Opinion: Google Unleashes Terrible New Update For Google News Upon the Net

Rei shares their opinion of Google's redesign of Google News: Google unveiled a "new look" for Google News, describing it as a "clean and uncluttered look." New design features include a mostly empty "In the News" box for trending-topics, most of which you probably don't care about; a double-height page header so that they can make the border around the search box inexplicably larger and add a four-option menu bar; large empty grey expanses that take up half the browser; and a new news section that presents half as many news articles per page. If you didn't think you were having to scroll enough when using Google News, don't worry -- Google's got your back with this new update. It's safe to say that Slashdot reader Rei is not so fond of the Google News redesign. Have you had the chance to view it yourself? What do you think of the Google News facelift?

Comments

Dreadful.

[dtmos]

Well, now we know where the user experience experts that invented the ribbon went after they were fired from Microsoft.

They were fired, weren't they?

Re:Dreadful.

[bobbied]

Who cares about ribbon's....

I want my paper clip back! He was my only friend...

Re:Dreadful.

[cheesybagel]

Have you had the chance to view it yourself? What do you think of the Google News facelift?

The new Google News page is total and utter crap. For a minute I actually thought someone had hijacked and defaced the site or something. Then I realized it was a redesign. You can't find anything in there. I mean I searched for some recent major world news item that I heard about and it was nowhere to be found. I guess they hadn't rebuild the index yet even. The design is full of useless borders and cruft which is totally against Google's own minimalist website design philosophy. And everything is freaking huge. I feel like my desktop screen is the size of a phablet. Looks like one of them "mobile optimized" sites. Blech.

They broke the back button

[Snotnose]

No matter where you are on the news page, be it halfway down the News section or halfway down finance, click to read an article, click back to go back, and you're at the top of the main news page.

Not a fan of the new format either, but I usually give myself a week or so to get used to it before voicing an opinion on these things.

Lower information density ...

[BarbaraHudson]

Crap. Really crap. Think I'll stick with Reuters, CBC, and The Guardian - on my phone. It's pretty bad when a phone screen has a higher information density than a full-sized page.

Seems to be getting worse

[JoeCommodore]

Just re-looked at it and noticed when I drag my cursor into a subject frame all the links brighten, very disconcerting.

The other point I would like to point out is the new format removed snippets of the stories from the article blocks so you cant tell whether it really is something you want to read or not. Now (to me) it scans like a wall of clickbait.

Meh.

Re:It sucks

[BarbaraHudson]

The new layout benefits google, not you. By showing only the headline without the first few sentences as a summary, you have to click through to see the article to know if you even give a damn. That increases total ad views.

If you needed a reminder that you're the product, here you go.