The next stage in our redesign
Six months ago we started rolling out a new look and feel for Search, News, Maps, Translate, Gmail and a bunch of other products. Our goal was to create a beautifully simple and intuitive user experience across Google. — We're now ready for the next stage …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google began extending a common visual language across Search, News, Maps, Translate and Gmail in June 2011, building on earlier Search-interface changes. The November Gmail refresh shows that the effort was reaching individual products as well as Google’s core search surfaces.
The next phase makes the redesign a company-wide product-coordination effort rather than a one-off facelift: Google is seeking a simpler, more consistent experience across services people use for different tasks.
First-order effects
- Users of Google’s Search, News, Maps, Translate and Gmail products encounter more closely aligned interface conventions as the redesigned experience expands.
- Google’s product teams must apply the shared design direction across distinct services, reducing room for each product to present an entirely separate visual identity.
Second-order effects
- A common interface lowers the friction of moving between Google services, making the company’s product portfolio feel more like a connected suite rather than isolated tools.
- Design and engineering work can be reused across Google products when navigation and interaction patterns are standardized, concentrating more product decisions around shared conventions.
Third-order effects
- If Google maintains the rollout, interface design becomes a platform layer: changes to the company’s visual system can shape how users experience Search, Maps and Gmail together.
- The move points toward competition among web-service providers on ecosystem coherence as well as the features of individual products.
The trend: Google is treating design consistency across its services as a product-platform strategy, tying disparate applications together through a shared user experience.