>Besides, everyone knows clicking the logo takes you to the root page. Why are Google retraining all future users to expect an X-bar on our websites? Now, they can't trust what will happen when clicking that. It could be a menu, it could take you off the page, what will it do?<p>And it still chooses the dumbest things as my defaults. Youtube? I've never, ever clicked on Youtube from there. Ever. Why show it to me? Give me Calendar, which is now on the sub-menu. Don't show me Search because I've never clicked on that, I just hit ctrl-t and type a phrase in a new window. [edit] and Reader is hidden but + is everywhere? Someone isn't measuring clicks, I'm thinking.<p>Win95, I blame you.<p>[edit2] at least let me drag and drop stuff like I could in 1995, so I can rearrange the defaults.

The hover nav is a usability abomination.<p>It's not discoverable--the only clue it's there is a tiny arrow. On the old bar it was totally obvious where the links were to jump to other properties.<p>It presents an inconsistent user interface. If you move the pointer in from the bottom, you're on the left nav. If you move the pointer in from the top, you're on the hover nav. It would be like getting two totally different neighborhoods depending on whether you drove in from the north or south.<p>It requires precise mouse choreography. It's not enough to aim for the target, you have to follow a specific path to get there (especially true with the extra fly-out submenu). If you don't, you have to go back to the beginning and start over. The old bar was a fixed set of targets--easy to hit from wherever.

And Reader is pushed further and further away…<p>It was in the black bar initially, between Photos and Web, but for whatever reason, was pushed down the "more" menu to be replaced by "Sites", which I'm pretty sure nobody has ever ever used.<p>From the video (which by the way, sometimes has Reader in the black bar, sometimes not), it looks like Reader is relegated to the second column of the "more" menu. So went from one mouse movement and one click from Gmail, to two mouse movements and two clicks to, now, three fairly wide mouse movements and one click. Fantastic.<p>They should just be more straightforward and just write a blogpost titled "We don't want you to use Reader, but why don't you make a webpage instead?".

Are they gonna redesign Google now every 2 month? I mean the new Google Bar looks ok, but the "old" black one is stylish too, so why just throw it out after such short period of time?

This seems pretty Start Menu-esque, but I'm interested to see if the need to rollover will impact my workflow when moving between Mail/Reader/Calendar.<p>I think I like the look though.

I just realized that every page linked to in the current (black) bar (aside from Google+ and Photos, which both go to Plus) has search bars with different heights, widths and logo placement. This new bar will be a nice change.

Not at all a fan of the fixed bar. I'm on a 13" macbook. That window space is precious, and this bar is bigger than the last, non-fixed one.<p>If you're using chrome the search box is redundant anyway.<p>Using Chrome the browser takes up 100px between tabs before the window starts, this bar looks like another 100px on top of that. That's 1/4 of my monitor before content begins.

They sure are putting lots of eggs in the Google+ basket.

This is a great illustration of the difference between designing to help your users do what they want to do, and designing to make your users do what you want them to do.<p>I think most of the design changes we've been seeing on Facebook and Google fall into the latter category. People designing for the latter category probably also broadly explains why there are so many terribly and professionally designed sites out there.

I agree with other commenters that it looks sort of like a start menu. Which indicates Google's commitment to replacing traditional OSs.<p>I wonder when we'll see the Google bar integrated into Chrome.

While I don't hate it... it does look familiar... <a href="http://i.imgur.com/fEHbB.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/fEHbB.jpg</a><p>I just hope they make every page consistent. What annoyed me about the current navigation is that the links move around, and Reader is tucked far away under More.

I don't think rollover UI is a good idea for touch screen devices..

Checkout a recent build of chromium ... (especially the profile/alias switcher with "Slice", "Agent X", and "Fluffy") I'm using rev 111735.<p>I'm guessing anything now in the Google+ toolbar is quickly headed up a level into the "jetpack'ish" plumbing ... this latest redesign news seems like a fast-track'd gateway to that.

Here's an interesting question, how much have load times changed since the introduction of these bars (I know they've been present for a while) including this new iteration? Wasn't it always one of the major points of concern for Google to provide users with the quickest possible experience ? If I recall they used to have it down to a science. I don't think such changes can be noticed by the human brain but one would think it has risen and it would be interesting to know if it makes a difference and if they've abandoned that thought process in favour of the social sphere.

When searching, if Google doesn't detect my query as a potential Image search, it's always been convenient to just click 'Images' on the top and get your current query in image form.<p>This used to work for other services - News in particular being one I used frequently - until the past few weeks in which they broke this 'transfer your search' functionality.<p>This appears to be the endgame. I don't know if this dropdown will preserve search terms when switching to Images, but even if it does, the additional UI fiddling is going to be a big net loss for my Google workflow.

If this solves the horrendous, inconsistent multiple account login issue from the last major rollout, then I'm willing to suffer wasted space and more clicks.

I welcome the removal of the black bar for one simple reason: the valuable screen space it had taken on my netbook has been restored to some degree.

The article makes no mention of using this with just a keyboard.<p>I wish writers were required (by company culture, not law![1]) to include accessibility options when talking about new features or software. Even if they had to say "Turn this feature off if you're using an on-screen keyboard, because the combination sucks."<p>[1] Although I'm not averse to anti-discrimination laws being used a bit more vigorously.

Interesting changes. I can't say one way or another without using it how it will effect my experience but if they're trying to lower the bar for use the best thing they could do is make it easier for people to deal with multiple accounts. My google+ account is linked to my personal email which I'm never logged into during the day since we use google apps at work.

One of the things I liked most about Google search was that there was no garbage on the page. Just a simple search field on a white background. But then came the black bar at the top (which I could not figure out how to get rid of), now this... One step at a time, they're getting closer to other garbage sites.

When exactly does this go live? Or is it different for different locations/people? I still have a black bar.

What's interesting to me is that if I had not seen the video, I would not have immediately guessed that hovering over the Google logo displays a drop-down menu. The tiny gray triangle next to the logo seems like a very poor affordance.

Honestly, this is how uninnovative Google has become.. They get excited over introducing a drop down menu!<p>I know Apple are known for overhyping basic functionality. But, seriously? A DROP DOWN MENU THAT breaks UI for touch screen devices.. Sigh.

The red indicator is a bit of a tax on attention considering the low importance things it typically signals. UI designers should be careful about attracting the eye this way w/o good reason.

Something that the demo video has made me think of, is how their new UI style seem like it would be easy to use on a tablet. The large whitespace, oversized icons and 'clickable' areas.

I must admit that I preferred the "old" new one. Really can't put my finger on why.<p>I'm interested in the impact on users when one changes things several times quickly like this. Anybody here that has knowledge/experience that would like to say a few words about it. Personally I always am annoyed by change, more so when things seem to change "all the time". Anybody have some actual statistics on how people reacted to this type of design changes?

They're trying to gradually put me onto GoogleBook instead of being on the search homepage.

screens and resolutions are getting larger. unless it's for mobile screen, i don't see the need to get rid of it. perhaps they based that on some UX statistics, but doesn't make much sense to me.

Great news. I already dedicated a key on my keyboard to open that menu.

As usual, apps users don't get it straight off :(

How does this work on a touch interface?

I approve, the new design makes more sense like that, the black nav-bar seemed out of place. I still don't have it yet and wonder how the homepage looks like? (Google.com)

and google lost focus.<p>not because is has too many products. heck no! but because it's wasting more time trying to be a ... for a lack of a new term let's use the old one: "portal"<p>name all companies that lost focus and became "portals" in the past. all of them wasted a lot of time on the top-$sitename-bar right before it reached the point of no return.

I'm really quite sick of Google nowadays. I don't want any of this new stuff they have been introducing.

These people are obsessed with social.

It is terrible. Why one more click? Why change something that works? Google keep changing things... That don't really matter.

Oh no. Oh HELL no. In keeping with the new look of Google Docs, Reader etc., they've added an extra 40px of useless, un-necessary vertical padding to the bar. While their intro video criticises the old bar for wasting precious screen real estate, this new bar wastes more than twice as much of it.<p>I hope that some day soon they wake up and realise that screen real-estate shouldn't be wasted the way they're doing. As it stands, the only way I can now use Reader is by Greasemonkeying the hell out of its stylesheets; on my small laptop screen, many of the rest of Google's services are now all but unusable for me. This "stylistic cohesion" that they're aiming for is driving me away from every Google product out there.