The Transformation of Google

Google and its iconic colorful logo is the zeitgeist of the digital era. From being just a search engine to being recognized as a legitimate verb to shaping the modern culture, Google has become a very important part of our lives. Google’s has been transforming since 1998 and has never stopped improving its interface. Now, Google is becoming more omniscient and it’s transforming our lifestyle by changing the way we acquire information. Today, “Google” becomes the answer to every question we have.

Google.com was registered as a domain in 1997. Google was a play on the word “googol” which means 10 raised to the power of 100 and it implied Larry and Sergey’s mission to create a web that contains infinite amount of information.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 1 and 2 show how Google looked like back in 1998. Compared to the Google we know now, there were more words on the web page and it felt more cluttered. Also, Google had an exclamation mark and was only available for Stanford and Linux searches back then. Notice that in Figure 1 and 2, there are subscription boxes for users to type in the email to get the monthly updates. Besides, there is a hypertext “About Google!” in Figure 1 to explain what Google is all about and users could choose the numbers of results they desired. In Figure 2, Google is in its Beta version and turquoise blocks are added to the bottom to separate the search bar and the other features.

Figure 3

In the year 2000, Google got rid of the gray stripes in the background and the turquoise blocks on the bottom to create a cleaner look. In Figure 3, Google now has the “Advanced Search” feature and the “Preferences” feature beside the search bar to customize the search results according to the user’s preference. Besides, AdWords was launch in 2000 and it was featured on Google and Google also started to offer advertising opportunity as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 4

Figure 5

From Figure 4 and 5, we can see that Google changes its layout by adding tabs above the search bar. The search function is now more classified; results can be in the forms of web, image, groups, directory or news. Also, a birthday doodle is incorporated in the logo to celebrate Google’s 4th birthday as seen in Figure 5. Beside the search bar, the “Language Tool” feature is now added for a more personalized search function.

Figure 6

Figure 7

The search result categories have transformed from tabs to hypertexts and more categories are added such as the “Froogle” and “Local” within 2 years.

Figure 8

Figure 9

Figure 10

In conjunction with special occasions such as the Thanksgiving and Christmas, Google adds doodles to its logo to act as an interaction to the user and to appear more user-friendly.

Figure 11

Figure 12

As shown in Figure 11, the search categories have been shifted to the upper left hand corner and users can sign in to Gmail on the upper right hand corner. Besides, Google has trademarked its logo and these changes were made in 2008. In the year 2009, the web page remained almost the same but the “Video” category and “Search Setting” feature were added as shown in Figure 12. Apart from that, the search bar is now longer and wider compared to the one in Figure 11 and it has a light blue border to make it more prominent from the white background.

Figure 13

After a year, slight changes were made to the website. Google took away the trademark and the search bar border reverted to gray color and the buttons below the search bar were made bigger with gray background.

Figure 14

In Figure 14, Google uses a blue arrow to draw its user’s attention to inform them about the shifting of the search result categories to the upper right hand side. By getting rid of the menu items above the search bar, it makes the web page look neater.

Figure 15

Figure 16

Here, it is obvious that Google has painted its menu bar black so that it stands out. Compare Figure 15 and 16, Google changed its “Web” category to “Search” to avoid confusion.

Figure 17

From 2011 onwards, the doodles used by Google are more elaborated and more interactive.

Figure 18

In Figure 18, the description of the doodle appears as the arrow hovers over it.

Figure 19

Figure 20

The doodles shown in Figure 19 and 20 are animated doodles. Google has improved so much on the doodle designs but it keeps the search function simple and neat and focuses the attention on its Google themed doodles. The doodle does not only entertain the users, it also helps in brand recognition and recall not to mention it encourages user interaction with the site. Also, we can see that Google keeps adding and changing its menu bar by adding words like “YouTube”, “Drive and “Documents”.

Figure 21

Today, Google looks like this, very simple, neat and minimalist. Google can now spare itself from using too many words like how it used to in Figure 1 because everyone now knows what Google is and “About Google” and other features alike are no longer needed. This neat and simple surface makes it conducive and easy for the users to use without any unwanted distractions. Furthermore, the menu bar is redundant because the main purpose of Google is its search function. Therefore, everything else other than the Google logo and its search bar is now removed to optimize and focus on its fundamental role.

In conclusion, all websites take time to transform and improve and they change from a cluttered web page to a more simple and neat one as time passes. Google takes more than a decade to evolve into what it is today and it is still improving. A cluttered website can be very distracting and confusing. So, to create a more user-friendly online environment for the users, the web creator needs to see from the user’s point of view and understand what users are looking for on a website and always keep things simple and easy. From my observation, a minimalistic website with white background works the best as the important keywords on the website will be prominent and be found easily and minimal use of words will ease the navigation process on the website. Last but not least, the focus of a website should be on its logo or brand just like what Google does with the doodle so that users are able to connect the brand or company with its function and specialty.