Web Development Magazine

Popular sites face upcoming redesigns

Both Google and Facebook are slated for redesigns sometime in the near future (or, in Facebook’s case, a re-redesign). While Google’s redesign may be a bit more minor, it’s still important, considering how popular the search engine is. Facebook’s redesign is much more noticeable, and I quite like it.

Obviously, both websites are used quite a bit, so these redesigns are newsworthy, but how significant are they?
Let’s start off with..

Google

Google’s redesign works on streamlining the search service a bit, and is currently just a test… Nothing’s official, but if it is successful, it is said to be launching shortly after the new year.
It works on putting the links from the top of the page (”Video,” “News,” and a few others, with a “More,” option that reveals “Images,” “Blogs,” and so forth), right on the left sidebar, making it a shorter trek to get to if your mouse is focused on one of the results in your search query.
It’s definitely convenient, and looks quite nice.

After trying it out for a while, it’s definitely grown on me.
Oh — did I forget to mention that? You can try it out now.
While it may change from now until the official launch (if that happens), this will give you a good idea of the new design, and it will give you the functionality early.
To activate it, just go over to Google and put this in the address bar (after backspacing out the URL)

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

After doing this, you will be greeted with a nice Google.com homepage with cool-looking blue buttons, and the new sidebar in your search results.
Click the images below to see them in their full sizes.

Facebook

Facebook, the uber-huge social networking site, is also facing an upcoming redesign.
If you recall, they just recently redesigned their website, and I guess they weren’t satisfied with the results, so after just a little while, they’re coming out with this re-redesign that actually looks pretty sweet.

Unfortunately, unlike the Google redesign, this one is not currently testable to my knowledge, but there are some screenshots floating around (one of which I will show you at the end of this section), and it looks pretty sweet.
Definitely a good overhaul of the site’s design. While I wouldn’t say that I disliked the current design too much, it is a bit bland, and I’ve heard some complainers. Not to mention, a facelift is always nice either way.

It appears that in this redesign, the left sidebar is also a big factor, which looks really nice and has a few new elements (including your own profile image as well as your latest status update) that make the homepage feel “complete.”
Up top, you’ll notice the search bar is in the middle of the screen now, instead of off to the right, with requests and messages and the like pushed to the left and accompanied by some nice looking icons.
The timeline looks more or less the same. No complaints there, however.
Again, click to see it full-size.