We first reported on Google’s bucket testing of a new homepage that fades to nothing but its logo and the search box after receiving a tip about it at the beginning of this month. Since then, we’ve been getting more and more incoming tips from people who are starting to see this and haven’t seen our or other reports about the gimmick.
I have yet to see the experimental homepage myself, but judging from our inbox and chatter on Twitter the company does seem to be including more people in the bucket test than was the case a couple of weeks ago. Likely, they need to gain more data from actual usage to decide whether or not it can become a permanent feature or not.
One new change to the fading homepage is the fact that there’s now a short sentence that appears under the search box when the rest of the page fades out. The line, which reads “This space intentionally left blank” was seemingly added because too many unaware users were confused by the fade effect and frantically started disassembling their computers in search of a solution (at least that’s what they do in my imagination). If the point is to remove all extraneous text, adding that message seems like the equivalent of explaining the punchline of a joke. It ruins the effect.
Besides sowing confusion, it is also creating a minor backlash. People who are seeing the fade-out are apparently not big fans of it either. Some choice tweets:
- < google! "this space left intentionally blank"? what is that crap?" > (@adibiase)
- < ..... This space intentionally left blank #google #fail > (@geekant)
- < google is doing strange things right now "this space intentionally left blank" ...odd > (@rpmteacher)
< Am I the only one who sees the "This space left intentionally blank" thing on Google? I think it's creepy. > (@TheJuanReyes)
This is what it looks like now:
And this is the test they ran earlier this month:
This is one of the foolish changes… whoever gave this idea should be fired..
How do they expect new users to search through Google if it’s like this…???
New users would be always looking for buttons to click rather than any other thing
They’re probably trying to get people to use the auto-complete feature more and more, so that keywords are more specific to what the user is actually trying to search for.
Sometimes when you’re searching the web, you aren’t necessarily sure what exactly it is you’re looking for, and the auto-complete feature could help many users actual think out their search queries before performing a search, saving them time to find what they’re really looking for, faster.
Not a bad idea when you think about it.
How does links that fade in a little later (rather than instantly appear) make people use the auto-suggest tool more?
There seems to be many variations of the test.
I love the “load-search-box-first” version. It actually accepts my keystrokes earlier, rather than having to wait for the whole page to finish loading.
lol how slow is your connection that you have to wait for google.com to load?
If one searches for a button one will definitely move the mouse (showing the rest of the UI)
I am guessing you believe in design by committee versus by facts. Could this be a stupid change, one person might say yes while another says no. The only way to know is to test it and even the smallest effect that this change has can easily account for millions of dollars in or out of their pocket. Just like how testing hundreds of different shades of blue brought in sizable amount of extra revenue for them.
Any scoop on the effect of this UI change to any of the relevant metrics?
*That* is the interesting part!
Yeah I’m curious. I’d expect less searches since that is pretty confusing to have no button… Makes the page look broken for sure.
Yeah I’m curious why no one ever realized that your site and fake Twitter is Fling spam.
damn, was this a feature? I was doing ctrl+R multiple times to load the page.
To me, it would look like my internet or website is not working for some reason – because I expect to see a button or some links.
Not seeing anything and refreshing would look like there is a bug. It would cause me to go to bing.com or elsewhere to perform a search.
I agree – a boneheaded idea.
how do i get rid of this crap and revert to the old google page?
following your suggestion here, i did it, and now i want to undo it; my google access evelny divide maps, images, gmail and web search, and i find it just a bit too annoying to have to move the mouse first to see where i have to move the mouse later to go to appropriate service
When I visit Google, it shows the minimalist home page as above but the text below the search box reads “Press enter to search.” instead of “This space intentionally left blank”. Seems a little better to me.
Props to GOOG for their overtures in bringing the enter key back.
Usability fail when you have to explain to people explicitly what to do on a single textfield search.
I prefer old GUI, At least they would have given search button.
Is this for all of the users too stupid to find the browser search bar? Who uses the Google home page, and why?
Personally I think the reason they’re rolling it out is the bring peoples attention to the different searches available. Most people are completely oblivious to them.
Ant
Seems pretty cool to me… I have hit enter to search for the last 10 years anyway… seems intuitive
This feature is awesome. I noticed it when I installed Chrome in my macbook. You only see a simple and minimalistic google page with a text telling you what you have to do to search something (for newbies), but if you move your mouse you get the old version, so nothing changed. It´s only a good improve.
Why would you actually go to google.com when there’s a search box in every major browser?
Why not use AAfter search ? They still have buttons..
I find it interesting that Google is testing this feature out, especially after recently filing for their search box and two button patent.
For me it lasted about two weeks; now gone. This was not a fade into the back ground just a plain page with the search box and Google.
Wait 5 seconds and all the usual links came back.
jb.
Doesn’t anyone see the joke in this? Remember the times of paper manuals for gadgets – especially the poorly translated korean and taiwanese ones for things like motherboards – used to have a lot of these empty pages, with the text “This page intentionally left blank”. I think it’s hilarious, and noone seems to be getting it
I experienced the fading screen a couple weeks ago, but not since then.
I didn’t really see any use for it. When the page first loaded, everything was indeed faded. But as soon as you move your mouse you can see everything again. I’d say that the majority of people move their mouse before they type their search, even if the search box is already selected.
I think the fade in/out is more of a distraction than anything.
Maybe if they made it an opt-in, people would have a better experience.
Personally, I like the minimalism of it.
Its been happening to me all day at work but only when I go to gooogle.co.uk and I was using ie.
What about replacing “This space intentionally left blank.” with, “Type in your terms.” ?
We use “intentionally left blank” pages all the time in our manuals.
Someone even made a web site about it ( http://www.this...left-blank.org/ )
I like the nod to print media.
I, too, see that page with the “This space intentionally left blank.” message, however as soon as I move my mouse the normal Google home page fades in. I found it interesting that the text is still there for you to copy and paste, but it can’t be seen.
When I load google, I get the fade-in version without the “intentionally left blank” joke. And I like it, by the way.
Who really cares what they put on there. I don’t recall the last time I actually went to the real Google home page anyway?
You’re alone on that one bud.
It happens to me, but I dont get why. It’s blank but as soon as you move your mouse over the page, everything fades in…. So, why does it need to be blank in the first place?
Wow, what a bunch of luddite crybabies.
That said, there should be an easily identifiable link/button to prevent this from being a default for said luddite crybabies…
I didn’t see it for myself, but I guess they could do this for performance reasons – logo and search field come up instantly and cached while the rest is downloaded and shows up later as secondary interface which user can wait for longer.
The cache thing is the only reason for doing it that makes sense. Unless it was one of those brilliant moments of useless UI changes (i.e. “It’d be cool if it faded, let’s try it!”
I have the fade out version but instead of “This space intentionally left blank.” there is a text that say “Press enter to search”. This is with Chrome. In Safari I have the normal version of google’s webpage.
Why not put instructions on how to use the page e.g. “type what do you want to search and press ENTER” instead of “page left intentionally blank”
i like it. i was calling pointless bs before and i just wanted it to be a little bit cleaner or have the option to have no buttons as a setting or pick with buttons as a setting but i can’t. after a couple of seconds the usual homepage times in. i like the minimalism of it all except that the links at the top are gone so for instance i had to just google gmail to get to my gmail (which is really pointless especially on the google homepage. it’s not like i’m searching for hotmail which i usually do instead of typing into the browser bar. i usually don’t have to google gmail because the link is at the top). hmm what else. oh it’s been there since last night/this morning and i hope they keep it that way but fix it so people can choose what they like. they’ve also done it so that here, because i don’t always go to google.com where a search site is already linked within the search box list that pops up/drops down, we can finally just get that feature/get to our search results directly from the search box instead of going to the results page. i like it that way. noticed it’s been on the .com version for a while now but not for us.
This happened to me like a week ago, I though it was a problem with my Chrome.
I restarted my pc, but nothing happened. I then cleared everything (cache, history, etc), and then Google was back to normal.
It was not fun at all, no search buttons at all in my case.
If you have to explain to users why a page is so simple then maybe it’s too simple.
I’ve had it happen to me about 3 times upon visiting Google over the past few weeks.
I didn’t know why it wouldn’t always do it though, but this explains alot.
i haven’t used my mouse to click the search button in years, if ever. it’s my old school dos roots that have me hitting enter.
i’m all for increasing the gap between savvy users and, well, idiots who get confused at something this simple and basic. come on folks.
Robin,
Could the reason for this blank page be that Google is “loosing” millions in ad revenue for all of the people who hit “I’m Feeling Lucky”, never see the paid-for suggested links and therefor don’t click them?
Try google.co.nz – starts faded with the intentionally blank message, then fades in on a mouse move and has no search/lucky buttons.
Opinion: meh. I do all my searching from the browser search box…
This reminds one of the satirical entry in The Onion on the Apple Wheel: a product with such stripped-down funcionality that the resulting zen-like simplicity becomes esthetically perfect but functionally useless.
The only people who seem to think Google’s minimalist look is valuable certain Google designers.
Yes, simplicity is always good, but a perfect product balances simplicity with useful features. Going too far in either direction (too cluttered with features or too sparse) is damaging to the user experience. This is taking simplicity too far.
http://www.amusis.com
It is annoying. They are just trying to creat buzz
I have got it and hate it. If Google wants us to centralize more than just websearches to their domain, like mail and docs, which I use a lot, then the extra 3 secs it takes to get the login buttons sucks. It also defeats the Google OS expansion plan as those only using the search function will never be enticed to explore Google “more”
Fire the team responsible for this Halloween idea.
Google isn’t just about searching. People go to the Google home page instead of using the search bar when they want to use other services. I went there to use the language tools, and after clicking my Google link I quickly moved the mouse to where language tools should be and stopped moving it. The page loaded with the ‘left blank’ text and I spent the next 15 seconds sitting there wondering what was wrong. Only when my hand knocked the mouse by accident did it fade to normal. I’m stunned by the stupidity of this change. Haven’t Google got anything better to do than waste their time like this?
I think the experiment itself was fine, the problem was during the first few days after the change;
By using google seach to figure out why they had that intentionally blank message and getting crapware and spyware links for the first few results..
It annoys the crap out of me – I have Google as my homepage and use it to jump to Gmail, Maps, Images, etc. So now there’s an obstacle in the way before I can get where I’m going.
Google, at least let us turn the stupid thing off.
Must admit I was so gullible that I fell for this sort of trick. I noticed that phrase, googled it and hit the first search result which turned out to be seeded with malicious scareware. My screen was soon taken hold by pages of nasty virus alerts. The scene was depressing as I frantically closed down all the windows. Then checked the threat logs, popped on a full computer scan … D’oh
Perhaps it’s just a pratcial joke and I have my own foolishness to blame. But my confidence in Google indeed drops.
It’s okay. They are just testing. And people who read techcrunch just account for a small part of all Internet users, not to mention languages and areas.
Google can’t please everyone. Just think there are anti-google groups.
I do not like it, I say if this is the route that Google wants to go, they should at least give an option to turn it off.
I vote to go back to the old homepage. This fade thing is real annoying.
Just clear your cookies and cache and it goes away. You have to sign in again so make sure you know your password.
http://thesim.w...issing-buttons/
Just delete your cookies and cache and it goes away. Make sure you know your password because you have to sign in again.
http://thesim.w...issing-buttons/
I have to wonder what they were thinking. I’m with those that say this is really annoying. I hope they don’t make it permanent.
Thanks Mark, I’ll try that.
I actually liked the version that they tried at first. Even though both versions of the “blank page” are annoying to me in some ways, the second version having the caption “This space intentionally left blank” just ruins the whole spontaneity of it.