Google Black Bar- Opinions?

[Simon_Jester]

So, Google decided that what their front page was missing was... a black bar at the top of the screen! I'm not entirely clear on what the point of suddenly adding the black stripe is myself, and I'd like to hear what people think about it from a source that is at least vaguely random-ish.

Is this better than the old blue-on-white color scheme? Worse? Don't-give-a-shit?

[Shroom Man 777]

Don't leik.

[Guardsman Bass]

It definitely draws my attention every time, but I like it.

[Formless]

The page looked cleaner before they messed with the toolbar.

[Simon_Jester]

I encourage anyone with an opinion to vote in the poll; that's kind of the point.

[evilsoup]

Kill it with fire.

[Narkis]

Why did they change it? Why?

[evilsoup]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_coke

[Akhlut]

I prefered having it white with blue font. It was unobtrusive, but easy to find if I needed it (seldom did anyway). Now it's this huge, garish thing showing me information I already know about.

[Dave]

I liked it, it matched my browser theme quite well. I've been moving to darker colors on my computers lately, it ends up with less stress on the eyes (especially when firing up the netbook at night; going from fairly dark room to backlit white has predictable and painful results).

[DaveJB]

It's a pretty minor change, so I don't really care one way or the other. However, I can't help but wonder what Google thought they were achieving - I could at least see the backing logic in their abortive change to photographic backgrounds on the frontpage (even if the results were totally hideous), but this just seems pointless.

[evilsoup]

Oh shit. I think it may have something to do with Google+tm integration.

[HeadCreeps]

It doesn't match the color scheme of the default google front page, but it's not the kind of thing I care about too much. Why did you see this as topic-worthy, simon? You hate it that much?

[evilsoup]

Well, it is pretty damnable. The google page was a masterpiece of simplistic beauty, but it has been disfigured by this base vandalism.

[Simon_Jester]

It doesn't match the color scheme of the default google front page, but it's not the kind of thing I care about too much. Why did you see this as topic-worthy, simon? You hate it that much?

I saw it as topic-worthy because I wanted to know what people thought. And, more to the point, the distribution of what people thought. Hence the poll.

I voted in the poll, of course, but I didn't start the thread to promote my own opinion.

[Agent Sorchus]

I don't see any changes at all. Nothing but normal old Google. Very interesting.
edit: I see it when I go to Maps, but it is odd, since I don't use Google's homepage it shouldn't be in the cache.

[Sarevok]

Well, it is pretty damnable. The google page was a masterpiece of simplistic beauty, but it has been disfigured by this base vandalism.

They started adding crap long before this. The auto search feature that pulls up answers even before you finish is a worse offender.

[evilsoup]

The autosearch is somewhat annoying (slows my shitty desktop down), but at least it doesn't actively offend my eyes.

[HeadCreeps]

It doesn't match the color scheme of the default google front page, but it's not the kind of thing I care about too much. Why did you see this as topic-worthy, simon? You hate it that much?

I saw it as topic-worthy because I wanted to know what people thought. And, more to the point, the distribution of what people thought. Hence the poll.

I voted in the poll, of course, but I didn't start the thread to promote my own opinion.

I won't press it any farther than this, but I was curious about what caused you to want to bring up such a discussion. If you saw it as nothing special, you wouldn't have brought up the topic in the first place. Given what you said in the OP, it's probably correct to assume your opinion was at least somewhat negative. But since you don't want to say for whatever reason, that's that.

And yeah, that bar was already there, evilsoup. They only changed the color. I agree with the idea that google should keep the front page as simple as possible, though, and the color scheme is an important part of google's simplicity.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, it is pretty damnable. The google page was a masterpiece of simplistic beauty, but it has been disfigured by this base vandalism.

They started adding crap long before this. The auto search feature that pulls up answers even before you finish is a worse offender.

You can turn that off, and I have.

I won't press it any farther than this, but I was curious about what caused you to want to bring up such a discussion. If you saw it as nothing special, you wouldn't have brought up the topic in the first place.

It's an anomaly- they changed something that many, many people see every day. Now it looks different. I was wondering what people thought about the change, and I figured a lot of us here would already have seen the bar, and would therefore have an opinion on it, even if the opinion is "I don't care."

What I was really curious to see was how many people would have a positive opinion of it.

Given what you said in the OP, it's probably correct to assume your opinion was at least somewhat negative. But since you don't want to say for whatever reason, that's that.

Nah, I'm willing to say. I just don't think it's important.

I don't like the new color bar. It's distracting. I've also heard people with impaired vision complain that the reduced color contrast makes the bar impossible for them to read.

But that would be beside the point of what I'm asking, really.

[Vendetta]

It's a pretty minor change, so I don't really care one way or the other. However, I can't help but wonder what Google thought they were achieving - I could at least see the backing logic in their abortive change to photographic backgrounds on the frontpage (even if the results were totally hideous), but this just seems pointless.

It draws attention. Most importantly it draws attention to something which is obviously a bunch of controls for the site. I suspect that Google have data about how much people were using the site controls and decided they needed to make them more obvious.

Also, they seem smaller and more compact than previously. I wouldn't be surprised if before too long they can be customised so that it always shows your chosen parts of the Google services network.

[Agent Sorchus]

I can confirm that they are not smaller than previously, at least not significantly. It is just a trick of the color black making itself look bigger.

[KhorneFlakes]

First time I saw it, I felt like going "fdsxyjgfgvuivbjuhuvbuigvyuftdcyivi!".

Yes, I'm serious. I wish google wouldn't change it's setup so often, but I can't do much to change that, can I?

[Havok]

Like it. Looks less... childish, I guess. It's sleek.

[Stark]

Isn't it there because they changed the appearance of the tabs for image/web/etc? I liked the new topbar, it looks much less Tripod webhosting than the blue outline boxes they had before.