Google News Tests New Design

Google News experiments with a lively and visually-rich design that shows images, videos, quotes, but also interesting and popular stories. There's a "featured photo" section that uses images from AFP, The Associated Press, Reuters, marking the first time when Google News promotes stories just because it has the permission to show associated images.

If you are logged in, the new interface personalizes all the sections, not just the front page, and you can switch to the non-personalized version to see the differences.

The homepage shows a list of "developing stories".

The Sci-Tech section, with more photos.

Front-page sections can be minimized and look like iGoogle gadgets.

Google News clusters prominently display the main title.

The footer is more lighthearted. "All the news that's fit to crawl. Auto-generated from over 4500 news sources, void where prohibited."

In June, Google News blog announced the new UI, without getting into details. "Over the course of the next few weeks, you may notice a few changes to Google News... or maybe not. You see, we'll be running some experiments on the look and feel of our site, based on an accumulation of user research and feedback, as well as the evolving state of online journalism."

{ Thnaks, Santosh. }