In what is quite possibly one of the wildest and most bold moves in Google’s very simplistic design history, your search result filter categories like news, books, videos, images, maps, shopping, flights, and more are being repositioned from the top of Google Search just under the search bar itself to a more interesting location.
Historically, these categories have acted as a sort of “rearview mirror” in terms of their UX design, allowing you to look up at any moment to gain context and change the context of your search queries. This is similar to the paths that say Linux or Chrome have taken to deliver users information.
Something that’s become increasingly popular, however, is the idea of left-aligning core navigation options since those of us with sinistrodextral languages read from left to right. Google seems to want the same thing for Search and is now testing this change with some users as per 9to5Google, allowing us to first read the category list and then to read the search results only after that. This is similar to how grocery stores move their product around in order to sell more of whatever wasn’t selling before (likely whatever was on the top shelf and not at eye level!)
Similar to how the options were while they were on the top bar, only a few show at a time, and the rest are neatly tucked away in a “More” menu. I’m not really sure why Google chose to do this, as the left-hand side panel is plenty tall vertically to fit well, an infinite number of options. This makes the decision to collapse them into a button more strange, but it’s likely that the company doesn’t want to overwhelm users with too much data at once – a principle it’s used to designing around.
The change was spotted on one of 9to5’s devices, but only while using incognito mode, so it’s hard to say when or even if this will roll out to all users. However, if it does, I believe it will be a significant shift from the traditional top navigation for search categories, and I wonder how users will respond to it. Let me know in the comments if you love it or hate it, and whether you’d be able to adjust at all!