Google News is backtracking ever-so-slightly on its big redesign, which aimed to allow for more customization ― but seemed to take away some of the customization readers liked. In a blog post Thursday night, Google said some people wrote in to say they missed the organization of the old Google News design, and so the site made a few tweaks.
One of the biggest complaints of the redesign was that the news was harder to scan. For instance, many readers valued viewing many sections at once in a few customizable columns (more of a dashboard option), rather than the redesigned stream of news in one customizable column.
Chris Beckmann, a Google product manager, wrote: "The positive usage data we saw during our months-long tests of the redesign has continued since we introduced it to all users of the U.S. English edition, and hundreds of thousands of you have already customized your Google News home pages. But 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."
Google's minor changes allow users more section views, but don't entirely go back to the original organization.
For instance, the new News for You section, which enables users to personalize the types of news they want to read, is now available in two-column view. Google is also giving users the ability to hide the weather forecast from their local news station; making the option to switch between List view and Section view more obvious; and showing the entire cluster of articles for each story, rather than expanding the cluster when you hover your mouse over it.
Will Google News' goals work?
Google noted that the redesign, its largest undertaking since Google News launched in beta back in 2002, aimed to provide “enhanced customization, discovery and sharing.”
In a recent interview, Google News' Josh Cohen explained how some of the more customizable features could benefit publishers, allowing their content to be more accessible beyond the algorithm and bringing back some of the newspaper-like serendipity. For instance, the Spotlight feature highlights more evergreen content and the Fast Flip gives users the option to browse the news.
It doesn't seem that Google News' redesign of the redesign reneges on its promises, as the customizable features still exist. But the serendipity initiative might have missed the mark; many readers prefer the serendipity of scannable news to a stream of news.
In a way, Google News' redesign made the site look more like a newspaper on the Web. The latest changes bring back more of the previous design's packaging, allowing for more of an un-newspaper-like news dashboard. “The reaction to the new layout may signal a preference for dashboards over river of news views,” ReadWriteWeb put it.
Google News' changes are a good example of the difficult balance between being innovative and giving users what they can expect. Google thought they were allowing for more customization, but soon learned that they took away some of the customization users preferred.
At least Google is willing to make changes to their changes (although the changes won't satisfy all the critics of the redesign). As Google said in the blog post: “Please keep letting us know what you think, and we’ll keep working to make Google News even better.”
