From the early days of Google+, the black bar at the top has helped users jump between different Google products. Although it provided a lot of functionality, it was quite an eyesore when contrasted with the overall clean, whitespace-filled Google UI. So, keeping in mind all these problems, Google has finally decided to kill it and replace it with a new clean-looking navigation bar. Aptly titled Google Bar, the new menu squeezes the Google Menu, Search, and Google+ tools into the gray strip that houses the Google logo. Not only does this save valuable screen space, it also looks much more uniform as compared to the previous UI.
The Google Bar is a simple gray strip that sits at the top of every Google product page. With the Google logo on the far left, search box in the middle, and Google Plus tools to the right, the bar blends in perfectly with Google’s freshly revamped interfaces. Earlier, with the black strip, users were only able to navigate between a limited number of Google products. If they had to jump to, say YouTube or Google Shopping, they had to click the ‘More’ button at the far right and then select the appropriate option. Google has simplified this problem by squeezing links to all Google products into a nice dropdown menu which opens every time you roll over the Google logo. This new method of navigation makes it easier for users to jump quickly between various Google Products.
Google Plus, like before, sits at the top right corner of the page. Clicking on your photo opens a dropdown menu which lets you manage your account, switch accounts, or sign out of Google services.
These changes come as a part of Google’s new redesign spree. After giving all their core products a revamp, Google has made sure that moving between them is as consistent as possible. Though not a huge change, it’s definitely a welcome one for all the users griping about wasted vertical space. The changes will soon be rolling out to all users. Here’s a link to Google’s official post explaining the changes.
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