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?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
j. adam said 4:55PM on 1-24-2007
weird. that does seem pretty counter-intuitive. i wonder why they think this is an improvement.
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Rick said 3:38PM on 1-24-2007
yeah it changed for me. the new face is much more polished and clean looking but at the expense of functionality to us more acquainted users... i like to know that my search for "fat chicks in party hats" comes from respectable and educational .edu sources, as my company frowns upon fat chicks. or maybe its party hats... either way one more strike from HR and i'll never get my bathroom privileges back...
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rojaro said 3:34PM on 1-24-2007
Really a bad improvement.
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mary said 4:10PM on 1-24-2007
Personally, I like the new uncluttered look. Much cleaner, without the information that I never looked at anyways.
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kingkool68 said 4:33PM on 1-24-2007
Great news! You can restore the old functionality by simply disabling JavaScript.
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Brian said 4:56PM on 1-24-2007
I've got it also here in Central Florida. I don't like it. I don't like having to drag the mouse all over the page to get the information I need. I have to be careful where I leave the mouse on the page so that something I'm not interested in is highlighted.
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mark Bowman said 4:53PM on 1-24-2007
Please complain to Google about this. comments@google.com
In the meantime you can use Yahoo Image search if needed.
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Shibathedog said 6:48PM on 1-24-2007
i noticed this too, it does suck, there was something else i noticed that they changed too, but i cant remember what it was atm, it was really minor compared to this though.
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Brian Peiris said 5:07PM on 1-24-2007
It looks like they're just trying to put as many images in the visible area as possible.
The javascript adds reflow, so that there can be more than 4 images per row (useful for wide screens).
And the mouseover info sometimes overlaps the image below it, so more rows per screen too.
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Kat said 5:10PM on 1-24-2007
Ugh, I hate it for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
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Gil Creque said 5:15PM on 1-24-2007
I just ran into the same issue. I thought I accidentally installed a Greasemonkey script but had my coworkers check their computers. It certainly seems to be a useless update.
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Fabulo said 5:14PM on 1-24-2007
I noticed here yesterday when I cringed at the blue rectangle following the tracking of the mouse. That's counterintuitive and distracting.
Can I be allowed to look where the mouse pointer is not?
Only if you don;t mind that blue box jumping around just at the edge of you field of view.
This one is a winner. Almost as good as the new yahoo tv grid interface.
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01 said 5:32PM on 1-24-2007
wow, that is pretty terrible.... I agree, there are countless reasons to be able to see the dimensions and other info for pics on google image search; for them to remove that will make image searching more annoying than it should be. We've seen what you can do google, why the step backwards?
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Huw said 5:45PM on 1-24-2007
It's here in the UK too. I hate it for all the above reasons. Emailing Google...
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Evan said 5:54PM on 1-24-2007
They've been testing this for a while, I think....
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Keeves said 6:56PM on 1-24-2007
I'm hoping customizegoogle, for firefox, should sort this out soon, and restore the previous functionality (or even better if google put it back to the way it was!!).
Like all the other post i am not liking this new 'feature' one bit.
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mark said 1:00AM on 1-25-2007
i did notice today but i really didn't even think about it till i read this article. it was nice seeing the resolution before so you can pick out nice large pictures. you guys are right. and if one picture on a broken link doesn't work, you don't know how many of the pictures are going to work right away. that is kind of a pain in the arse.
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Ron said 8:16PM on 1-24-2007
You should check out Imagery (http://elzr.com/imagery). It is a wrapper for Google Image Search. It addresses every single issue you just mentioned about the new Google Image Search, and adds some really great functionality on top of it.
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westudi said 9:46PM on 1-24-2007
Yeah, I hate the change.
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Jaya Schillinger said 12:25AM on 1-25-2007
I noticed that today too. My thought was that it was a pain because I couldn't see the image host's website at a glance. When I snag an image, I try to follow copyrright rules, as well as avoid clicking on potentially spammy websites. I totally hate the new mouse-over interface.
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