Google, Why Am I Playing Whack-A-Mole In Search?

Google, Why Am I Playing Whack-A-Mole In Search?

Consider this a rant piece by me – and a demonstration of how UI/UX designers should NOT do when designing interfaces. Unless their aim is to purposefully slowing down users from utilizing their muscle memory, as this case demonstrates.

As a writer and editor, naturally we search lots of things as we write. Product images, information, what-have-you. Naturally, Google search comes to mind – there’s a reason “Googling” is a word in Oxford Dictionary but not necessarily “Bing-ing”. (‘Binging’ is a word, but definitely not originated from Microsoft’s search engine.)

One day as I was searching for images, I accidentally clicked on ‘Shopping’ section despite the fact I was sure I move my mouse on the second button from the left – where you’d expect ‘Images’ to be. I scanned through the entire line of buttons, and found the ‘Images’ button was placed randomly in a place further down the line. It happened relatively recently, I’d say probably within this month (June 2023 in case you came from the future). For context, here’s how the search UI looked like, before the redesign:

And this is what happened after the redesign:

The biggest difference visually is the lack of icons and text are now essentially “bubbles” with rounded rectangles, which is all the rage in recent UI designs in literally everything – Windows, Android (Apple is the exception, since they embraced this design language a long time ago before it got wildly popular), or even more obscure platforms that isn’t necessarily an operating system. All took the edges off, increase white spaces and generally makes buttons larger than they are – something that irks me as a PC-first user. But that’s another topic, perhaps for another day.

And to be fair – Google already do shuffle the buttons around depending on what you search for. The old version sometimes puts the ‘News’ first before ‘Images’, but that’s largely about it – the entire line is still a very simple navigation of which category you want to search the term under, and at most you have five main sections to contend with, accompanied by respective icons so you don’t easily get confused.

However, the crucial difference in the new version is the inclusion of other suggested results. So now what we’ve ended up with is a rojak mix of search filters and suggested results, all placed in a way that buttons can literally jump across the page and you’ll most likely have to take a few extra seconds to scan through 9 buttons, then pick the one you actually want to go. Here’s another comparison between two search entries:

Notice any difference again? (Hint: look for ‘Videos’.)

So now what Google is effectively telling me, is to use my mouse as an imaginative mallet trying to Whack-A-Mole my way into the section I intend to go. Why? In any case, it looks like Google decided to prioritize suggestions more than sections, which is now relegated into this rather invisible menu sitting in the far right corner of the page.

I tried to find if there’s any mentions of updates from Google’s blog, but I can’t seem to find anything about it – nor has anyone ever reported on Google having a design update on their Search. Could it be a beta testing that I somehow ended up in? That’s unlikely, since there’s absolutely no mentions of me being enrolled in a beta program (I tested this on a incognito session just to be sure).

As no explanation exist, I’m in a bit of uncharted waters here. So I head into whatever settings page available to see if there’s a switch to turn off what looks to me is essentially just another form of suggested-content shenanigans that companies love to push for more ‘engagements’. Nope – that doesn’t exist either.

So at this point I’ll have to make some educated guesses as to why Google made this change. It’s probably in the lines of “tailored experience” which, to be fair, is a completely valid point. However, I find this feature – or at least the current implementation – rather redundant, and here’s an example with the term “Malaysia”:

“Time”, “Religion”, “Malaysia Airlines” and “Currency”. Things that travelers usually search for when they’re looking up information for a country. But Google, your search box is literally up there! See what happens when I click on it!

Take this as a power user’s perspective – I find this new feature rather redundant for one, and more often than not it gets in the way of me trying to do my job quickly and efficiently. I can’t speak for most people who might not even care, since it’s just one extra second, one extra click after all. Here’s a suggestion if you’re listening Google – how about, making search suggestions and search categories separate? You know, like it always has been?

In any case, I’d like to hear your comments. Do you like this change?