Google News revamps its revamped design
Late last month, Google News launched a redesign of its site. The basic idea was to make the news platform — and the news itself — more easily customizable for users: Google added a “news for you” section (a personally tailored headline stream), and the ability to indicate preferred news sources “to give you more control over the news that you see.”
In theory, the changes were useful: a way to empower users to personalize their news experience while — through the platform’s Spotlight and Top Stories sections — still preserving a bit of serendipity. In practice, though…it was a different story. At least on our site, users’ reactions to the redesign were rather negative pretty scathing. Some of the feedback we received on our post:
It sucks. I used to have customized sections, with a specific layout and number of news items in each section.
The new layout throws everything up in random order, in one very very long column, without any sections.And it forces me to read a very very very long list of Spotlight items that don’t interest me. I can’t seem to change the number of items in Spotlight, nor the location of it (very prominent on the right hand side column).
I hate the new Google News. I really really really hate it.
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I hate it too. Google, please put it back the way it was!
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I also do not like the new layout. I like being able to scan various topics and not have my sports, world news, tech, medical, EVERYTHING mixed in together. Sometimes I feel like looking at the top entertainment stories first, sometimes I want to look at medical news first. Everything now is just jumbled together and I am suddenly forced to read headlines that maybe I am not all that interested in this moment in time.
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The new format is terrible. Where to start: Way too busy, can’t find anyting, visually unappealing.
Yuck! bring back the old one, I am already looking for alternatives![...]
I have had to find new source for my news because:
*1* The new page is a jumble of information, it’s impossible to find anything.
*2* My carefully constructed page disappeared overnight replaced by this jumble.
*3* Personalization results in stories from Los Angeles being featured even though LA is over 700 miles from where I live and has no relevance to us here at all.
*4* I could care less about sports, but the World Cup dominated the page for days.
Watch my stats, google. I’m done with your jumbled-up mess of what was the best news aggragator in the world. So, from the comments above, are many other of your loyal followers and we’re only the ones who care enough to try to stop your leap off the cliff.
There’s much more in that vein. And while our commenters, in number, don’t make for a scientific sample, it seems that those who shared reactions weren’t alone in their dislike of Google News’ new interface. Last night, in a blog post titled “Google changes reflect your feedback,” Google News product manager Chris Beckmann announced the rollout of updates in the platform’s appearance and, therefore, its usability. While pointing out that “hundreds of thousands of you have already customized your Google News homepages,” Beckmann also noted that “some of you wrote in to say you missed certain aspects of the previous design, such as the ability to see results grouped by section (U.S., Business, etc.) in two columns.”
At Google, we’re all about launching and iterating, so we’ve been making improvements to the design in response to your feedback. For example, we’re now showing the entire cluster of articles for each story, rather than expanding the cluster when you hover your mouse over it. We’ve given you the ability to hide the weather forecast from your local news section. We made the option to switch between List view and Section view more obvious. And today we’re adding a third option in “News for you”: Two-column view, which shows the three top stories from each section…
Here’s what it looks like:
The changes, in all, are fairly minor; the average user, having not read Beckmann’s post, might not even notice the updates. (Since, when it comes to online interfaces, users tend to like things the way they’re used to, that’s a smart way to roll out changes: incrementally and, for the most part, unobtrusively.) But the subtle revamp indicates Google’s willingness — a willingness that’s part of its organizational DNA — to tweak its news platform according to the feedback it receives. Guiding users while also being receptive to them: seems a pretty good balance to me.
Megan Garber | July 16 | 2:35 p.m.
Tags: aggregation, aggregators, comments, customization, customized news, Google, Google News
It hasn’t changed on my page and I still hate it. I’m just not using the service at this point.
Ok, the redesign of the redesign is more a matter of putting lipstick on a pig. It still fails the most basic of user-experience principles .. usability and friendliness. The redesigned pig fails unless one actually signs in. The default version is hard on the eyes and the thought that news is customized goes against the grain of those who want to be exposed to a variety of topics. What interests me one day may not interest me tomorrow. The redesign does not interest me today. Yes, Google has provided a two column option but it’s really 3 columns and more of a child saying, “Here’s two columns already! So what if it’s all squished. Don’t you like our 3rd column? “
Oh, one unhappy user decided to take the bull by it’s horns and just make his own news aggregator. A work in progress that appears to pick up on the values that Google left behind. http://breakingnewsfeeds.com … Not quite pretty yet but it’s functional. In fact it now sits on my bookmark bar where Google News no longer is. During the two week process of Google deciding to introduce two columns (ahem 3 columns) and a well positioned design team putting something together, one smart guy puts together a real solution based on the genes that Google’s DNA originally put out before the horrible mutation accident of 2010.
I hated the change myself. I think they were imitating Bing’s news, which was a long list, and which Bing recently changed (after Google imitated) to Google’s old format. too funny. Now google changes it back, kinda.
Yes, it hasn’t changed on my site…I wrote them a scathing email and I hope they change but for now I am with Yahoo News which is 100 times better than the piece of s–t that Google news just redesigned. That boss should be fired at Google who oversaw this design!
teaneedz has it right. They didn’t really address the issues, though some people are swallowing the spin.
My guess is that Google is intentionally forcing users to do more clicking and mousing (and do so while logged in). With the old format, Google couldn’t monitor how we read news, because we did it by moving our eyes, and they can’t capture that. They can capture the clicks and scrolling. The extra value per user might easily compensate for any drop they might see in market share.
This is how many businesses operate. Print magazines once put their whole index on Page 1. Then they realized they could force users to view more ads if they scattered their index across pages 4 through 10. Some of them probably touted their new design as better for readers while at the same time selling more ads on the front pages at higher prices. Some may have lost some frustrated and longtime readers, yet come out ahead (from a business perspective).
Your screenshot is inaccurate. It does not show that what really happens is that we get two columns crammed in the space of one, while the useless third column remains. True “personalization” would involve the option to eliminate the third column and it’s useless spotlight and flip sections. However, personalization no longer truly exists on Google News and this silly two-column view is merely a childish reaction to honest user objections. In other words, it’s “evil.”
Garber, grow up and admit you were wrong in the first place about how great the redesign was instead of still spinning with:
“But the subtle revamp indicates Google’s willingness — a willingness that’s part of its organizational DNA — to tweak its news platform according to the feedback it receives. Guiding users while also being receptive to them: seems a pretty good balance to me.”
Balderdash! Google’s lost whatever “do no evil” DNA it ever had. They tested this redesign, found it universally panned as a bad idea, and forced on the user community anyway!
You’re supposed to be a professional communicator. Please explain how New Google News does a better job of communicating than the old version – because with three decades in the business, I certainly do not see it.
G-News now is like trying to find information in an old Gopher site.
Why is google trying to drive off customers?
Why are they trying to force us to read sports and crap that we do not want to see?
It looks like they are trying to program for tiney phones and are ignoring the computer users.
Perhaps this new page was built for android users.
Did they really change anything? :-O
Still looks like crap to me. I’m surprised Google didn’t just change it back considering the amount of complaints they have on their blog.
Tweaking a platform in response to user feedback is a good idea IF AND ONLY IF a tweak is all it needs. The new design needs a complete overhaul (ideally back to the old design).
They ran a big experiment, force feeding the redesign to a randomly-selected group of very unlucky people who provided plentiful feedback. All of which was clearly ignored, because it’s the same feedback they’re getting now.
Google’s design process is as broken as BP’s safety engineering process (see the record fine from OSHA the other day?), and the idea that Google is really “being receptive of” users strikes me as contrary to the evidence.
Shuffling deck chairs won’t keep us dry, and minor tweaks won’t convert me back to a Google News user, despite the fact that I used the page dozens of times a day before the redesign.
For now, I’ll just have to stick with breakingnewsfeeds.com