The art of the homepage | Hacker News Reader

The art of the homepage

googleblog.blogspot.com

23 pointsadamhowell44 comments

Google just doesn't get visual design right, when it's a bit more than just a plain UI.

Chrome's themes are just ugly: https://tools.google.com/chrome/intl/en/themes/index.html

Such are many of the background pictures Google is providing for the home page. It's sad.

Google has a cult of data that I think is pretty dehumanizing. Perhaps they look ugly because they don't ultimately give a damn about the design -- only that the data told them they are losing market share.

What are you talking about? Those backgrounds are beautiful especially those by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. As for Chrome's themes, they look fine to me.

Google had Bing envy, so through a massive engineering effort and R&D they have managed to reverse engineer and clone Bing's #1 differentiator. Let The Search Engine Wars Begin Anew!

Gruber is that you?

I see no way to have no image background. The "White" editor's choice image doesn't make it look like it used to. Very annoying.

Agreed. Even the White image was buried at the end of the list. I don't see this lasting too long.

Yeah, the white lettering makes it very hard to read.

Why is Google trying so hard to be more like Bing? The backgrounds are just visual noise getting in the way of what I want my search engine to get done for me.

How many of you actually go to the Google homepage to search? With Chrome/Chromium, just type on the address bar; for Firefox have shortcut prefixes. (like "g hacker news" searches for "hacker news".)

i think this is exactly why the change to google.com was made. it only appeals to the people who have set their homepage to google.com.

Ah interesting theory - it's a sort of product segmentation at work. I could buy that.

I use it almost exclusively. I've never liked using the address bar or search bar. It just feels wrong for some reason.

For me it's habit. I click on the address bar, I type "go" and chrome fills in the rest, than I hit enter and do my stuff. It's muscle memory.

I set Duck Duck Go as my primary browser search engine a long time ago but still habitually type "go" and use google. This change should be all I need to remember to type "du" instead of "go".

The link at the bottom left saying "Remove background image" puts it back to normal. Proof: http://skitch.com/petercooper/d8t8h/remove

(Update: Seems this doesn't work for everyone!)

Interesting; it's probably an A/B test, since I'm not given that option. At the bottom left corner, my screen says, "Change background image."

EDIT: Actually, I selected a background, and then I was given the option to "Remove background image." Unfortunately, this just reset my background image to whatever Google had chosen for me.

That doesn't work for me -- just reverts to the default piggybank (?) photo.

If I select a "white" background, it doesn't give the old Google page -- it has translucent text with shadows. Looks super ugly. Very annoying.

Come on Google! People love you for your simplicity. That's one reason you broke away from Yahoo's then-dominance of search/startpages years ago.

hmm. when i go to my local google the remove background image does not work properly. but on google.com it works every time.

I created a 800x600px transparent png, then uploaded that as my background image. Sucks that its necessary but seriously, this is bs.

That's what I've just done too... well, a .gif. The white text of Google now looks terrible.

It's really ugly no matter what now. I don't think I'll be visiting the home page again for a while... might set up one of their custom search boxes on a page of my own so that I can avoid the home page.

For those wondering how to get rid of the background (I sure was) - just

1. Sign in to Google.

2. Click the white "Change Background Image" link in the lower left-hand corner.

3. Select "Editor's Picks."

4. Scroll all the way to the bottom, where a plain white background is available.

(Oddly enough, after being alarmed and even angered by the weird image, I actually found myself really liking a plain grey background.)

Thanks, I didn't notice the link because it was blending in with the background...

Ah - blessed relief. Quoth Google: "Please be assured these images will only be displayed today, and the homepage will return to its regular white background tomorrow."

See the response from one "Paul" (Google Employee) here:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web%20Search/thread?ti...

The first background image I got was absolutely awful. It greatly obscured the actual content of the page, and didn't look very good either. I tried the "Change background image" link, but couldn't actually change it without logging into a Google account. In fact, it was so awful that I left and did my search with Bing.

Trying the homepage again just now I got an image that had a little more contrast with the page content, and looked a little better, but still is not very attractive overall. Most of the sample pictures they list don't look very appealing either.

This is one of the biggest failures I've seen from Google. Marissa, if you're listening, please give us our white background back. I will not be executing any more Google searches with these backgrounds, and choosing my own background on an iGoogle homepage is not an acceptable solution.

In all the time since my first Google search in the late 90s, this is the ONLY thing that has given me sufficient motivation to switch my default search engine away from Google.

Holy cow. No wonder they have trouble retaining visual design talent.

Google must be loosing market share to Bing to behave so panicky. First there is Bing like left column in search result page, and now the background image. Maybe they get sleepless with Bing appearing on iOS devices.

Did anyone else get a default picture of the gulf oil spill?

From what I can tell, yes.

It's just a marsh, dude.

The only site that I've seen really get themes right is WolframAlpha. Their small, tasteful theme gallery (http://www.wolframalpha.com/homesettings.html) is really very well put together.

Why would google do this?

Bing!

Bong!

Heh, I hear ya.

Waiter, there's bing in my google.

The photos they provide are very nice, but as everybody has pointed out, they are pointless.

However, what if the image was dynamically generated, say from news articles/photos or some other dynamic graphic that's related to the user. That's the only use I see.

This was incredibly useless for both google and users.I can't see any point to it.

Why would you do this and not offer 'no background' as an option?

Can I get my minimalist Google back?

How is this news? If it was anyone but Google, nobody would care.

Since Google is the #1 search engine by a extremely wide margin and this change is obviously a response to competition, and the change is poorly implemented, it becomes of interest to the HN crowd. Consider it a water-cooler topic - not earth shattering, but still a way to pass the time.

hate it.

use https://google.com if you don't want the background.

Doesn't work for me. I get the background no matter what. I've tried typing in every permutation. It's like they locked me out of removing the background. Ugh.

Google can shove images up their arse. I don't give a damn. I was keeping them as my browser's home page as long as it was clean. Now I have switched to DDG.

Not that DDG is a bad idea, but that seems pretty rash seeing as they're only doing it for today, and you can opt out of it.

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