My friend Ty pointed out to me today that Google has changed the interface of
Google Images, and not necessarily for the better. While the old results display for Google Images searches showed a thumbnail of each image along with the host's domain name, the image's dimensions, and a short description (taken from the image's context on the site). Now Google Images only shows the short description unless you move your mouse over one of the thumbnails. For me, this makes the service significantly less intuitive. If I'm looking for, say, a logo that's a certain size, I want to be able to see each image's dimensions at a glance, but with the new interface I have to roll my mouse over each and every one until I find one that's the right size. Similarly, being able to see the hosts of all of the images was handy, especially if you noticed that many of them are served by the same host. But now it's like a puzzle, moving your mouse around until you find what you're looking for.
I'm not sure if this new interface is showing up for all users, as Google is in the habit of testing new interfaces on a small cross section of users, but either way I hope this is an interface change they reconsider. What do you think of the update?
Tags: google, google images, GoogleImages, image search, images, ImageSearch, interface, update
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Comments
28
Subscribe to commentspadiegJan 25th 2007 8:16AM
I noticed it yesterday, and i'm living in Argentinta. I first thought there was something wrong with Firefox, but as it kept on doing the same thing I finally realized they changed the interface. And i hate it for the same reasons you wrote up there, as I'm always looking for logos and need images of reasonable sizes.
Matt FletcherJan 26th 2007 11:33AM
Eurgh! Fugly!
barkJan 27th 2007 12:40AM
yeah, this is a real blunder on googles part
JingJan 27th 2007 1:23PM
It is awful. Im in the UK and what idiot at google thought this was a good idea?
It doesn't even speed up the displaying of images!
Well, if you want me to use Yahoo; Google, fine I will. Your loss. Until you get images exactly how it was, Im not coming back.
Will email them, and tell them how stupid they are. If they dont change it back, seems like Im going Yahoo!, at least they know what their customers want.
PerttuJan 31st 2007 8:45AM
This is truly a horrible change.
Thanks to the one who suggested disabling javascript. Fortunately Opera let's me do this quite easily for just one site (right click / edit site preferences / disable javascript). Now I'm back to a working version of Google Images.
Hamman SamuelFeb 13th 2007 4:36AM
That looks a lot like MSN image results! See! Microsoft can also come up with copyable ideas!
PavlovFeb 16th 2007 3:44AM
Let Google know how much the 'new, improved' Image Search Results are not appreciated here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help-Content/browse_thread/thread/2f99ab92c527f8ad/#
P
webfingersMar 13th 2007 10:10AM
This was a knee-jerk reaction to Windows Live image search -- which I also think sucks monkey butts. The whole "endless scroll" idea seems to have merit, but the display loses the "oomf" that ye olde Google Image search had. My 2,000 yen...