Google has been testing a brand new design for its search engine, which some users have been able to access (either via Google’s random selection or using a piece of JavaScript). The new design, which looks like it has been inspired by Google Wave, still includes the suggested search terms and the two familiar buttons; but the colours are lighter and that there is a gradient on the buttons.
Other small changes include the logo, which loses a drop down shadow in favour of a more rounded and lighter shadow around each of the letters and has a lighter colour than its predecessor. Also, you can see that the trademark is no longer present.
In the actual results page, the redesign also sees Google ditching that huge bar telling you the number of results, opting to put that next to the search button (as you can see on the image below), and has taken a page from Bing’s results page and now allows you to search by news articles and blogs, videos, maps, images without redirecting you to a different section of Google (i.e. News is now within Google and not Google News). The links also include little icons.
While the design is new, the layout isn’t. It has been there since early 2009, where it ditched the fluid layout for a fixed layout, and having a left sidebar giving you links to search the term around Google’s various properties, and having date filters.
In order to access this, you need to go to Google.com (International users, click on the link that takes you away from your localised version of Google), and then put this snippet of code in the browser’s address bar:
javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com");
After that, refresh, and you would get something like what you see above. Happy surfing.
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