Comments on: Fading navigation on the Google homepage

By: A summary of posts 6 to 10 » paul olyslager

A summary of posts 6 to 10 » paul olyslager — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:34:29 +0000

[...] In this article I’ll show you some of the most common solutions to reduce comment spam.8. Fading navigation on the Google homepage As you may well be aware of, testing and optimizing your webpages is incredibly important to ensure [...]

By: Google Introduces Instant Previews in your Search Results - paul olyslager

Google Introduces Instant Previews in your Search Results - paul olyslager — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:46:26 +0000

[...] by now that Google is continuously trying to optimize the usability of their search engine (e.g. Fading Navigation on the Google Homepage and Google Instant) and this latest implementation, called Instant Preview is no [...]

By: Paul Olyslager

Paul Olyslager — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 10:23:21 +0000

@Barbara: Hi Barbara, thanks for the reply. It seems that your opinion is shared with a lots of other users. A while ago Google made the navigation static again, so no more animations.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:40:45 +0000

I hate the fading menu bar. It’s animation for aninmation sake and adds no value. For workaday websites, make the functionality visible, for heaven sake. It’s not a game, and just wastes my time.

By: User testing and thirteen ways of selling a book - paul olyslager

User testing and thirteen ways of selling a book - paul olyslager — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:46:13 +0000

[...] that doesn’t mean you should stop testing once the website goes online. I wrote an article (Fading navigation on the Google homepage) about this before, using the Google homepage as an example. Google is constantly testing the [...]

By: favSHARE

favSHARE — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:41:15 +0000

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By: Paul Olyslager

Paul Olyslager — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:29:52 +0000

@Nitzan: Thanks for the comment Nitzan. If you read the Google Blog you'll find that this wasn't Google's intention. But you do bring up a interesting point though, the fade-in could have the opposite effect of what they wanted to achieve. The only way to find out is by conducting eye-tracking studies. My guess would be that the fade-in is rather easy on the eye (in comparison with blinking) and therefore the attention is reduced to a minimum. I would love to see some results of this.

By: Nitzan

Nitzan — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:42:57 +0000

Here’s another view of this change.
Since animation (fading, blinking, whatever) tends to grab the user’s attention, maybe Google just wanted to make people more aware of the other options (???)

Any thoughts?

By: DubCat

DubCat — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 06:44:46 +0000

@Melroy Antoine van den Berg: I also heartily dislike it. I frequenty use search for pictures or maps, and this constant fading is terribly irritating.

By: Melroy van den Berg

Melroy van den Berg — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:21:20 +0000

@Paul Olyslager: Thanks for your reply, its right I post it also on the other blog, so the disscusion would be bigger. Haha