As we all understand, the purpose of carousels is to break the monotony and present the Search results in a fast, clear, and easily accessible manner.
Some of the new changes include the addition of a tiny newspaper icon right next to the title of ‘Top Stories.’ This icon is similar to the icon that ‘News’ has, which comes underneath the search bar. However, this icon for ‘Top Stories’ makes it appear more accessible and relatable to the current news in the specified ‘News’ section.
‘Videos’ and ‘Images’ also have their own icon badges now, and they are also similar to the categories or filters underneath the Search bar.
Any news articles that are part of Twitter in the ‘Top Stories’ do not get their specific icon or badge because they belong to Twitter, not Google. This is understandable and does not make much difference anyway, because then Google will have to assign badges for other tech companies that appear in the search results.
Another tweak that Google has now made is the addition of a ‘View all’ button underneath the ‘Top Stories’ carousel. Previously, there used to be an arrow that pointed towards ‘More’ stories, and it used to be in the bottom left corner. The arrow used to point towards the right-hand side, urging the users to swipe towards the right direction to see more Top Stories.
This used to be quite unimpressive and not so useful either. Now, the ‘View all’ button serves a more generic purpose and since it is centrally located, it somehow makes it all more accessible, and easier on the eyes.
Google has added a line divider too there, with the View all button. And it increases the chances of people tapping into the options and buttons more. This is how Google has made its Search results web page more visually appealing and definitely more accessible. Google has made the titles slightly larger than before too, and this is good enough to catch users’ attention.
Similarly, Google is also testing a single mobile-inspired layout for searches where no sidebar (AKA knowledge panel) will be presented separately in the search result pages.
An important point to note is that these tweaks have been made to Google Search desktop web page only, and there are no changes in the mobile search interface as yet.